Well, this goes back to my main point, I think -- which is preferences are inherently individual and should not be subjected to some sort of regimented standardization simply to avoid offending somebody.

There was a profile I read once, on another site, where the woman was only interested in guys 27-29. And I thought, "Well, that's awfully narrow, there might be a guy 26 or 30 who'd be just right for her," but I let it go. She wants what she wants, it's not my job to convince her otherwise. I'd probably just botch it all up anyway.

Being stalked is OK, at least on here!

(My real-life stalkers have been OK, too, to be honest, but I haven't had one of those in several years.)

Nobody ever throws corn or birds at me, though.

Well, that's actually kind of considerate. I don't ever get those. I get "You're a %*&@@#$% because you don't want to get involved with someone like me, you worthless piece of &^%$##*&&!@?"

And then they tell me the seventeen reasons why I should reconsider them. But with lots of *%^$###!?*&!?&& thrown in.

That's a good point. I mean, I'm not trying to offend anybody (in all fairness, it's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about, so it's not like I'm actively NOT trying to offend anybody, either -- I see it as more of a choice on the part of the reader, to take offense or not, than anything intentional on the part of the writer) -- but maybe she was attracted to me on some level. Part of me shudders at the thought!

Hey, don't make me move this....!

My ex-wife was like that. Absolutely adorable.

I should have gotten a puppy, it would have turned out so much better.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but if she was REALLY thinking about changing my mind as to her suitability as a prospective partner, I don't think infantile insults and venom-spewing is going to push me too far in that direction....

Not saying the "catch more flies with honey" strategy is necessarily going to be any more effective, but at least there might be an incentive for me to listen....!

Well, as it turns out, there's such a thing as being TOO opposite....

But she was the polar opposite of everything I DO like.

What did she think was gonna happen?

Yeah, that's exactly the sense of what I got from her messages.

You know, like, "Hey, it's not MY fault you're so miserable you have to go throw a fit at some stranger on line!"

Not that she would have appreciated the sentiment....

Hey, I'm quite SURE it wasn't you! This was someone I have never heard of before, and hope to never hear of again!

And it's not like I expect everybody to like me -- life doesn't work that way. Fine. But if they're gonna harangue me, they could at least spell the words right.

Sometimes it's for the best!

Absolutely. It just seems like there are a few out there who are actively looking for something to blow up about....

Pfffft....you would not be blocked....

As a matter of fact, I very very rarely ever block anybody -- a few really persistent scammers (until their accounts get nuked), but for the most part, I want to be as accessible as possible to legitimate people, such as yourself, who I know from the forums....

No, I actually ended up blocking her after the third one.

It was never going to work anyway....

Well, good, because that's the sort of behavior I actively encourage!

It's just weird to me how some people make stuff up and act like it's real....she basically reamed me for a couple of paragraphs and then finished it off by talking about her warm and loving family....! You don't often see warm and loving cobras, all full of venom and hostility, on the internet....!

I got some very nasty e-mails from someone today -- she didn't like the fact that I had some things in my profile about who I would and would not be interested in dating....presumably because she was all of those things in the "would not" category. At least, that's how I interpreted what she wrote.

And this person came at me as if I had deliberately written what I wrote in my profile as some sort of attempt to minimize or belittle or exclude her, specifically -- which, of course, was never the case, seeing as how I never heard of her until today and the profile was written quite some time ago.

But it got me to wondering about why it is that people take this stuff so personally....

Let me flip it around for a second. I see profiles all the time where someone says "I'm not interested in anybody over 35." OK, I'm over 35, I understand what you're saying, I'm not gonna pursue you. Neither am I going to act like I've been personally attacked, either, though.

Because if you're not interested in anybody over 35, that's OK. That's your preference, that's your prerogative. Nobody can stand there and say, "Hey, wait, I'm 42, and here are seventeen reasons why you should date me anyway" if you don't want to listen to it.

If someone says "I don't want to date someone who ________," that's NOT the same as saying "All people who __________ are hellish demons from the depths of some stygian inferno and should be fed to piranhas on steroids." Hey, most of my friends on this site are single/divorced mothers. Why? Because they're all smart enough to know that my standards for dating have nothing to do with my standards for what makes a good person.

In all seriousness, I've seen this phenomenon you speak of.

I'm almost never attracted to anybody anymore. Really only this one person in the past 3 years or so. And she is totally oblivious to me. If I threw dynamite at her, the dynamite would somehow miraculously disappear into thin air before it ever got near her.

She is cosmologically NOT allowed to notice me.

On the other hand, the ones who do notice me are always the ones I could not possibly get involved with, for any one or more reasons.

I suspect this is some natural (?) "Law of the Universe," on the order of Murphy's Law but a little more fine-tuned so that I'm the only one who has to suffer with it.

Well,
it is what it is....

Well, that's just me. I'm sure not everybody has experienced that same thing!

But, as an example -- there was someone I was kind of interested in for awhile. So I tried to let it be known in any number of ways that would be obvious to anyone possessing fully functional sensory apparatus -- and nothing! I would have been better off seeking attention from a statue of Napoleon, if there was one around here.

I don't know, I've found it to be surprisingly and consistently accurate....!!