Please stop

The joy of dating sites - among other things - is the fact that you can message or wink at someone and if they are interested, they respond, but if they are not interested they can just politely ignore it. Most people understand this and just move on. Occasionally you'll get a real wacko who will berate you for not answering - because tying to force people to like you usually ends well - but 98% of the time it works out decently for everyone. If someone has really put a lot of time/effort into their message and I'm not into it, I might send back something polite but usually I hate to encourage someone if there is no chance. As most women have realized by now, some guys will take literally anything as encouragement.

Like this guy. Every time I've tried online dating I've had someone like this at least once. This guy takes your silence to mean 'please message me more, your attempts to woo me will eventually win me over IF YOU JUST KEEP AT IT.' I have no idea what he would do if I DID respond; possibly hunt me down and saw off my leg so he could hump it at home or, depending on how crazy he is, maybe lose interest entirely (yay)! More often than not, however, communicating just causes the crazy to escalate. As much as I enjoy a good confrontation, feeling as I do that it cleans out the pipes, I tend not to do so with clearly unstable males online who have access to my picture.

Anyway. Message #1 (remember, my OKC profile says You should message me if... "You aren't batshit crazy"). Also, I talk about bacon flavored popcorn, because if you've had it, you would too. This message isn't so bad:

"Bacon Flavored Popcorn!
Jul. 14, 2010 – 2:18pm No friggin' way!

I've heard of chocolate covered bacon but popcorn. Where do you get it? Do you have to meet some guy behind a convenient store? Hook me up!

:D,
(boy name)"

Slightly amusing, but the profile picture is creepy, not cute, and oddly lit. Like maybe his camera filter has been rinsed recently in blood (scary!). His profile is also really weird, and not in a fun way. So I ignore him.

2 days later, message 2:

"Watchadoin?
Jul. 16, 2010 – 10:18pm :)

(boy name)

I'm not Batshit Crazy. I know because I've dated Batshit Crazy and I'm not it. lol."

Thus proving that self-awareness is not a life skill he has managed to pick up along the way. More ignoring.

Yesterday, I updated my You Should Message Me section to add, underneath Not Batshit Crazy, the following: "You are an alpha male" and "You are not easily confused", because I am tired of the emails asking me what batshit crazy is.

Today I received message 3 from this poor misguided dude:

"So far I should still message you.
Jul. 20, 2010 – 7:56pm Batshit crazy. Nope
Alpha male. Check (but not type A)
And what was the last one? Uhh, wait, lemme look it up... Darn.

How 'bout two of three. :shrug:

;)
(boy name) "

AGAIN WITH THE MASSIVE FAILURE. You are batshit crazy if you continue to message a woman who is clearly, unequivocally, and adamantly ignoring the shit out of you. You are obviously confused if you think emailing her again is going to work. It won't.

I do not want to talk to you. I think it is horrible that I might have to respond to you to tell you that I don't want to talk to you. That feels all wrong and squicky and I don't want you to think that leg stealing/humping would be the next logical step in our non-relationship.

Please, just stop. Do not inflict your crazy on me because at some point I will be tempted to respond with MY crazy, which is a thing that you do not want.