So I’m surfing Craigslist’s personal ads in their “platonic” category, basically just looking to see if anyone was interested in having a penpal or online chat buddy to help pass the time at work. These were the following ads I saw so far:

I AM LOOKING FOR A FRIEND THAT HAS A FOOT FETISH. IT COULD LEAD TO A RELATIONSHIP. I WANT SOMEONE RIGHT NOW TO HANG OUT WITH , CHILL, MOVIES, DINNER, AND JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME.

I know this is a very akward posting but My wife and I are eagerly ready to expnad our family. We are looking for a latino, caucasion or east indian male who are btwn the ages of 28-35 to provide us some…

the background: i need a good looking guy to “take me out” – maybe a movie, a restaurant, and most importantly to meet one or two friends… all in the name of inspiring jealousy! We’re smoking out the true feelings of a Friend With Benefits, and for that I need a “boyfriend.” I’m not unattractive, but lately haven’t had a steady guy in my life… so this is it: you pretend to take me out, I’ll foot the bill.

Am one of the many unemployed now for a while in the city. Miss the holiday parties that used to come with work. Not one invite to any this year. Does anyone need a date to one or know where to find one? I’m definitely open to crashing!

hi my name is april and i am currently incarcerated but will be getting out in a few months. i am 25 yrs old,5′4, 125 lbs, black/spanish with long curly light brown hair. i want someone who would like to get to know me regardless of my past mistakes. i can only recieve postal mail.

Yoga Dominatrix – The Yoga Domme likes Her slaves to be in good shape physically, mentally and spiritually. Think you are too stiff, too fat, too disgusting, too dirty or too out-of-shape for Yoga? Dont worry, YD has compassion for losers like you, compassion, patience, and a big stick.

And that was just on the FIRST page.

So glad it’s closing time here at work and I can finally go home now.

Tags: ads, boredom, craigslist, crazy, funny, personal ads, personals
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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You know the handwriting’s on the wall when a personal ad I respond to on Craigslist turns out to be spam.  Whoops. 

Now before you start ragging on me for surfing Craiglist, I was bored, ok?  BORED.  I was checking out apartment prices and then out of curiousity (and absolutely nothing else) I checked out the personals for my area.  That’s when I came across this one:

Okay so here is the deal: I am an attractive 28 year old woman who tends to attract emotionally unavailable men….of course! So basically I am trying this out too see if this “dream guy” actually exists. I would be interested in a man who is attractive (I am a face person) with a great smile/great teeth. I tend to be attracted to men who are not thin or overly muscular. I like a man to have a little meat on his body. I love to laugh and am looking for someone who can make me laugh. I am a born again Christian and would like him to be the same. I love music and love to sing. I also love animals and could not imagine someone not loving them too! I am fairly low maintainance (who also may not be able to spell the word…HAHA). I am somewhat of a homebody and dont need to go out all the time. I am interested in a man who is caring, thoughtful, a “team player”, handy, outgoing, moderately successful, and “real”. I am a very genuine person who’s biggest weakness is my “big heart”. I am thoughtful, caring, and have been told I can “light up a room”. Being my own worse critic I would like to be a little thinner. However, I do have great curves and the softest skin! I came to this website because I really believe that I am a “great catch”. PS) hair is red by choice not by nature!

Seems like a nice enough girl right?  So I emailed her and asked her how strong she considered her Christian beliefs to be.  I got a response shortly afterwards:

Hi, I got your email and wanted to get back with you to see if you might still be interested.  I know you don’t know much about me but you can at least go see what I look like at http://www.eimages.info/barbera21. I posted them on this free site to make this whole “getting to know you” thing a little easier.  Just tell me what you think & if you want, a little about yourself and we will go from there.  Thank you.

When you click on the link however, it actually turns out to be a phony one and is in fact a redirected AFFILIATE link that takes you to the signup page of a dating site.

This whole time I had been communicating with an automated script that had been set up by an affiliate marketer spammer. 

I should have had the foresight to Google some of the phrases in the Craigslist ad to see if it showed up elsewhere, and sure enough the exact same wording shows up on a profile page at PlentyofFish, only this time she hails from Michigan.

Sigh.  And people wonder why I’ve become so bitter and cynical in my old age.

I consider myself to be a somewhat intelligent person, and if I got fooled by this, I’m sure many others have as well, especially as these bottom feeding scum of the earth affiliate marketers get more and more sophisticated in using deceptive methods to make money.  Just make sure, if you experienced something similar and you were tricked into clicking on an affiliate link that leads to a signup page, flush the cookies in your browser, so even if you happen to sign up for that very site in question a few months or so down the road, the spammer won’t get credit for it (affiliate links typically insert cookies into your browser that can last several months to over a year.  Read my article on affiliate spam for more info.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be drowning my sorrows in Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard.  Oh wait, there’s no Dairy Queen around here.  Sigh, not even this huh, Lord? 

Tags: affiliate, affiliate links, affiliate marketer, affiliate spammer, christian, craigslist, dating, personal, personals, spam, spammer
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
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Yep, I got another rejection letter lined up, this time in response to a Craigslist ad that I could swear I never posted, and yet somehow it got posted anyway.   Don’t worry though, this is my last one because I am so, so, SO done with this whole dating-relationship crap.  I am finally going full on Lone Ranger here, and bite me all of you who think I can’t be happy being single.

So anyways, why am I rejecting this one?  Because dude, she totally looked like a guy.  Seriously.   She’s British though, so that might explain a few things, but still, dude, she really totally looked like a guy.  Here’s my farewell email to her:

Dear Look-Like-A-Man,

I wanted to like you.   I really did.  But see, here’s the thing: you look like a man.   A man wearing a pretty blonde wig, but a man nonetheless.

I can deal with plain looking women.  I can deal with women who are overweight.   I can deal with women who have disabilities and missing body parts (unless it’s the head maybe.)  I can even deal with women who watch reality shows.  I cannot however, in this life or the next, deal with a woman who looks like a man.

Even slightly mannish features creep me out in ways not even Richard Simmons could do.  There’s just no way I could see myself embracing you intimately or puckering up to give you a kissy without my inwards screaming out, “MAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!”

So you see, it’s not you, it’s me.  I do hope though that you will someday meet that special guy who thinks a mustache on a woman is sexy, and that the two of you will be very happy together.  I however, must sadly follow another path.

So, best of luck to you, and here’s a little parting advice: do try to shave every now and then, ok?

Much love,

Lincoln

No of course I didn’t send it, but I was in a conundrum.  I didn’t want to blow her off, but I didn’t want to tell her straight up that I was only interested in women who looked like women either, so what’s a stud like me to do?

Then a thought came to me: make her think she’s rejecting ME instead.   Brilliant!

So I did some surfing to find the dweebiest, weeniest photo that still looked authentic enough for me to use as a picture of “myself,” then wrote her a friendly email in which I casually mentioned being heavily in debt and living with my parents, but she needn’t worry, I worked a prestigious job as a low-level clerk, so it should only be just a few more years before I can finally move out on my own.   Say, when I’m 36 or so…

Here’s the photo I used.  Poor guy, whoever he is I hope he never sees this post:

It’s been a few days now and I have yet to receive a response from her.  Dude, I awesomely rock.

Tags: craigslist, dating, email, lone ranger, love, man, photo, rejection, rejection letter, single, women
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Yep, we’re smarter, deal with it.

Update: Uhhhh, then again, maybe not:

Recently, a blogger named Simon Owens ran a social experiment on Craigslist. He wandered into the “Casual Encounters” section of the personal ads where countless men and women were soliciting for no-strings-attached {chicken dances} and wondered, Is it really that easy? As a test, he composed several ads with different permutations of assumed identity and orientation…. He then posted it to New York, Chicago, and Houston, and tallied the results.

Overwhelmingly and instantly, the ads from the fake women looking for male partners were inundated with responses, sometimes several per minute. All the other ads received lukewarm responses, at best. These results weren’t surprising, but some of the observations were… Many of these men used their real names and included personally identifiable information, including work email addresses and home phone numbers. Several admitted they were married and cheating on their spouses. Many included photos, {often in their birthday suits.}

As the Orbit White gal would say: Brilliant!

I didn’t link to the original post because the links that followed were quite graphic and disgusting. And here I thought my posting a profile on eHarmony was pathetic. Nyet, nyet.

Tags: birthday suits, blogger, brains, craigslist, dances, intelligence, men, men and women, orbit, orientation, permutations, Photos, real names, smarter, smile, stupidity, women, women suck, york chicago
Categories: News Fit To Blog
 
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