It's me, it's me!

[Disconnect]

So this is my POF profile... I guess I'll be back to clarify later.

Your ad on here isn't drawing the right kind of guy; they all just send you****pics and ask you for nudes. Nothing but troll rednecks are out in the bars, the dudes in the coffee shop and book store are too shy to approach you, and that by-chance encounter in the grocery store? Dude's married, or worse, he's cruising the grocery store for ass. You give up and resort to Craigslist, which is inhabited 95% by bots, scammers, trolls, and hookers.

Okay, so the hookers thing is my experience, probably not yours, but you get my drift. Anyway, I've posted this ad a number of times over the years; sometimes it nets me a hundred more spambot addresses, sometimes I make a friend, almost always I get a laugh or six. Still, not yet have I found an actual relationship.

It's a completely predictable pattern. One woman here and one woman there will respond, we trade a few texts, and then they mysteriously and without warning or reason just suddenly dry up and disappear. Regarding that, here's what I know. I'm not here to collect pics or your clever sayings and memes. I'm also not here to gain pen pals or even friends. I'm here because I'm looking for a woman, a girlfriend, a possible mate.

I want to go out. Meet up. Eat dinner. See a movie, a concert, a comedy show. Have a drink, be it a beer or a brevé.

I send messages to women pursuant to this goal, and others. If I receive a message, I respond to it... because I'm an adult.

Maybe you're also an adult. Maybe you also are here to meet a potential mate. Maybe you're also interested in meeting a person to share an attraction and maybe a life. If so, I hope to hear from you, and if not, maybe you could still speak, respond, say thanks for the compliment but no thanks on the invite. I do.

Me? I'm a big guy, ex-football player, white with dark hair and blue eyes. When I'm not at work, I am dammit RELAXING. I take my down time seriously and am conscientiously immature. I have profiles up on more than one dating website, and am a true, genuine citizen of the nation known as The Internet. I have a(n admittedly kinda weird) roommate in a great apartment that I like to refer to as the Island of Misfit Boys.

If you're the person I'm looking for, you occasionally enjoy going to trashy, smoky bars and doing Karaoke with me and my drunk friends, you like relaxing on the couch and watching movies, you enjoy but are not addicted to alcohol, and you're not a complete swamp-swimming redneck. While you don't really get down with the idea of getting into a fight, you might hit someone if they called you prissy. You don't spend hours upon hours playing World of Warcraft, but don't necessarily think that anyone who ever has is a complete loser; you've watched cartoons recently - especially those on Adult Swim - and narrowly averted peeing yourself laughing, and you do NOT have more than 2 cats in your place of residence (i.e., you are not a crazy cat lady).

You know very damned well that I am not going to fall madly in love with you before we even meet, and marriage - hell, even love isn't on the table right now. Right now, we're just trying to meet people. Whatever comes next will be determined when it happens. You're close enough to me that we can hang out at least a day (and hopefully a night!) a weekend without it representing a major financial or scheduling hurdle, but you also don't plan on either giving to or receiving from me a house/apartment key (at least, not anytime soon).

If you have a kid, you at least have the moral conviction to be a dedicated and loving mother, and have no need for or interest in a new daddy for your child: I have contributed (poorly, I might add) to the raising of two different "other people's kids" and just don't want to put any more kids through that. You and your life must be a self-sustaining unit, just as I am.

You also don't need me to jump out of an airplane or otherwise attempt suicide with you in order for you to get your jollies. I'm not an adrenaline guy. I was injured - permanently - playing high school football, so my physical activity is limited to... stuff that makes sense. Ridiculous physical activities, on top of being stupid, are permanently off my radar. Plus, I hate hot. The pool, though? If I'm off work, I'm probably in the pool for an hour or two.

Hell, while I'm filling out my order, it would be awesome if you look like a cross between Jessica Rabbit and Jessica Simpson ("fat"-style Jessica Simpson was hot), cook like Paul Prudhomme, and store neatly on a closet shelf. You enjoy doing laundry and dishes and are independently wealthy, with an irrepressible sugar-mama urge and a house on the Rhine.

Edit #1: Sorry, not into the religious sort. Bible quotes in response to a dating ad creep me out.

Edit #2: If you don't get my sense of humor, it's best that you've figured that out now. If this wasn't funny to you, you're not going to like me in person.

Edit #3: It seems like it should absolutely have been understood by now, but here it is anyway: My pics are above. Yours should also be readily available. Nobody wants to meet their boss or coworker on a blind date.

Edit #4: This post is a solicitation for an in-person meeting, and I'm not a creeper, a killer, a rapist, or any more of a freak than... well, your average internet/Craigslist personals ad freak. If you're afraid of meeting in person, why are you reading these in the first place? Geeze.

Edit #5: I've received a significant number of responses over a *lot* of postings of this ad; the vast majority have been spambots. Second to the spam, I've also received several "Great ad! Signed, Not Available/Not Interested" responses. These responses are flattering, but maybe you could forward the ad on to your niece, the Lane Bryant model? That'd be greeeeaaaaat.

Edit #6: If you have to use drugs, whether legal or illegal, in order to feel "normal," I'm out. Smoking cigarettes is fine - I only recently quit that - and drinking alcohol is good - I do that too - but I'm not "420 friendly," and I'm looking for a potential girlfriend, not another patient. To clarify: NO PSYCHOACTIVE MEDICATIONS. No, not even the one(s) you're on.

Edit #7: If we don't work out - and let's face it, statistically, we probably won't - let's agree now, up front, that we're both going to be okay with that and not stalk, harass, cry over, slash tires, kill ourselves, file false police reports, or otherwise blow ourselves to pieces over it, okay? I just want to meet a nice, pretty, funny woman and hang out, have some laughs, and find out if we're compatible, see what happens next. That's all. Is that really so much?

Edit #8: We all have our preferences, and mine don't include African American women. This requires no further discussion.

Edit #9: If you're going to text me "I'm pissed off" messages - like over two hundred of them in an hour, as one psycho did, but really, any at all - just don't bother.