Casting a web

Well, it’s come to this. I made myself an online personals ad. Don’t think that this is an act of desperation. It is not. I was inspired by Amy Fisher, I recently read that she just married the father of her child, a man she met through match.com. Can you believe it? Through the magic of the internet ordinary people have the opportunity to unknowingly meet and eventually marry the likes of Amy Fisher.

It was Amy Fisher and the inevitable cagy feeling that follows a one night stand. I don’t mean that initial urge to make a break for the door. I don’t mean the day after either. The day after is usually a good one, sometimes even two days after I’m left with a triumphant glow, a combination of feeling like a suave conqueror and having done something that I will be keeping secret from my co-workers. The nervousness sinks in later.

Innocence is a funny thing. Until you are acquainted with an experience you don’t even realize what it means to go through such a thing, you assumed you had some idea, but you didn’t. When it happens you say to yourself here is something that I previously could not fathom. Oftentimes this feeling is a bad one, things one would be glad to have remained in the dark about.

Some months ago the term feminine itching gained new meaning for me, it was no longer lingo confined to ads featuring stiff ladies with TV anchor hair and bullet proof smiles. The standard horror of infection was made worse by the fact that this seemed to confirm by usual post-post one night stand fears of venereal disease. I’m dying I thought, or something worse…life long humiliation, forced celibacy, this is my bad karma for laughing every time the ad for herpes medication comes on TV.

Mom, if you happen to be reading this, rest assured it turned out to merely be the result of nylon underpants and a five hour bus ride. But this new experience left me knowing one more reason why it can suck to be a girl. This and other factors have led me to the conclusion that it is nearly impossible for straight girls to take on the role of conquistador. Besides, the novelty of making introductions from bed the following morning is starting to wear off. I’ve decided to go traditional.

From now on I want more than a few drinks and a game of pool, I want dinners, hand holding, and most of all a phone call. Such requests are difficult to make when you’re drunk and horny and you’re not looking forward to the hour train ride back to your apartment. I like the idea of screening boys before even saying hello. It’s delightfully passive aggressive.

Thus far I’ve been winked at by two total weirdoes. One was a guy who posed for his photo holding a stuffed animal and in his answers to almost all the questions refer to the future time with he and the reader might be having sex or at least kissing and that “Kiera Knightly is sexy, but the reader is (hopefully) sexier”. The great thing is there’s no pressure to pay him any mind. No need to awkwardly decline his advances. Best of all it makes me feel secure knowing that day and night I have the internet working for me. The computer me can be out there charming the world while I sit on my ass eating potato chips and laughing at herpes commercials.