February 16, 2005

• In an interesting coincidence, one of these guys replied to an ad I placed on a different dating sight last year.
• I couldn't resist checking each one to see if I recognised any - one of the respondents was at UC Santa Cruz when I was. Ah, the internet, where nothing is private.
• This seems kinda dickish to me. I mean, puttin' out bait for a bunch of normal seeming guys (with a couple weirdos in there) and then posting it to the web? I could understand if he edited out the normal people, but it just seems kind of obnoxious to do it like this...
• I'm just relieved that I'm not on there. A bullet dodged.
• yeah, most of the guys seemed to be very sincere in wanting a date. seems a shame to make fun of the loneliness of others (especially when all they wanted was to share a bit of sushi). it's not like these guys were responding to a freaky ad, either.
• Yes, further proof that people use the internet to find dates. Best of the web?
• Not intending to offend, but what in the world is the point of this post?
• I found it a bit intriguing and somewhat scandalous that someone would publicly display the pictures and e-mails of what appears to be a group of fairly normal guys who responded in good faith to her ad. I guess I thought of it as a cautionary tale. Sorry if it didn't capture your interest.
• Yeah, I agree, this was really dickish. But there's lots of room to do something really funny with Craigslist (without posting victim photos), drawing on the humor of Letters From A Nut. Such as start out with a normal girl but gradually uncover some icky or awful revelations. Like a girl in Austin who loves the occasional trip to Mexico. Then it's revealed she goes weekly, would you come? Then she'd like you to carry some of her bags north over the border. Don't look inside! You know, that kinda thing. I'd do it but I can't make the time.
• Well, bernockle, it points to an excellent example of the fact that there are fuckheads on the Internet. Namely, the dipshit that set up the site.
• an experiment should start with a hypothesis or some anomaly to explain. i'd understand this thing better if there was at least some thought behind it, like "if i post an ad saying x and y and z, the people who respond will have characteristics a and b and c". follow this up with an analysis of the responses while keeping identities out of it and there you go - something moderately interesting to write about. as it stands, this is a poor mix of masturbating and micturating.
• What a dick. He didn't even highlight the freaky ones so we can laugh at them without sifting through all the boring crap. 665 has better stuff if you want to read freaky dating ads and responses.
• That would be cool, rolypolyman: we could start with the innocuous letter and umpteen responses. Then get a little weirder and post the slightly fewer responses, and keep on getting weirder so you get a pretty upside-down triangle of respondent-photos. I'd like to see the letters from the one or two left at the bottom of the list, right after she sends a letter saying "...and my dog and I are very close, like, very, very close..."
• Besides the obvious dickishness and the fact that none of them I read said anything particularly funny or pathetic, this is a copyright violation. Anything anyone writes is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission, including emails. If I was one of these guys, I would threaten a lawsuit.
• He afforded "Jessica" a certain amount of courtesy by obscuring most of her face. Perhaps, if he really felt compelled to make the page, he should have extended that courtesy to the respondents. Also, I found myself getting stuck on this sentence in the ad he created: "I moved here three years ago from Wyoming and would dream of leaving."
• Based on the pictures I chose to look at and the responses from those men, I'd date almost every man that I clicked on. Kind of a mean thing to do. The men who responded to the ad (the ones I clicked on, anyway) weren't doing anything wrong or mockery-worthy.
• If we can agree that this was not a pleasant thing for the person to do because it brings what should be private information to public light, then aren't we just as guilty as the alleged wrongdoer by linking to it here, thus furthering its exposure?
• Why not use this power for good, and contact the people involved in case they're unaware? They're getting nothing but sympathy here, anyway.
• But using power for good is just so....so....unAmerican.
• Yep. What a dick.
• tracicle, you went to SC? I go to SC.
• tracicle, you went to SC? I go to SC.
• oops, sorry
• Yep, anthropology, 2001 - fall 2002. Cabrillo before that. You?
• Literature, graduating in June. SC has been very beautiful the last few months. What do you think of your time here?
• Loved it. UCSC's one of the prettiest campuses I've ever seen. Santa Cruz doesn't suck either - I was just back there a couple of weeks ago and found that a week just wasn't enough.
• I was more depressed that at age 20, many of these men in there late 20's and early 30's seemed like rather attractive people. sigh.