10/03/2005 Archived Entry: "Yahoo Personals"

I think I'm a bad person.

Several days ago, inspired in part by a general disgust at the Internet in general and a special hatred of "personals" web sites specifically, I created an account over at Yahoo! Personals. Google Images provided some photographs of a cute, but not unbelievably cute, young female who became my avatar, and I typed out the profile description so that it matched what many guys would want from a net-savvy woman (smart, pseudo-techie, undergrad degree, living alone far from home, not prude but not slutty, and unafraid to speak her opinion), and sat back to see who I could snare, toy with, and laugh at.

Why would I do such a thing? It's difficult to explain, and I'm not all together sure of the underlying reasons. Certainly, spoofing a profile for the express purpose of to deceiving and toying with an unsuspecting Romeo is mean-spirited; that I would choose to spoof a female profile is Freudian at best, and downright weird at worst. As to that, it's a matter of numbers--there are way more guys looking to meet women online than the other way 'round, and so I would have a better chance of ensnaring someone with whom to toy if I went with the odds instead of against. But the "why"--difficult.

I spent a good thirty minutes typing up all of the reasons I could think of, but they all distill down to one thing--I am an arrogant ass, and though I strive for politeness and civility, the annoyance and bitterness I suppress must occasionally come out some way. So, I ensnare and make fun of losers on the web.

The problem, though, is that I couldn't go through with it. Two weeks and 157 e-mails later, I can't bring myself to respond to a single one of them; I see the pictures and read the words that these guys wrote and I am struck by their simple honesty--even the dirty ones.

Perhaps I should be relieved that I don't have it in me to so purposelessly hurt another person.

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