The Rambling RedHead

Flypaper for Freaks – The Torch is Passed

Prior to Rambling, I had a private blog in which I wrote about more detailed, private and personal experiences and shared them with The Usual Suspects and my out of town and out of country readers who were my original “beta readers” for my publication ambitions.. Since the launch of Rambling, I have shut down the old site and am in the process of updating, editing and migrating over some of the old articles that I wrote that I can be shared with the general population.. The articles on the worst blind date ever, the flavor of friendships and my horrific experiences with online dating are all “in the can” and waiting to be posted at appropriate intervals for your reading enjoyment..

As I perused and updated articles written from 1 to 2 years ago, I couldn’t help but once again shake my head and wonder why it seems as if I am irresistible to a specific type of men, primarily the clinically insane ones.. For awhile there, it just seemed like every single man that crossed my path was a complete and utter lunatic, a liar, a sociopath or just plain icky.. This is a phenomenon that has not escaped the notice of others. I constantly receive emails asking if the events chronicled on The Rambling Redhead (and prior to that The Trenches) are all real events or just made up for shock value.. Dear God, I wish.. Everything I write about are real events and real people..

Thankfully, I can honestly say, my experiences have improved vastly since the days of The Trenches.. I am currently dating someone who is not an obvious candidate for a DSM-IV case study. While I am not completely letting my guard down (after all Seriously Insane Biker Boy is still lurking out there somewhere waiting to propose) I am at least “unclenching” a bit and thinking that maybe the torch has finally been passed.

The Freaks of My Space

For those of you not suffering from a serious internet addiction, allow me to introduce you to “My Space”.. On My Space you can post your profile, send messages, blog and link to other “friends”.. As you can see from My Profile, I have generally limited my friends to people I already know in some way shape or form.. When writing my profile I specifically crafted it to dissuade salacious or inappropriate attention. I focus on my kids, my ministry training, my job, etc. Yet, despite the carefully worded profile, I still get more than my fair share of freaks that message me to see if I’d be up for an interlude at a roadside motel and if any of my hobbies include a kumquat, some rubber hosing and live gerbils. Needless to say, I spend most of my time on My Space deleting messages and denying friend requests..

My personal rule is, when I receive a friend request, if I don’t know the person, I generally ignore it.. If I am sent a request from anyone that has a profile pic that is shirtless or depicts someone wearing a cowboy hat and holding a beer bong, it’s an automatic “Deny”.. It’s amazing.. So many of the women and men on there post these pics that are a scant step away from pornography and yet their write-up refers to wanting to meet a “nice man/woman” for a “caring, committed relationship”.. Because a posed picture of a woman in a thong with her nipples on display is going to make a guy think “She looks just like the girl next door”.. Well, you know, if he lived next door to a brothel..


Enter the Gigolo..

Some of the suspects (Big Brother, AJ and JennyB) are totally addicted to My Space.. Addicted in a “the rest of The Suspects are contemplating an intervention” kind of way.. I went through about a week of messing around there but eventually got tired of the Parade of Freaks and now only check in to read Big Brother’s blog and deny my latest batch of freak, I mean friend requests. The other night as AJ was going through her latest friend requests, she saw one that she brought to my attention. The pics posted were all of the shirtless, muscle flexing variety.. The guy was posing on the bed, on a motorcycle, against a wall.. He was not bad looking, but the pics were kinda tasteless.. Again, if a guy feels like he has to show off the pecs to grab someone’s interest, then that’s likely the best he has to offer and therefore is not worth the time.. Also of note was this particular person had some 83 “Friends” most of which were half naked women in the aforementioned semi-pornographic poses.

But I digress.. AJ, for some unfathomable reason, decides to message this guy and point out that his profile write up talked all about wanting to find a special girl, being relationship oriented, wanting to settle down and that he was looking for a “real” girl with a heart of gold, but his profile pics, and the pics of his “Friends” all smacked of pornography.. She also noted that, as he listed himself as a single parent, it was kind of confusing as one would not associate a “Dad” with cavorting with a bunch of slutty women online.. He messaged back that he just accepted friends without really looking at profiles but after looking at hers, he said AJ was someone that he would be proud to call his girlfriend.. He then proceeded to give her his phone number and asked her to call him so they could maybe talk and eventually meet for a cup of coffee or a drink.

Given that this is 2005, whoops, I mean 2006 and we are all pretty smart cookies when it comes down to dating (Translation: We’ve all been viciously burned and learned our lesson) she did what any normal single woman over the age of 25 does.. She Googled his number..

Oh my.

He’s listed on not one, but 3 different websites as a professional male escort.

Both of us just stood there, jaws on the floor, and looked at the website.. I finally turned to AJ..

“Honey, he’s a hooker.. We don’t date hookers.. It’s part of the Vixen dating credo.. That, and don’t get killed..”

Actually, “Don’t get killed or date hookers” is basically The Vixen’s dating mission statement.. We like to keep it simple..

We read his write-up which indicated a willingness to provide companionship to ladies and straight couples with a special interest in fantasy fulfillment.. In addition to the “services” description, there was this nice legalese blurb about how his services were strictly for companionship, no sexual contact was contracted for or implied and any sexual contact that occurred was between consenting adults, yada, yada, yada.. Oh yeah, and he costs $100 an hour local, $200 an hour outside of the RTP travel area.

AJ wrote him back with the link and indicted that he was busted and that she didn’t think there was much that could be said to explain away this tidbit of information. He replied that his “boys” had posted that as a joke and that it was his way of testing to see if the girls contacting him were “nice girls”.. He said he occasionally got a phone call but that he had never been an escort and further he was going to have his friends take down the site as he didn’t even realize it was still up..

I’m sorry, did I just hear a “Moooo”?? Because if I did that would explain all the bullshit..

Allow me to deconstruct the 2 main reasons why his excuses were outside the realm of plausibility and went over like a South Park episode at Family Night at the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights Conference.

1.. Guys, back me up on this.. If one of your “boys” posted a bunch of pics of you and listed your private cell phone number on a male escort service site, would you not freak the fuck out? Especially if you were a SINGLE FATHER?? I’ve been known for my wicked sense of humor and for playing a practical joke or two but I cannot even begin to imagine the ass kicking that would occur if I did that to Big Brother or Kansas.. That could ruin their lives, their careers, or possibly cause someone’s mom/grandmother to keel over from a heart attack.. For s single father that would certainly look very, very bad in a custody battle.. If this guy knew about it and did not want to be listed as an escort, he would have had it taken down immediately if for no other reason than to protect his child from the repercussions.. Period.

2. The posting included a pretty carefully worded legal disclaimer that would seek to protect the poster from a charge of prostitution.. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on TV but if the post was created as a joke, I sincerely doubt that the “boys” that were creating the post would bother with a protective disclaimer.

Finally, I can say, hand on a Bible that this was the first male escort ad I have ever viewed (notice I said “male”, lest we forget the night the Vixen’s went trolling the local dominatrix site’s trying to bust Lori’s boyfriend for hiring out a professional spanking.. But I digress..), however, despite my complete lack of experience, the escort listing definitely looked and sounded like the real deal.. It was professionally worded to appeal to a specific target audience as well as alluding to the services offered while seeking to provide legal assurances that would keep the client and the vendor from running afoul of the law..

Needless to say, AJ opted to delete his last message and did not reply.. Let’s face it, the odds are, the guy is a hooker.. I’m sure the Christian attitude to take would be that he’s still a person and that he needs and deserves love just as much as the rest of us do and who are we to judge how he earns his living??. Maybe he gives 25% of his earnings to charity and is a volunteer firefighter on the side. Maybe he’s putting himself through medical school to be a doctor and work in the jungles of Africa trying to fight the AIDS crisis.. Maybe he’s working day and night to help get his son the operation he desperately needs to prevent him from going blind..

After taking this viewpoint and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, AJ and I talked ourselves into having a shred of compassion and stopped ourselves from judging him too harshly.. But the fact is, he’s listed online as an escort, not a stripper or massage thereapist, but an escort.. And no matter how you slice it, an escort is someone who has at least the moral flexibility to be willing to trade their sexual services for money... Tom-A-to, tom-AH-to.. Escort, hooker.. Same difference.. And while our dating pool may not be all that deep and it could desperately use some chlorine, I don’t think that we have scraped the barrel to the point that we’re willing to date a hooker.. When we say we want to date a professional, we’re referring to a level of career success achieved, not his actual “title”..

I guess as I’m treading water in my still semi-new “whatever the hell we are” and I get frustrated by the inevitable struggles of my fledgling relationship, I can use AJ’s experience as a take-away of lessons learned and as a perspective check.. Sure, he may not always call as often as I like, there’s a distinct lack of romance and frankly he is showing some pretty strong ADHD symptoms that could potentially require future medication, but hey, at least he’s not a hooker..

posted by Monet @ 4:37 PM