YOU'VE GOT MAIL...SORT OF

Sometimes it’s worse to get mail than to not get mail. Take my VISA statement which arrived in my mailbox last week. (Seriously,...take it. Please.) The thing felt more like a brick wrapped in paper than a credit card bill. But this blog is not supposed to be about my irresponsible spending binges. Let me redirect things to my inbox on the dating sites OkCupid and Plenty of Fish. The Cupid one is easy to address. It’s clearly out of order. Nothing for weeks on end. I log in, I hear nothing but crickets chirping—it’s gotta be the critters’ version of mock laughter—and I sheepishly log out.

Mail. What was I thinking?

Plenty of Fish isn’t much better. To extend the website’s fishing analogy, I get a nibble, I reel it in, I throw it back. It’s the kind of catch-and-release that comes with hooking a paltry minnow or, worse, one of those creepy, prehistoric looking, slimy bottom feeders.

I got a bite today. Mail, for those of you not following the fish talk. I suppose the bright side is that it wasn’t from a ghastly creature with an overbite, beady eyes protruding from the sides of its face and spiny growths springing up seemingly everywhere. (I can’t gaze long enough to be precise. And, as you might guess, I get a little freaked out swimming in lakes and rivers.)

No, I pulled in a minnow.

The tiniest of nibbles.

hi man

No capital letter, no punctuation, no name.

It’s not a record for fewest characters in a message. No, I’ve blogged that before. Winner “communicated”—I have to put that word in quotes—in a remarkably concise three characters:

h r u

I went ahead and read hi-man-guy’s profile. (I’ve already established that messages are a rarity.) Nothing glaringly offensive, but then nothing to latch onto either. Yeah, if I’d messaged him, the best I might have been able to come up with would have been, “Hi man.” But, yes, a capital and a period. For self-respect.

Alas, why bother?

Delete.

Enough said.