976 Removed Profiles and A Shape Shifting Goat

Lately, when I've been procrastinating or generally wasting time, I've been cruising the profiles of men on Match.com for a potential boyfriend. So far, I have Removed 976 men. Given that I've only been entertaining myself with this process for about a week, you would think I was being arbitrary and hypercritical. Sadly, that is not the case. My decisions for Profile Removal are based on limited criteria. Even worse, I haven't been searching across all cyberspace for a qualified candidate. My searches have been restricted to men aged 45 - 53 within 10 miles of my zip code.

There must be a shit load of men within 10 miles of my zip code because every time I do a search, Match presents me with 50 pages of 10 candidates - less if I do a custom search where I define the drinking habits, political leanings and relationship status. For example, I always look for someone who drinks socially or regularly, who is not Conservative or Ultra Conservative politically and who is Divorced, Widowed or Never Married. I am not getting mixed up with Currently Separated.

Even with custom searches, a bunch of these guys had to go. Some of them were innocent bystanders - guys in their mid-forties looking for women their own age and younger. Live Long and Prosper, I say, as they are removed with a simple right click. By far the largest percentage of the 976 (and counting) deleted profiles are those individuals who are older than me who state they are looking for women younger than me. Sometimes I still fall within their preferred age range because they will date women who are 50 years old, but since they themselves are 55 and older, I think that's bullshit.

A surprisingly high number of people begin their introductory paragraph with a statement like, "Ummm, how do you describe yourself?" or "This is really hard for me," or a variation on, "Here Goes!" Granted, almost everyone has trouble writing a computer dating profile, but there is no reason to broadcast it. There is no excuse for bad grammar and poor spelling either, which is why anyone who says, "life is to short," is immediately right clicked as well.

In nearly every case, as soon as you remove some one's profile, they are gone forever. There are times, however, when someone returns to haunt you. Take, for example, ShatAKing the self-proclaimed Wall Street Rock Star (Stonerdate 11.1.08)

Now, I have to say that after our paths crossed on Plenty of Fish, neither he nor I paid any attention to each other. I did make fun of him here on the blog, though, and as it happened, people are frequently doing Yahoo and Google Searches for his dating handles and landing on Menopausal Stoners. They land here more frequently than folks searching for Crusty Panties.

The ShatAKing crowd spends so much time here that I figured I might as well install AdSense and make a couple of bucks off their interest. Recently, one of them left a comment saying my posts were bi-polar and I should put my passive aggressive posturing to good use. Naturally, it was an anonymous comment. The same individual said something about how much writing was devoted to a man no one even cared to meet. This person mentioned s/he knows ShatAKing. Apparently, s/he doesn't know that, over here anyway, we tend to look at the poor man as a joke.

I knew it was bad behavior to post his photo, but really - I'm not the one who posted this profile all over the internet:

Bon Vivant classy and funky but chic handsome Wall Street executive age 45 worldly classy sensual erotic seeks woman who has it all and wants it all. Iam wicked smart big heart which I wear on my sleeve and a deep soul. Clearly believe that two hearts beat better than one. You should be smart, intelligent,erotic in your mind body and soul. You should be willing to work hard and play hard and let your spirit and heart be your guide in your life. I adore children dogs travel the NY night life exploration of erotica and sensuality. . . This is not about sex its about a connection of the senses a journey and an exploration where two people crave to be in love to explore together to grow old together to know the kind of love where your guts twist your heart beats and you make amazing love every day at 5am.

He has this gem posted on a number of more obscure dating sites at this very minute. I wouldn't have this information if someone up around Nyack hadn't left a Yahoo trail on my Statcounter.

In the interest of clarity, I would like to state for the record that the Saga of the Wall Street Rock Star is merely a story that took a very interesting turn when his wife left a comment a while back. It was still entertaining when he himself evidently tried to leave a few choice remarks about her. Now it's reaching The Absurd.

Which brings me to two stories I saw over on Bruce M. Hood's blog: General Butt Naked Confesses to Cannibalism, and Shape Shifting Goat Arrested for Car Theft. These two stories perfectly illustrate how goofy and/or alarming shit goes down all around the world in Real Life. ShatAKing provides more goofy and/or alarming shit. Or you could say ShatAKing has become blog fodder just like the lycanthropic goat.

Here is the photo Bruce uses to illustrate his story.