I did not make this up

I have now been initiated into the hate-mail experience of on-line dating. Emails below between a guy from Match.com named James, and me. All took place within about 36 hours. We never talked on the phone or met face to face…

James 1

Figured I'd better say hello before my match.com subscription ends. Damn , you seem interesting! Any chance we could hook up for coffee or something? Let me know soon before I turn into a dung beetle.

Seriously,

James

Stephen 1

Good morning.

As long as you are not likely to do the Metamorphosis thing during coffee, I'd say that it'd be possible.

How about sending me your non-Match email address and then the subscription deadline won't matter?

Stephen

James 2

My e-mail address is: xxxxxx@sbcglobal.net. Oh yeah! Soon please.

Stephen 2

Hi, James.

"Soon. Please" You're an enthusiastic guy, eh? Or maybe just clear.

I keep my enthusiasms in a spare room, but I like to be clear, too.

I recall now that I have seen your profile before. The brain slows up a bit with time. I did give it more than a one-second glance because I thought it showed brains and humor (Buddy, can you paradigm?) and I often wind up having connections with musical types, as well. And another exec director. From the rest of your very articulate text, I got the sense that you're passionately attached to your work and to a sense of internal integrity. Hmmm, I thought.

But I didn't contact you, for a couple of reasons, now coming back to me . I was well above your stated age range and you're just a bit below my youngest line. I didn't have a strong reaction to your pictures. Your politics are not just "liberal" -- the usual-- but "very liberal", which I took to mean sort of SF progressive.

Given your sense of passion and clarity, I figured that we would find ourselves un-matched in a few significant ways. My politics are quite rare for an SF homo. I'm pretty right wing, actually. I would have no trouble with a guy who worked for the phone company, or a bank, or the US Marines. George Bush, for whom I voted, annoys me because he has turned out to be such a pussy. I miss the cowboy. If they like your smile or if you kiss 'em right, some guys can ignore all that, but my sense is that my smile would not be sufficient to bridge that gap between you and me. You'd not be so easily distracted.

So...if we got together for coffee, that would be the background from my side. And you might indeed find me "damned interesting", but in a Frankenstein-monster kinda way. I am a nice guy (unless you're an illegal alien), charming, funny and very bright. I don't rant unless severely, severely provoked, but I have found that even mildly-phrased expressions of my worldview sometime render the openminded, freethinking and tolerant gay burghers of SF apoplectic. When I told a 68-year-old Buddhist lawyer that I favored an orginalist reading of the Constitution, he made "I'd like to strangle you" gestures with his hands. And this was the first date!

So if this message seems unfriendly, it's not. I admit to being (ironically, for a 2nd Amendment supporter) gun-shy on the topic. I just don't want to waste your time or make you feel ambushed. If you want to reconsider the coffee offer, I would understand completely..but if you're feeling like a field trip into a foreign land would be of interest...

Stephen

James 3

Hello Stephen,

First of all, you should know that the age I have listed in my profile is my Oprah-Winfrey-age. I'm really 57. Including time in utero, 58. Secondly, it's clear to me that you live on the planet Zylon. I can't figure out if you are happy or miserable there. Although I'm leaning toward the latter.

You say that you are intrigued by the male soul (what ever that is). But I think you really only want to piss guys off. Cases in point: You are a cheap cigar aficionado, not Havanas just stinky Cigarillos, creating a cloud of stink, smoke, distance, isolation, mask, wall. You are a right wing homo in the midst of bourgeois left-wing poseurs. Hey, you must be one sick dude if you are nostalgic for the days when George Bush bore a more cowboy-like image. Yes, that's what we need- cowboys in the White House. Your voting for him was disgusting yet more likely to be some sort of acting out designed to be fatal for a relationship with me and most other local men I suspect. Is the soul of a lineman, banker, Marine easier to access? Or is yours more comfortably hidden with these men? As a proud Frankenstein, there is need to answer these questions for me.

So, a 68 year old, Buddhist lawyer wanted to strangle you. Why am I not surprised?

I hope you don't think that I'm being unkind or full of shit, but I sense that you have a mighty fortress around you to protect you from being intimate. In fact, the only tenderness I was able to detect in your e-mail was that ambiguous statement about the 2nd Amendment. Interesting it was, that you had to couch a sense of your own vulnerability in terms of the right to bear arms.

If you don't reply to this email at all, I'll understand. I would appreciate a fuck-you-very- much though.

Sincerely,

James

Stephen 3

Wow.

I guess my first instinct was wiser.

A winning smile and kissing skills
would not have been enough
to bridge the gap between planets.