Update!, by Randi Braun

The following is an update to a previous JDate tale, Oh, I’m Sorry.  Am I Sitting Too Close?

Several months after my wondrous date with The Jew (aka: JewForSale, Touchy-Feely Man, and The World’s Biggest Douche-Basket), I decided to alter the search method I had been using to browse through profiles of men between the ages of 25 and 31 who lived within ten miles of my zip code. My original method involved entering my age and location parameters and clicking “Search,” which brought up a page of twelve tiny thumbnail photos of members who fit my criteria. I would subsequently examine each of these photos by squinting my eyes and pressing my face against the screen of my 8.9-inch laptop, and then decide, simply by judging physical appearance, which J-daters were worthy of the precious time it would take me to read though their profiles.

After remembering that in real life, I’m not that shallow, and thinking that I might have been risking my long-term ocular health, I decided to employ a new guy-browsing strategy: I would enter my age and location requirements, click “Search,” and then view the very first profile on the page. If the profile was witty or creative, and the man who composed it didn’t sound like a religious fanatic who thinks matzo is the best thing since sliced bread, and he wasn’t hideous or under 5’8″, I would make a mental note of his screenname and check him out again later.

Then I would click the “Next Profile” link at the top of the page, which would bring me to…the next profile.

I rather liked this new search method. I think my eyeballs were happier, too. The only questionable issue was not knowing which J-dater’s face would pop up after I clicked “Next Profile.” On the positive hand, it was kind of a fun surprise. On the other hand, it presented a slight, two-fold problem.

Part A of the problem came after accidentally viewing the profile of the scariest-looking guy on the website. Because members have their own “Who’s Viewed Me” list, after Mr. Scary Man sees the face of a relatively non-hideous woman in his list, he gets really excited and spends the next five days bombarding her with emails and IM’s, thinking that surely she checked him out because she’s really into obese men who make the gnomes in your grandmother’s garden look sexy. Then the woman—not wanting to respond to Mr. Scary’s emails with, “I viewed your profile by accident; you are the ugliest person I’ve ever seen”—has no choice but to ignore his attempts at contacting her, which is sad for both parties involved.

Part B of the problem was accidentally stumbling upon the profile of someone you’ve already deemed “Bad-First-Date-Guy,” or “That-Schmo-I-Never-Called-Back,” or “That-Ass-Bucket-Who-Made-Me-Cry-During-Our-First-Phone-Conversation.” Knowing that any of these guys will see your face in his “Who’s Viewed Me” list is just awkward.

Anyway, one night, after vetoing a few profiles, I clicked “Next,” and…

(…Ohhhh shit)

There was The Jew—my very own Bad-First-Date-Guy—staring me right in the face.

I panicked and clicked “Next Profile” as quickly as I could, but I knew the damage was already done. My photo would inevitably be a permanent fixture in his “Which Unlucky Woman Has Viewed My Profile” list. Shit.

When I checked my JDate mailbox a few days later, amongst some subject lines that read, “Hey,” “Hi,” and “I liked your profile,” I saw a subject line of, “(No Subject).” The sender of the subject-less message? None other than our douchey friend, The Jew.

I didn’t know what he could have wanted from me. Our POS date had occurred months earlier and I hadn’t heard anything from him since. Was it possible that he had been harboring anger that whole time? And that he needed me to know that I’m a gigantic bitch? And that he hadn’t liked me that much anyway? And that all he had really wanted from me were a few premature-ejaculatory minutes under my skirt?

Those were my only ideas. And since I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of reading: “Screw you…you stupid whore,” I left his message sitting unread in my mailbox for the better part of a week.

After I got tired of looking at the blinking exclamation point on my JDate homepage; the one that repeatedly informed me that I had “New Messages! Hooray!” I decided it was time to read The Jew’s email.

I opened my mailbox, directed my cursor toward the “(No Subject)” link, and clicked. The message appeared on my screen. Then I read it. All three sentences. Then I cocked my head in confusion; the way a dog does when it has just seen something very stupid.

His email read:

The Jew: Liked your profile. Let me take you for a drink sometime. I promise you won’t be sorry*.

What the fuck? He had forgotten who I was? Seriously??

How was it possible that my vicious (and successful) attempts at humiliating him had managed to slip his mind within a matter of months? And that he had so quickly forgotten being told that he was “coming on too strong”?

Or…was it possible that he just didn’t recognize me? To be absolutely fair, by that time in my JDate safari, I had swapped out my original four profile photos for ones in which I actually looked decent. And I have been told that, in general, I look different in every photo I take. And I had changed my screenname to something more clever than “NiceJewishChick123.” But…come on. It wasn’t like I had shaved my head, or gained 85 kilograms, or even changed my hair color. I was the same person! The sight of my face should have tripped some sort of eardrum-shattering siren in The Jew’s head, or at the very least, produced a few hundred blips on his “Girls-Whom-I’ve-Sufficiently-Pissed-Off” radar. But apparently, he hadn’t heard as much as the toot from a plastic kazoo.

I guess by the time our fairytale date took place, The Jew’s brain was already filled to capacity with incidents of date-groping and public shit-fits brought on by female rejection. I, however, will probably remember the details of that evening for decades, until I start my descent into senile old bat-hood. After all, it’s not everyday that I get molested in public, and then get yelled at on the sidewalk after telling a blind date to back the fuck off.

After my brain processed The Jew’s gracious offer to take me out for a(nother) drink, it was time for me to compose a response. I actually considered taking him up on his generous offer, setting a specific place and time for our rendezvous, and then not showing up. Heeheehee. That would have been awesome.

But I decided to quell my immaturity and just write the following:

Me: [Thanks for the offer, but] I believe you already took me for a drink.*

I knew he would either respond with, “Ohhhh, yes. Now I remember you. You’re a fucking bitch. Offer rescinded.” Or he would be very confused. Hours later, when he wrote me back, I got my answer.

The Jew: Do I know you?*

It was the latter. Confusion. What an ass. I immediately wrote back:

Me: Of course you know me! Think February. LK Lounge. Olives. You got pissed off when I told you to stop coming on so strong. Then you flagged down the waitress, started texting your friends, slammed some cash on the table, and yelled at me on the sidewalk. It was the best date I ever had!*

Within minutes, I got his reply.

The Jew: Ah yes. Apparently ending a date with someone who is obviously not interested is rude. Oh, and I wasn’t pissed. I’m way too arrogant to be pissed about something like that, c’mon. I thought you could tell that. But I see your point. Next time I’ll make it more awkward for my date by continuing to chit chat, waste her time for another hour boring her to death with my stupid jokes, flag down a cab for her and tail her like sherlock holmes, or more accurately, like every other chode who can’t take a hint. Thanks for the advice Dr. Ruth. But I like my way better. And while you might not think so…so do you.*

Aghhhh!!!! I was SO pissed! I really, REALLY dislike mockery!

It was time to let this guy have it. All of it. Every terrible thing I had ever dreamed of yelling into his face when I mentally replayed the alternate ending of our date; the one that concluded with my tackling him to the sidewalk after he turned and started walking away. This was my big chance. I clicked “Reply” and vigorously tapped at my computer keys as I cackled with evil glee. It took me five minutes to compose a poignant, 26-line response in which I wrapped every terrible thought I had ever had into a neat little package of expletives, sarcasm, and mockery. When I was finished, I felt calm. I felt cleansed. And I felt a wonderful sense of lightness, as if a 30-pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Then I read over my piece of literary therapy. I loved every word of it. It was concise, direct, and just perfect. It was also…….totally unsendable.

(Dammit)

I sighed. There was no way I could send that hideous thing. Not because I’m, you know, super nice and wanted to avoid giving the guy a raging inferiority complex. Fuck that. That ass-mo was begging for an existential meltdown. One that would result in total personality destruction, followed by weeks or months of scooping up the remnants of his id, his ego, and his superego, and then reassembling them into something much more pleasant.

The real reason I couldn’t press “Send” had more to do with me than anyone else. The thing was, I didn’t feel comfortable being tied, in any way, to the cruel words that had rolled off my fingertips. I mean, what if one day I become famous? Sure, the odds of that are probably 89,000,000 to 1, but you never know. What if someday my dating manual gets published? Or the diet book I’m writing gets picked up? And “Randi Braun” becomes a household name? And then The Jew decides to assassinate my flawless reputation by printing out the atrocious email I had written years earlier and taking it to the editor-in-chief of the nearest Star Magazine headquarters? And then the whole world knows that I am a horrible person who deliberately causes mental breakdowns?! And then everyone in the world hates me??! And I am shunned…FOREVER!!

I couldn’t risk that.

So I deleted my masterpiece and wrote a reply so anticlimactic that it almost ruins this entire story.

I typed the following:

Me: You know, I could say so many mean things to you right now, but I’ll be a big girl, maintain my composure, and just let you know that there are more graceful ways of putting an end to a bad evening. You might want to think on that before your next date.*

I pressed “Send,” closed my laptop, and never heard from The Jew again.

Looking back, I can’t believe I was able to restrain myself to the point of writing such a benign response, but I’m glad I didn’t send that original reply. If I had, I probably would have wasted (and might still be wasting) hours of my life agonizing about what might happen if my literary evilness ever found its way out of the secure confines of the JDate walls and onto the World Wide. I feel much more at ease knowing that the true extent of my lust for revenge exists only in my mind. And perhaps, somewhere in the deepest, depths of my laptop’s hard-drive, never to be seen by human eyes again.

*These emails were cut and pasted directly from my inbox.

Hey readers,

I want you all to know that it’s been a pleasure writing for you so far. Your positive comments have inspired me to keep on truckin’ and as far as I’m concerned, that is priceless.

For those of you who’ve been following my work regularly, I thought I should let you know that I’ll be taking a few-months-long hiatus from The Flip, so if you start to notice that I haven’t posted in a while, it’s not because I’ve abandoned the Flip-ship. I’ll be back before you know it :)

Have a wonderful summer,

Randi