Today's Baffling Specimen

I'm sorry, but one part of the amusement of this online dealie is seeing the vast swath of humanity that's coming across my virtual inbox. The guy who speaks fondly, and at length, about his pocket knife. The undecided voters. The people whose intellectual lives are impacted deeply by Rush Limbaugh.

Today's submission is from someone in AR, who's a great reader (points for him!), but who talks about loving his country but hating the government, along with other right-wing thoughts that frame a worldview. His picture features him with his "hound dog." (In the back of my head, of course, I'm picturing Harlan Pepper.) I'm sure he's a really nice person, but I'm just completely mystified at what he thought the commonalities here might be, beyond some random and mysterious computer machinations.

On that last point, the real dealbreaker came at the end of his profile, where he posted a preemptive scolding to women thinking of closing him out based on Arkansas being "too far." We ladies signed up willingly for the broad parameters, because we understood that love has no geographical limitations! The computer matched us, so there is something there that should be explored! If we close him out on that basis, he'll know what kind of people we really are.

I should have done that, though, just to send a message about what kind of shallow person I am, but I just closed him out as not interested based on statements in profile. True enough.

I continue to wish there was a way to post anonymous feedback to some of these lonelyhearts so that they might refine their presentation. On a human level, I feel bad for them, because barring character defect or evil nature, I think people should be able to find other people that work for them. People who need people! But the eau de Anger and Desperation is just not conducive to persuading people to like you, and I don't doubt that it gets into a really angry cycle aimed at the people rejecting you.

But, of course, I want to stay a gazillion miles away from them myself even after they up the game. So I guess I should be pleased for self weeding.