A while back I was searching for someone on Yahoo and as part of the search process I made a profile on Yahoo Personals, thinking that somehow doing so would give me sufficient searchable access to their database that I might find the person I was looking for.
I actually didn’t find that person that way, mostly because the setup is designed to prevent people who have not paid $29.99 a month from getting in touch with anybody else. You can look—and the person whose profile you looked at will be notified that you looked. You can send an “icebreaker”, which is a one line message selected from a dropdown menu, basically a message that says little or nothing, but you may send only one of these to a person. Or you can just shell out the big bucks.
What you can’t do is put anything in your profile about the rules. You can’t tell people who are subscribers that yahoo will not let you email them, or will only let you send one “icebreaker”. You can’t say, for instance, “Send me your email and I will get back to you.” You can’t put your email or any other contact info in the profile.
Actually, I did put some contact info in the profile, just in case somebody is really smart, they can figure out what it is and how to use it to get in touch with me. But right here I’m not telling what I did. And so far, nobody’s figured it out yet.
Hey, it’s a test.
I even tried to put a sort of a photo in, but they would not let me add it unless it was a full face shot. Wow, that’s useful on a personals site where you really want women to participate. I’m sure every woman in the country wants her face on your loser site. Especially since they let the guys put photos of their house or pickiup truck.
Yeah, losers. Every guy who has contacted me has some kind of mental disconnect. A guy in the next town emailed me, said he was busy with the holiday. Okay, so I emailed him after the holidays, and he got all pissy, wanting to know who I was and why I was bothering him. Sry, nvr mnd. It’s okay, you smoke, you’re conservative, and your living room looks like it was decorated in the 70’s.
The next guy wanted me to IM him. So I IM’d him day after day, and finally gave up. He got back from his vacation and wanted to know why I hadn’t contacted him. Huh? Wanted my phone number so we could talk. Uh, let’s chat first, okay? Not.
But this guy takes the cake. He probably lives 15 minutes from my home. He is a writing instructor at a college. I like writers. He sent me a brief email:
“Hi I’m fairly intelligent so maybe you’ll give me a try.”
Okay, I sent him an “icebreaker”, figuring maybe he’ll send me his contact info and we can communicate…
“Looking forward to hearing from you again soon…”
…and got this back:
“honey, you’ll have offer more than that to make a connection with me.”
“More than that”? You want me to pay $29.99 for the privilege of emailing you? Just how much do you think you are worth? Have you been single so long that you think women have to pay to chat with men?
Apparently I will have to pay $29.99 if I want to make a connection with him. Or would. But I think I just stopped wanting to. You can call me. That’s $2.25 a minute with a 10 minute minimum.
Yeah, and watch those capitals.