Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — Another Year, Another Dating Profile

By JocelynWentland, Sex Researcher

So with the advent of another year, how many people have un-retired their online mouse and returned to online dating or are making the big dive into online dating for the first time? I’m no mathemagician, but I’m sure many sites like Plenty of Fish or Lavalife see a new year’s spike each year.

I’m a big supporter of online dating sites. I have had 2 great relationships develop out of online dating sites and have a backpack full of funny first date stories that I’ll probably never get tired of telling. In addition, I’ve made a couple of really great opposite-sex friends whom I never would have met if it were not for dating sites. Thank you Plenty of Fish.

So if you have ever used an online dating site, you know that you need to sift through a looooooooot of shit before you find anyone worthwhile (same goes for men and women). I have some notable favourites, but I think this one was my fave…

I had a profile on the Intimates section on Lavalife and in the words of some other wise woman (see #6, The Rerun, for other horrible dating stories) fuck you, I make no apologies for having a profile in the Intimates section.

So stick with me, this shit gets fucked up real quick. And as some background, I had pictures on my profile. Fully identifiable pictures that clearly showed my face.

A guy IM messages me. Obviously, I look at his profile before I reply. He has model-ish pictures up. You can tell they are professional. Red flag, not a good sign! (For other red flags about pictures, see this http://thejigisup.wordpress.com/ site.) I don’t want to see your professional pictures, I want to see what you look like in your every day normal life.
Immediately, I ask for additional pictures. He doesn’t have any other pictures. You know the story, work laptop, doesn’t have other pictures, other pictures include his friends. I ask him if he can crop himself out to which he replies he doesn’t have that software on his computer. Weird. Major red flag.

We chat for a little while, “Todd” is all about meeting up in a few days. I am open to meeting but a) want additional pictures and b) want to talk to him on the phone before making further plans (safety check, hello).

I give him my phone number and he is supposed to call me later that night. In the meantime, we exchange msn addresses (mine is my first/last name). For some reason, msn is cockblocking us from adding each other so we say we will chat later and sign off of Lavalife.

The next day, “Todd” is suddenly my msn friend. But his name on my contact list isn’t Todd, it’s Peter. He wasn’t online, but I send him a message saying “So is Peter your real name?” This basically unleashes the beast.

Todd/Peter thinks that I am onto his little online game (I’m not, FYI). He did some Googling. And I mean some serious Googling. I know there is a decent amount of information on me online, but this guy really dug up stuff that isn’t exactly on the first Google page.

He sends me an email outlining my life history. I should probably dig up his email and see if he wants to be my personal historian. He knew where I had gone to school, where I had grown up, where I had worked, work projects that I had been involved with in the past, that I was going to school in Ottawa, and quotes from press from my Master’s research.

The kicker is that Todd/Peter thinks that I’m online looking to recruit participants for my casual sex research. Ummm, hi, do you know anything about ethics? (I’d be kicked out of school for trying to pull a stunt like that.) Oh hold on, yes, he does know about ethics because he tells me that he used to sit on the ethics board at a university. Awesome. Couldn’t really be any more unethical than the shit he is pulling online at the moment.

But at this point, I’m confused. I’m still giving this guy the benefit of the doubt that he’s the guy who he said he was. So I email back and ask him what is going on….

He replies back and the story unfolds…Todd/Peter is some guy who contacted me through the dating or intimate profiles section awhile back. And I wasn’t interested. So I politely thanked him for his time and said that I didn’t think we were a match. I’m not online to be a bitch. I think it’s nicer to acknowledge someone’s email than simply delete it.

Maybe not. Because one too many of those emails apparently led to Todd/Peter’s psychotic break with reality.

What I learn in these emails is that Todd/Peter came out of a 4 year relationship and needed a confidence boost when he wasn’t receiving enough attention from women online. So Todd/Peter created a fake email and is using fake model pictures and is contacting women to see if he has better luck as a better looking person.

Newsflash, troll. Yes, you probably will. So what the hell did that prove for you?

But he’s not only contacting women. He’s also created a fake female profile (complete with female model pics) and is contacting men for fake hook-ups.

Can you say fucking crazy? I can. Crazy.

As this shitball unravels, Todd/Peter tells me that he’s really sorry we met under these circumstances and wishes that we could start again (yeah, try never) because I sound like a cool woman (I am, Psycho), he respects me as an intellectual (I give you all the respect you deserve as someone who is 6 shades of crazy), and he really wishes we would have met under other circumstances (next time we meet will be me pointing his face out to police for the restraining order), and invites me to check out his real profile in the dating section to fact check that he is who he says he is (my previous dis-interest stands).

So moral of the story: yeah, there are crazies on the internet. Yes, you have to keep your guard up.

But who doesn’t love another great story about frontline contact with crazies?

Related posts:

1. Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — Last Dating Hope Girl
2. Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — Insult Guy
3. Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — When You Are My Girl Guy
4. Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — Angry Guy
5. Saturday’s Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates — The One-Up Man