Highway Robbery and the Bo Bice Theorem

Unlike LJ--and let me tell you, I was surprised the other day when I found out that this was in fact the case--I still have a Yahoo personals ad up. And yes, I do occasionally check it, more as a reminder that if I so choose, there will be guys out there who might find me attractive. Or at least, might find me attractive based on a now-approaching-eight-years-and-four-sizes-past picture. Hope springs eternal.

However: I feel it is my duty to act as consumer reporter for the blogging community and tell you: Yahoo is a bunch of bandits, my friends.

Yahoo Personals is "free". What they mean by that is, they don't charge you to put up an ad. However, to answer an ad with anything more than one of their cheesy pick-up lines, you have to pay. I don't know how much you have to pay--I'm cheap like that, and so I've never done it.

The other day, though, I was looking at a reply and clicked on a "personality style" link. Now, despite my infrequent meme/quiz-posting on this blog, I'm a bit of a sucker for this type of thing; I'll click on almost any weird little quiz I find. So of course I went for this one.

I learned I'm an "individualist" (Naw--ya think?) with a "passionate" love style. So I've got that goin' for me, I guess. Whatever. But by taking this quiz, I apparently signed up for a Free! Trial Membership in Yahoo Personals Premier. This gave me the ability to answer as many ads as I wanted during the seven-day period. Which, whatever; I'm not actively looking, so...thanks, I guess?

That was a few days ago. Today I got a "Reminder!" telling me that my trial will expire in two days, but I could lock in a special 50% off rate for the first three months if I Act Now!

You know what that "special" rate is?

$38.99.

A month.

Now that? Is totally lonely. And I may be lonely, but I am nowhere near $39 a month worth of lonely--much less, extrapolating from their quoted percentages, $78 a month worth. I'd have to be living on a desert island with no books, no music, and no computer to be that lonely--and if I WAS in that situation, I'd be S.O.L. anyway, what with the no-computer part of that equation. So--no.

And besides, I don't need the personals. I have an active imagination, with which I can convince myself that reality is much rosier than it actually is. Though sometimes I don't even need an imagination; I just need functioning eyeballs.

Exhibit A: The Brit.

You want to know what's hotter than a hot guy? A hot guy with two days' growth of beard and sunglasses. (I believe this so strongly that I am hereby declaring it to be a universal law, which I have dubbed the Bo Bice Theorem, after its most-notable exemplar.) And even HOTTER than that, a pissed-off hot guy, et cetera et cetera.

This Brit is KILLING me, people. Because he so clearly gets it--these are the best conversations I've had in YEARS. But he also clearly sees me as just a buddy--and not the kind with benefits, either, which just sucks extravagantly. At least he's a bright spot in my workday--and god knows it needs a bright spot!

Then again, so do a lot of other things I could name.