P o c k e t CT

Here is something I don’t quite understand – how is it that I can get referrers from pages that don’t link to my site? This morning I looked at my logs from yesterday and nestled between typepad.com and something with viagra in it was keynote.com. I am used to seeing referrals from search engines, other bloggers, weird sites who seem to nab my text for unfathomable reasons. I suspect the viagra site is of the latter variety, but wasn’t sure what this keynote thing was. Turns out Keynote is a consulting company who does Total Performance Management for companies with an internet presence. The referrer page was a success story for keynotes revamp of yahoo personals, the person when right to my category, personals. If you haven’t cruised through there its contents include my not so fine experiences with online dating. This all strikes me as rather funny. First, keynotes pdf didn’t have a link to my site so my geeky question is how is it a referrer? Second and likely of more interest why is someone looking at success stories of a consulting company then going to my blog to read about how I renamed them the ‘Yahoo-Don’t-Take-It-Personally’s because it is an inherently awkward way to meet people.

I picture a young man in a suit giving a presentation to a group of people who may be deciding to use his consulting firm, whose specialty is Total Management. The room is a little too dim, the prospective clients are both sleepy and giddy from their lunch cocktails. He brings up the keynote pdf on to the screen, goes over some of there claims with a cocky tone. Uses his wireless mouse to them pull up my blog page and says…”PocketCT sees this a bit differently” He then wins the account and everyone goes to play golf outside Atlanta. Unfortunately for me the story does not continue, even in my imagination, with the salesman doing something nice like picking up my hosting and domain renewal bill that is due soon.

So now that I am on the subject of logs I love what lands people here. I get a lot about Connecticut being ct, I get a lot about things I like to write about like mushrooms, odd holidays and the like. I also get a lot about tattoos and sex, but I think that is becuase people are always searching for sex and tattoos.

Here are some others I just grabbed that I thought were interesting.
until one is committed there is always hesitancy the chance to turn back
bullshit connecticut hunting classes
craig’s lint free personals
dreamed hummingbird trying to feed on my mouth
if you wake up in the morning thinking about her love
what font is it when juice and eight track mixed together
afraid of admitting to myself follow what i think should be done

I hope all the searchers enjoyed their stay.

I find it funny when I recognize people and I realize it is because I read an ad for them on Yahoo Personals. I spotted two people at lunch one day, an Eric that I paid special attention to because he seemed like a nice match for Rebekah and a man that had very distinctive red hair.

A few months ago I was driving to work having stayed at AgentY’s for the weekend. As I drove on Rte 2 I spotted a youngish man in business casual attire hitching. He was so obviously heading to work and will have a bad time of it. According to Rebekah who hitched as transportation method for ages, this stretch of road is notoriously difficult to catch a ride. So I pick him up. The usual conversation ensues.

Where are you going?
Work in Belchertown
Ok that works out I am heading to Amherst
Oh good I can take the bus from there.

He tells me his car is broke. Something about him is familiar and it takes me a minute to realize how I know him. Do you work at …and I name where he works? He is taken aback.

Do I look familiar?
uh no
What if I had fruit on my head, greneda style?
huh
I know you from Yahoo Personals – I had the spy ad
Ooooh yeah I remember that one, that was really fun to answer

He was one of the people who mistook my “Your Mission Should You Choose to Accept” tag line as a Star Trek reference. A few people did this, let me know they are high on the geek scale. I like geeks. We chatted a bit about how things were going with the people we had met, he was coming back from his girlfriend’s house in Keene. He thanked me again for writing such a hoot of a personal and we said good byes and good lucks. How sweet.

The last time I had a personals sighting was just the other day. I went to a yoga class on Monday and the instructor comes in and it is a person I contacted that never wrote me back. Was I cheeky about his tag line? I think I was. He then viewed my profile about six times after that but no words. Is this awkward? Will he recognize me? Why do I suddenly feel like a stalker? So I have to consciously forget all that and remember that I am here to work out my arm from the soreness caused by falling Sunday, and oh yeah breathe. The class was really nice. A good balance between voice prompts and demonstrations and a little bit of assists. I want to go to more of these classes so I ask his name (even though I already know it) and his schedule at the gym. No weirdness occurred – lucky me.

I have talked up my ad so much I have a request to post it. I will, it is one of my favorite things I ever wrote.

I’m staying with Robin for the week and just before I left she tagged with a meme in which I am to start enumerating weird things about myself and stop at seven. Well that is a piece of cake. I’m unique like everyone else. I could keep right on going even after seven, but then comes the hard part. I am then to tag seven other bloggers with the same meme. No can do. Sounds way too much like a chain letter and I am always the deadend street for those. If anyone sends me anything with “send this to you whole address book in it,” I take great joy in looking up the claim in snopes and replying with the bust-the-myth link right back. Not only that but I am concerned about tagging people, do I even have seven people to tag who haven’t done this already? So on the way here from the airport I could say “hey Robin do you care if I just don’t play along?” and good thing she doesn’t.

When I was on yahoo personals this winter, I was chatting with a guy who had an ad with the tag line Ten Things I’m not Afraid to Admit. It was funny, a nice change from the drab my perfect date would be dinner and a movie. He had me reply with ten things I’m not afraid to admit. So dutifully I list them all out. His response, six are funny three are downright disturbing. Well that’s me sixty percent funny, thirty percent disturbing. They were all a little off and would be good meme fodder. I just went to yahoo personals to take a look at the list in thought that maybe I might do the seven part. They deleted my mailbox. I’m a little sad at this. They didn’t delete my mailbox in between the first go with it and the second (ten months of dating AgentY) but now they did. Do you think they saw my YDTiPs post? OK, definitely no sevens meme now.

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Instead let me give you a conversation from the flight, this is during delay after thunderstorms in Detroit
annoyed business guy: can you believe three days travel for a two hour meeting. who are they loading? why do they get to go, do you think I can just get in line now?
pct: Gee you really want to get and just sit for a long time. I doubt getting on earlier gets you actually off the plane in Seattle any faster
abg: well I like to sit, (growl) why don’t the load the plane from the back
pct: well someday when you are king you can fix the world. I’m sure it will be more efficient
abg: that is my title… I am an engineer

He said engineer as if he was saying superhero who saved the world 11 and a half times since lunch. I am thinking overpaid egomaniac with very little social skills. How glad am I that you really aren’t king. While waiting for the tram to take us to the terminal he said “you made it ok” and I said sure and pointed to my earphones, that were doling out Augusten Burroughs, a way better choice than bad small talk with the king. “Have a nice meeting”

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Driving downtown Ellensburg yesterday I saw a sign on the back of a truck. “Single guy seeks female companionship 509…..” I so wanted to call and ask the guy how that was working out but Robin didn’t drive close enough for me to get the number. This in the long run is probably for the best but I am sad to miss the rare opportunity to check on the benefits and tragedies of an emerging new dating venue. Maybe, I think, we will start seeing sticker campaigns more and more. For a good time call… Single White Male seeks Trophy Wife. These will appear on cars, trash cans and of course bathroom stalls.
The Avery 5160 version of Craig’s List.

So tonight I got to go third wheel on a friend’s yahoo personals first time meeting. I thought what I was going to do was sit on the other side of the cafe working on a website, while they did the who-are-you-anyways on the other side of the room. That was not at all what was arranged and I was asked to even participate in the conversation. Since this is in a coffee shop with wireless and I had my computer with me I had half a mind to do live coverage of the date. I may have even been able to record some of if for a mini podcast enhancement. Wouldn’t that guy have a funny story to tell the next day that not only was he on a sort of panel date, but there was live blogging for the duration. Instead here is a recap.

• Man brings us both flowers –well ain’t that a bonus for me, tiger lilies.
• I start to IM my former housemate who assisted in playing spy on my first date with AgentY to let her know what we are up to.
• Introductions and started conversations abound… where do you work? where do I work? Drinks? marital status, etc. The guy is a little playful tries to tell me he has been married seven times.
• Former housemate’s X (who was also coincidentally there my first date with AgentY) comes in. I chat with him for a while and catch up on new child, his personal ad, new laptop etc.
• We go have pizza. Guy is nice and is attentive of ice on the sidewalk, coats etc.
  Because of me bringing up my drawing guild called “naked ladies” conversations center on nudist resorts which I haven’t been to, but they both had been to the same one.
• Go back to the coffee shop where car is, throw keys at Jenny and duck back in so that she can have bye time alone with date, tell former housemate’s X that she called at the pizza place misunderstanding that the date was him and not that he just showed up.

End of date. It is way more fun for me I think when it isn’t my date. I don’t have to worry about getting instantly hostile for unknown reasons and I still get flowers. How cool is that?

Last year my housemate at the time, quite accidentally saw that her boyfriend had a personal on Match.com. Moreover it could have been titled “Things Rebekah has tuned me on to that I will now use to woo other women.” Because of a tragically non confrontational aspect to her personality, combined with a vicious and all consuming jealousy, she didn’t call him on it for a little over two months and instead obsessed. Needless to say the personals started to have a prominent position in our spectrum of conversation topics. This included looking on all possible personals venues for any 32 year old man from Cambridge to analyze if it was him. Also I was asked what I thought of possible actions like putting up fake profiles to try to catch him. This seemed a wee bit overkill as the name and photo on the already found ad would have been enough for me to know the guy’s mind is heading elsewhere, but there was no getting her to just confront him.

This led to a lot of group time looking at the personals. During a profile search, I saw an ad for someone who was complaining that someone at work would find it and print a multitude of copies for a good joke, Um can you say… Cringe. I also saw all the people in my town that I knew and what they wrote. Isn’t it funny that Ben doesn’t mention that he is a violent alcoholic? Eww yuck, Andy? Sensual?… Gross. And look here is Jody trying to hide that it is him, with a hat and “I’ll tell you later on the name.” Not fooling me oh man whose name I could never remember but whose phone number is still stuck in my head. We called each other numbers like spies when I was trying to give away a freecycle bed. Then that combo gave me the idea for my ad. This is last March. I put the ad up in good spirit and from the first appointment I made to actually meet someone, met someone I was attracted to, made me laugh, and was instantly, completely smitten. This, I hear, is not the average luck of someone who has invested about nine days in web-based romantic introductions. I had spent the last two years nursing heartbreak and without even one date so I am unapologetic about my good fortune. I left my ad up for a week or two more just because I didn’t want to deprive the world of my most humorous writing so quickly. From there I spent the spring, summer and fall with my spy guy. Went from gleefully happy to a bit dissatisfied which I innocently chocked up to how he was. Making excuses for slights and making efforts to connect.

Now here is where I think the original catalyst for the ad re-manifested itself. Not the fun part of writing the ad but the furtive hurtful element that it stemmed from. This concluded in losing a sizable bet with my friend Jenny about how the log in worked. I didn’t believe her, my boyfriends profile kept saying active in the last 24 hours. I lost the bet but naively, stubbornly wouldn’t let it sink in at first. When I saw that he was adding more pictures I conceded and we quickly broke up. In a spiteful huff, I put my ad up again. For one element, it was nice, Yahoo had just added a “who has viewed me” and I got 217 views the first week. Good for the ego, but it just wasn’t the same fun. This time I met about a dozen people in a very awkward way. None of them had any of the spark of the time before, but I have snatched up a few as friends. I think the motive and spirit for what I have put out there electronically has throughout this whole process delivered back the same thing. Since this time the spirit is cagey and hurt I have been getting my due. Time to put it down.

So I attempted to change my ad to request people’s stories for a book I may write but they wouldn’t let me. I suppose it is the delete button then.

Note some of the names or tragic social flaws in this have been changed to protect myself from reprecussion