From Russia With Love?

On line dating is a trip.




Some months ago I was cruising an ?adult? dating site, and I saw a picture of a particularly alluring woman, or more accurately, a particularly alluring semi-nude torso.


Granted that those of us cursed with Y chromosomes often have poor judgment when it comes to these matters, but her picture, and what was visible of her, reminded me of my first major crush, whom we?ll call Melissa. It would be indiscreet to describe in detail and exactly how cosmic the sex was for the few weeks that we dated, but suffice it to say that Melissa left quite an impression on me before she split for the West Coast with her kids in tow.



The woman in the picture (let?s call her ?Ms. Ponytail?) responded to my ?flirt? and left me her email address. Naturally, I was encouraged. She seemed intelligent and educated as well as having an incredibly sexy body.


Ms. Ponytail and I exchanged several emails over the course of a few days. By the third or fourth day, I was sure that I was actually going to meet her. I was excited by the prospect of our meeting and could barely wait.


?I could have sworn I saw you at the flea market on Columbus Avenue,? she wrote, ?and I?d love to meet you.?


And then the emails stopped.

I suppose that I should have realized from day one that Ms. Ponytail had a few missing screws, so to speak - she had described herself as the wife of a husband who?d been emotionally and physically absent for years. She said he was in Russia and thought he had a girlfriend there. While that was perfectly plausible, and I have nothing against our brothers and sisters in the former Soviet Union, let’s face it - there seems to be an extraordinary number of Russian scammers in the sexual cyberworld.

I should have known.

Strike one.

Several months later, I saw that her picture was still on the site, and days later, after seeing a woman in a restaurant who might have been her, I thought how nice it might be to snuggle up together, so I upgraded to a “silver” membership, which allowed me to send a message to her (I’d lost her email address.)

It looked promising. She replied to my message and told me that she would call my cell number.

She didn’t call. Strike two.

Then she wrote me that she thought she saw me at the New Year’s fireworks in Central Park, and she suggested that we both go the same restaurant, but not actually meet.

I saw the breaking ball coming, so I didn?t swing at the pitch.

I left her my cell number again, but no call. She said she’d tried it, but that I hadn’t answered, so
I checked my phone and confirmed that it was working.

Strike three.

I think I’ll stick with porn. Its much safer - and much more rewarding than Ms. Ponytail’s torso.

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(note: the ilustration above, which is an actual photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and has been provided by NASA, is NOT the subject of this entry, which is largely based on real events!)

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