THAT is the title of the personal ad referenced below
Hello ladies. Hear me out. I'm just a normal, hispanic male, professionally employed, fun to be with, love to laugh, and enjoy life. I'm looking for a woman of like mindedness. I have lots of love to give, and am fun to hug, kiss, laugh with, and I can hold an intelligent conversation, on just about anything........let's talk..
(as posted on Craigslist in West Palm Beach, Florida)
Just when you think that you have the skills necessary to read between the lines of a personal ad and dismiss all that are cheesy, dishonest, looking for supermodels or a slaves, comes a new breed of ad. This ad does not mention marital status. Not a word to indicate whether the author is single, separated, divorced,or widowed. We only know that he is alive, that he has internet access and is probably familiar with match.com, craigslist, plentyoffish.com or eharmony (who by the way, after 2 attempts to submit a completed profile, informed me that there is not anyone in the universe they could match me up with). As an individual in the education field, I would even compromise on the spelling aspect, just to find Mr. Right.
Please refer to the ad at the beginning of this article. Sounds pretty good, huh? I’m a 49 year old woman, professional, love to have fun AND Hispanic. A match made in heaven-or at least a pretty good start. I don’t come across ads like this often, so I decided to contact this person. I immediately received a response with a thank you and a picture with an invitation to call him and remit a picture of myself if I was so inclined. Well, I was so inclined and proceeded to scan my miniscule stash of pictures on my hardrive for the most accurate representation of myself and replied with 2 pictures, my cell phone number and invite to call me sometime as well.
The next day, while I was at work, I received a phone call from-lets call him Henry-and we chatted a bit. At the end of the conversation he asked me what I was “looking for”. I felt like a john calling an escort service and responding to a code phrase designed to avoid the appearance of solicitation. I responded that I was looking for people to meet, get to know, become friends with and ultimately marry at some point down the road. He seemed to understand and apparently was not scared off because he asked if he could call me later. I was thinking I could be on to something here. The conversation did not culminate in an urgency to meet, but rather more conversation. Could it be that there was someone out there just as cautious as I was?
In the evening, I received another phone call from Henry (how did I know?-I had already optimistically saved his number and name in my contacts, silly). We chatted a bit more and we talked about our kids and pets and agreed that we would continue to communicate on the phone a bit longer and think about a meeting for coffee perhaps in the future. Again, he asked me what am I looking for ( I swear I was thinking if he asks me again im going to think he is mentally disabled or just plain stupid) Oh, happy day! I was already planning where to go and what to wear. Could he call me tomorrow during my lunch break? Absolutely, I replied, need you ask?
Tomorrow comes and no phone call at lunch, no phone call in the evening. The day after that , no phone call at lunch and then an email in the evening asking if I received his message. I jump to my phone and listen to my voice mails. Nothing there. I check my text messages and there it is. “Will u c me if im married?”. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. As I absorbed what this meant, I started rehearsing my time worn, indignant how dare-you speech. I even entertained the thought of agreeing to see him and using him for financial gain and good times before cutting him loose-just to teach him a lesson of course.
While I was playing all these scenarios out in my head, I receive a voicemail (having missed the call). He was apologizing for not telling me he was married and hoped that it would not be a barrier to me seeing him. A barrier? A barrier? Marriage to another person is a barrier? What a jerk… I went to my computer and sent him an email: “I received your messages and would like to have a conversation with you. Please call when you get a chance”. About 10 minutes later, the phone rings. He must have thought that if I wanted to talk, that on some level, I was considering a relationship with him. Well, I was not, but instead of laying into him on the phone and that being the end of the story, I decided to make him think a bit and perhaps feel foolish and as an added bonus, perhaps dishonest and dishonorable as well.
I reviewed with him his personal ad. Not a mention of marital status. Most people lead with that since it is a selling point and immediately helps you decide whether you are interested in dealing with a divorced man that has kids, or a widower who just lost a spouse, etc. But not this guy, nope, not Mr. Wonderful. He looking for fun, and you should be too!! Fuddy duddys need not apply is the implication behind the headline and ad. He commented that his ad was quite clear regarding his status. Clear? I pressed on and asked what the purpose of asking me what I was looking for was, if he knowingly could not provide it. Silence. Did he think that I was a woman who deserved less than what I was looking for? Is there a reason why he felt it was not important to disclose the fact that he was married, if not in the ad, than certainly in the first email or god forbid the first phone conversation? Again, my querys were met with silence and then some comment about how some women don’t mind a man being married. Instead of beating a dead horse and going round and round with this guy, I finally told him that it was against my values to romantically entangle myself with a married man as much for my own benefit as well as his wife’s, who by the way, I was rapidly feeling sorry for. We ended the phone call with him telling me he respected my decision and that it had been a pleasure talking with me. I wished him luck in all his endeavors (a saying my best friend always ends our conversations with when there is nothing left to say) and hung up.
I wake up the next morning and have a voicemail waiting. “Good morning Annette, Im calling to let you know that perhaps we could still meet for that cup of coffee and be friends because you know you can never have too many friends”…. Sincere? Or just another manipulation….hmmm. Response on my part? Silence.
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