The Match.com Stalker - Notable Online Dating Story #2

Some people just take it too far.

She lives four hours away. That was the first and ultimate deal breaker. She also has a kid. The second. The fact she didn’t go to college, third. And the typos riddling both her Match.com profile and her messages, fourth. Normally I would ignore such a woman’s expressions of interest: her wink, her adding me to her “favorites,” the compliments she left as comments on my silly photographs - but in her fourth attempt, she appealed to a strength: writing. Here's the exact message: 

"Good morning. I know you haven't answered my email,but I was thinking even if your not interested you could help me rewrite my profile. Your's is so clever and funny I like the use of skerd and coo, if this is how you write your books then I'm sold, also love that you write random adds on Craig's list few people truly know how to entertain themselves looks like your a master."  

As I read it, my OCD locks onto the grammatical errors and utter lack of proper punctuation, but I push past and hone in on this gem, "-help me rewrite my profile. Your's is so clever and funny..." My ego grows a little. Then a little bit more.  I read it again and my head expands to bobble head proportions, leaning me forward and diving me into a yes. Yeah! I am a good writer. And her profile really blows so giving her a few pointers isn’t going to be too difficult.

Now, I don't want to seem like a snobby elitist, combing over every single mistake she made, because she actually seemed pretty nice. But this blahg post materialized from her crossing a line. 

I open my reply with an explanation of why I’m not interested in dating her: she’s too far away and I don’t have the time to invest in someone so far away, especially when I’m burned out on online dating as it is and I'm not sure if I have time for someone closer. I omit the fact she has a kid, because I imagine it to be very difficult finding a match when you have a kid and I didn't want to completely crush her spirits. A lot of single guys don't mind kids. Others even want a family so bad they're embarrassed to admit they subscribe to Parenting magazine. I love kids, but I don't want any now and I probably never will. The message was around a page and a half and I covered a range of tips as tactfully as possible:

1. She needs to speak highly of her daughter, adding something like, “My beautiful 2-year-old girl is the center of my world,” instead of, “I have a daughter.”

2. I told her guys like me are looking for someone with a higher level of education or someone who is at least working toward a college degree. I asked her if that’s something she wants to do and if so, to put that in her profile.

3. Of the 9 photographs she has posted, only four are of her and each of those four are just headshots. “We men are visual creatures, and if your body is half as hot as your face, you have quite a package. So sell it.”

She responds almost immediately with a paragraph of deep thanks, flirting with me throughout the entire message with phrases like “your a catch” and “whichever woman lands you should consider herself lucky,” and says I should email her if I ever get bored (sidenote: who the fuck gets bored now-a-days?). She signs off with this bomb:

“And keep this in mind, my body is twice is hot as my face.”

Really?!  I haven’t gotten laid in forever, and she drops that? 

“I think you should go for it,” says my good friend, HotMom72. 

I ignore the advice because again, SHE’S 4 HOURS AWAY AND HAS A KID AND CAN’T SPELL BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T GO TO COLLEGE! ARE YOU FUCKING UGLY AND DEAF?! Oh. Under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. Sorry, I get carried away. 

The “settle” advice is forgotten along with pretty much everything else in the world with the help of my on-again, off-again friend, weed. I intend on sending her a thank you email, sealed with a wish of luck for her in finding her match, but I forget about that as well. It’s a couple of days later and she’s messaged me three more times. It’s official, if I message this woman again, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll show up at my house and make a sleeping bag out of my skin.

So I ignore her. But she keeps messaging me. With every update I add to my profile, she’s right there with a comment about it. Every time I open my email and see a notification from her, I feel bad. At first it was flattering, but now it’s straight up creepy. I flash back to a college friend telling me that he had a stalker. I wouldn’t mind a stalker, I thought at the time. That’d be neat. I want to be wanted, to be obsessed over, to get laid, maybe even murdered. Whatever.

But this, her obsession with me, her repeated and unreciprocated communication, and her stakeout of every detail added or subtracted from my profile, was, not surprisingly, washing all of that away.

Case in point: Match.com has a newsfeed, enabling you to see in timeline fashion who has viewed your profile, winked at you, added you to her favorites, and/or messaged you. Check it: below is a screen shot of my news feed and circled is every time my stalker did one of those things. 

Craaaaay. 

It was her last message that put me over the edge. My profile begins with quotes from friends and what they’ve said to or about me. I had recently added one from the chain-smoking receptionist at my work. “How are you single?! Brad, if I was 30 years younger I’d be knocking down your door.” Pretty great quote, huh? So my stalker sees that and writes me with, “You tell Barb you only have room for one stalker.”

Yup. I’m dead. Who wants a “Bradlee Sleeping Bag”? 

Put your hands down, you sick fucks. 

I “report a concern,” tell the Match machines she’s stalking me and creeping me out and I block her profile. The thing about a blocked profile on Match is, they can visit your profile without you seeing that they have, but they cannot message you. I'm now in a glass house with mirrored windows facing the wrong way. This isn't cutting it. I don’t want her to be able to see my profile, to see any of my personal information, most of which, if she’s any good at stalking, could lead her to my work. I send Match a message asking them to prevent her from seeing my profile, but like many of the messages I sent in my quest to find love online, it goes unanswered.

I scrub the internet of any mention of me. I hide my LinkdIn account because hey, I have a good job and that would definitely provide her with enough information to find me. But maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Afterall, she spelled thorough “throe.” Still, I’d rather my last days be spent in the arms of the love of my life instead of down a well, applying lotion to my soon-to-be sleeping bag skin.

Or maybe it would be a handbag. Maybe that’s more practical for today’s crazy woman.

The saddest part of this all is that women endure online dating stalking far more than men do. Am I right, guys? Why do women always get all the fun obsessors?! But seriously, for every woman out there that has been creeped out by a message or stalked to this extent, I'm sorry. I know there are a lot of douche bags out there because I hear the stories from the women I've gone out with. But, and I hope this doesn't sound lectury because I only wish the best for everyone searching for true love, stay strong. For every 30 douche bags, there's a really great guy looking for someone like you. And douche bags, stop being such fucking yous! 

I went on a date the other night, a good date, no, a great one. I told her this story. She was surprised I stayed on Match, that I didn’t ask for a refund and close up shop. This hadn’t even crossed my mind, because with online dating, the reward outweighs the risks. And there are risks: a risk you’ll be hurt; that your ego will get bruised; that you’ll go on an awkward date; that your date will choose a 4-and-a-half Star, insanely expensive restaurant for your first date with the expectation you'll pay; and yes, that you’ll get murdered. But you take precautions. You correspond with him or her prior to meeting up; you message, text, and even call. You meet in a public place and tell your friends where you’re meeting. You take these steps and you put yourself out there, you stay in the game (or take a break and come back) even after a creepy message or 10, you shrug off the shit and continue taking your chances, because if you don’t, you could be shutting the door to the possibility of sitting across from a beautiful person, learning, laughing, flirting, and realizing the countless messages you’ve sent and the countless dates you’ve endured were completely worth it because you’ve finally met a great human being who you like and who likes you for you and who just might end the search. 

And if you're anything like me, that's precisely the moment you start blowing it. 


To be continued...