Vulture Tactic of the Day

I think -- and I'm not joking at all -- that there's somebody who keeps an eye on the divorce courts and populates a mailing list with the names on the newly filed briefs.

I had completely forgotten that, maybe three years ago, I signed up for something called hi5.com -- I think because Kasia was briefly interested in it and asked me to join. But I never used it again and, as I say, had completely forgotten I was a member.

Then my wife filed for divorce.

And suddenly my Hotmail inbox is full of invites from "Kim" and "Monica" and "Jenny" and "Gwen" and -- somewhat disturbingly, in context -- "Paul," all of whom want to be my hi5 "friend." I go look 'em up and they are consistently (except, to be fair, in the case of "Paul," who provided no information about himself at all) explaining what kind of girl they are and what kind of man they are looking for. And on the right-hand side of the browser, the ads are all ads for singles services, with pictures of cute girls.

I don't think it can possibly be a coincidence.

Something of an annoyance, too. Though I have to admit that "Jenny" is pretty cute... ;-) That is purely a joke; from her picture she looks to be about twenty years younger than I and from her message she sounds about fifty years more immature.

I like the descriptions of "body type" in the profiles in those ads, by the way. "Slim." Okay. "Curvy." (Euphemism for "chubby," one wonders?) "Athletic." (Euphemism for "I have small breasts"?)

Man, I don't know anything about being single...[sigh] Except, I do know this: I don't have to do any of this dating crap until I bloody well want to. Thank God.