Ah, you can't GET any more gentlemanly or less horny than me.

And chasing has never been the problem. The problem is I can't seem to get chased by anybody whose entire life isn't built on babies & booze. Assuming it's even possible for such a person to exist. Which it's not.

Right, plus if I was actually as good-looking as some people seem to indicate, I would have had a girlfriend by now.



"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because I make up words like 'domesticatrix' and try to shoehorn them into popular media."

I don't know, I've tried doing the "other picture" thing and it hasn't made any difference.

I've used pictures of my tape dispenser, a llama, Bob Saget, a cutaway view of Neptune's atmosphere, none of it makes any difference.

I don't think anyone has actually looked at my pictures or read my profile since 2008.

There are three schools of thought on this:

1.) The empty profile

2.) The cliche-ridden profile (everyone is "laid back and easy going," everyone is "looking for Prince Charming," everyone likes "to go out or stay in," etc.

3.) The profile that actually contains some useful information about who the person is and what they're looking for, and doesn't read like a copy 'n paste of the last 285 profiles you've read.

Approximately 98.4% of all profiles I've seen fall into category 1 and 2.

I used to have a profile up that was 1400+ pages in length and discussed things like the skeletal structure of the axolotl and why it is unlikely that the half-life of lawrencium will ever exceed more than a few seconds. I got a lot of e-mails but it didn't seem anyone was actually reading the profile.

So I shortened it up for the purpose of making it a much quicker and easier read. Now I get even more e-mails than I did before, but it's still quite clear that no one is reading the profile, even now.

Maybe I need to shorten it more. I think my next revision will be the letter "P" and nothing else. I will still continue to get e-mails every day saying "I read your profile and I loved it! Where are you and what do you do?"

I got one this morning, the entirety of which is:

"hello how are you doing there i hope you are you doing then"

This is probably a scammer, but I don't actually have enough evidence to proceed with reporting it. Scammer or no, it is certainly incoherent enough to merit ignoring.

Notice that there is no actual mention of anything from my profile or forum postings. I take that to mean that she could be sending this same message out to anyone,at any time, without any need for individualizing it. And that hints of a scammer....

I think people see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear. There are a few who seem to have a need to project some of their own personalities onto me, even though the projection is wildly inaccurate.

I would defy anyone to find a post where I have characterized any specific person on Mingle2 as "stupid." I wouldn't do it -- it violates forum rules, and it's detrimental to the whole concept of rational discourse.

If you ever see me criticize anyone, it will be in the context of generalities -- people who can't spell, people who try to trick me into having kids, people who think broccoli isn't toxic, people who write drivel in their profiles about "Prince Charming" and about how "laid back and easy going" they are.

But I don't name names. That's against the rules of the site. End of.

Really, unless by some unbelievable coincidence you happen to be a second grade English teacher, there's no future with that one.

I'm sorry, I was operating under the assumption that the forums were for people to discuss the thoughts and events and problems of their lives in a helpful and civilized manner, in an attempt to resolve issues, clear up confusion, and possibly make some progress in their day-to-day lives. Apparently, I'm wrong, and they're actually intended for people to insult and disparage other members.

Silly me.

You might have a point there. Very few of them start out asking for money. (It happens every now and then, but only rarely.)

But I do know that a lot of scammers like to collect e-mail addresses, and they know yours is valid if they can get you to write to them from it. Valid e-mail addresses, when collected in large quantities, are very useful to other scammers, and therefore salable.



I can't answer that, but even the ones who are NOT obvious scammers are pretty pointless -- the e-mails that consist of nothing but "Hi" or "Hello" or "How are you?" Maybe those are legitimate messages, but they sure are boring and vapid.



Well, I hope not, because it would mean that even the legitimate people have the vocabulary of a grapefruit.



I just automatically assume that about everybody now.

I've got an Author Page on Amazon, and that should answer most questions.

Anything more involved than that, I can refer people to a number of other sites if they're interested.

All I know is one day she "needed" me and "couldn't live without" me, and a week later, she's gone like pffft! Just vanished.

My creative process is probably a little abnormal. I can't push it. It's either on or it's not, and it comes and goes arbitrarily.

That's true, their job is to get you off-site.

I used to tell them there's no reason to go anywhere else, because we have e-mail and IM and forums right here. That's not what they want to hear. They would always want to argue about it. "I want to send you some of my naughty pics!" -- that sort of thing.

I don't even bother with the conversations anymore, I just report them as soon as I've read the message and I'm sure this is another scammer. Admin is really good about deleting scammer accounts quickly. I've had some situations where the person was removed from the site before I'm done reporting them!

Admin will look into it. If it's not a scammer, then there will be no further action taken. No harm, no foul.

When you get as many scammer e-mails as I do, you learn to identify them in your sleep.

Look for the ones that try to get you off-site as quickly as possible. They usually want you to contact them at a yahoo address (although I've seen msn and hotmail on occasion, as well) -- and their yahoo addresses are often munged so as to enable them to bypass spam filters. They'll write it like "ya who dut come" or something.

If they don't provide a yahoo contact, they'll usually ask you for yours.

The main thing is they want to get you off-site, and they want you to give them a valid e-mail address, which they can then do all kinds of things with.

Look for discrepancies in their stories. A common one is that their location in their profile doesn't match where they say they are in their e-mail. I get a lot of them where the profile says they're in New York or California, but the e-mail says they're in Afghanistan or Ghana or someplace.

Awkward or stilted English is often a clue -- I think a lot of them are using the same translator programs. I get e-mails that say things like "I will like to get to know you" and "I am to be liking your structure."

Look for profiles where the picture of the person does not match their own self-description.

I have noticed that the vast majority of my America scammers are claiming to be from New York, and about 95% of those claim to be from Manhattan. So Manhattan is an automatic red flag.

If they ask you questions that have already been answered in your profile, then you can assume this person didn't read the profile. I get these all the time. "I read your profile and I loved it! Where are you and what do you do?"

If you suspect a scammer, report it. We would like to identify them and remove them as quickly as possible.

Thank you, I'm currently working on three more!



I don't really feel broken -- I feel a little banged up, a little bruised, but intact, for the most part.



Yeah, that's a bit of a trap. I find myself noticing the ones who remind me of her, in some way. And that's usually not a good thing, because they remind me of her in ways that don't have anything to do with the important stuff.



I think it's important to maintain a sense of humor about it. And the writing is a tremendous help there.

But -- the other thing is that the writing doesn't really address the problem; it deflects it.

Unfortunately, I just don't have the resources to make it happen right now. If I did, I would have moved (somewhere, anywhere) ages ago.



To be creative, on a level that prolific, amazes me. His focus must have been something to see. I remember watching him on "Jeopardy" years ago, he seemed fairly normal but very very smart!

Agreed, there's nothing inherently wrong with remembering the happy times. It's just the sheer rareness of those times that causes concern.

It seems that I have enough going for me that people continue to be interested -- but only with the proviso that I completely and totally change who I am, so as to fit more comfortably into their idea of what a relationship should be. And I'm just not interested in being the person they want to mold me into. There are millions of those guys out there already, so why not go after them?

To run across one who accepts me for who I am, someone who sees no need to change me, that's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (obligatory St. Pat's reference). But I've only ever found one like that -- and what I've seen on the 15,881 dating sites I've tried, doesn't convince me there are any more of them out there....!

No arguments there.

And the common denominator, yeah, that's pretty clear....

But the issue now is whether or not it's worth trying to make any alterations. As much as I'd like to believe there's someone worth it out there, the trend thus far has been to the contrary. I don't know.

Well, that's what all of my previous relationships were for. Been there, done that.



You have obviously missed a few threads! OK, most people are very nice to me, but then there are a few who have been sniping at me for years. Sometimes they try to be a little less obvious about it.



Trust me, that's not gonna be good for anybody.



I don't know if anyone is going to take you up on that one. Not overtly, anyway.