You read. You're smart, savvy and aware. So I'm sure you know that online reviews are not always legit. This article delves into an interesting aspect of review fraud, an aspect that is near and dear to all us readers and bloggers. Some of us old bloggers have a permanently skeptically raised eyebrow regarding epublishing/self-publishing. "Why not just blog?" we innocently ask. "Oh. Right," we answer ourselves, "you want to make money from writing. Why give your words away on a blog when you can pimp them out via self-publishing? Well. Good luck with that, then."

People are desperate for online publishing success and paying for glowing reviews because the glut of epublished books has created a drain on the market - it's flooded with too much crap, the good stuff gets lumped in with the crap and ignored. It's the best of times, it's the worst of times. Hence the desperation for reviews which can lead to higher rankings and higher sales numbers.

Which brings some bloggers' attitude full circle. Some of us aren't in it for the money. Some of us do not have delusions of grandeur. Some of us are "just" bloggers. Lowly, "not doing it for the money" bloggers. We're not getting rich, but we're pure. We're WYSIWYG. No fake reviews, no filthy lucre. It's part of the reason I don't use AdSense or sell adspace or profit from my blog in any way. It's mine, all mine, and I can post whatever I want. People can choose to read it, or not, but because money never changes hands, no one owes anyone anything tangible or intrinsic. There are no obligations to be met, so there are no resentments. If you don't like what I post, oh well, I don't owe you anything, you came here of your own free will, I didn't charge a penny, not even click revenue. If you do like what I post, for free, would you pay to read it? Yeah. Me neither. Hence the beauty of blogging. It's there, it's free, if you like it great, if not, oh well.

I don't begrudge Todd Rutherford, in fact I applaud his marketing insight. He saw a huge opportunity - a need for marketing - and capitalized on it. Marketing baby, marketing. Let me be clear on this: I don't agree with faking anything, especially when it involves duping the public. His methodology was flawed. The flaw was his lack of discrimination, which I presume was fueled by greed. Gee, where have we heard that plot line? Oh, right, pretty much everything Dickens ever wrote. But. The foundation of his idea was solid. There is a need for valid, credible marketing in epublishing.

Sure, most ebooks are cheap, 99¢ - $2.99. Not a huge investment, so if it's crap, oh well, delete. And most of us have plunked down money, $10 or more, on a physical book that we didn't enjoy. We have our favorite authors and we pony up the money for their latest books, we support them financially via buying their books because they have given us enjoyment in the past, we trust them to take us on another fun/insightful/scary/whatever adventure again, so we spend the money on their books. When they let us down, we're disappointed. We regret spending that money. We are more hesitant to buy their next book. We'll get it from the library or borrow if from a friend. If the author wins us back into their good graces we may buy their next books, dismissing the "bad one" as an experimental phase.

Publishing is a buyer beware industry. It's wholly subjective. Ever tried to return a book you hated? Try it sometime. I did it once, for the experience of it, to see what would happen. It was the above-mentioned situation. I spent $19.95 plus tax on a book by an author I thoroughly enjoyed in the past. So certain of the author's talent and eager was I, that I bought the hardcover version a few days after it was released. I raced home and spent a weekend reading the book. I toughed it out from cover to cover because I believed in the author, I believed that somewhere the plot would turn, the characters would gain some depth, the prose would be more insightful, and the first couple hundred pages that sucked would be worth the effort and time it took to slog through them. You know, like Great Expectations. No such luck. Because the book sucked. The book really, really sucked. It sucked so badly that it was on the sale table shortly after it was released. I bought the book on a Friday afternoon. I spent the weekend reading it. I felt so duped, so resentful of the author, the editor, the agent and the publisher, so mad at myself for spending the money on the book that I spent my lunch hour on Monday trying to return the book. I had my receipt, the spine was still in perfect new condition and it still had that new book smell.

"I want to return this book," I asserted to the book store clerk.

"Um, is there something wrong with it?" the clerk asked.

"Yes. I could list specifics but I won't waste our time. I'll abbreviate my complaints: It sucks."

"So, you want to return it because you didn't like the book."

"That's right. That, and I was duped by the author and the publisher's marketing team. (pointing to the prose on the back of the dustjacket) This is not a 'gripping, insightful yet wonderfully witty tale of career malaise and social paradox.' It's a boring, pointless whiny rant about how life sucks. Duh. I can read boring, pointless whiny rants on blogs, for free. Technically, (pointing to the back dustjacket flap) that bit about 'from a masterful storyteller' part is true, the author has proved himself to be a masterful storyteller in the past, which is why I bought the book. But this story is not masterfully told. I'll debate whether there's even a story being told in this book."

The book store clerk rolled his eyes. "You can't return a book just because you didn't like it."

"That's not why I'm returning it. I'm returning it because it sucks and it is not what it was marketed to be. I'm returning it because 1) it's a faulty product and 2) it was falsely advertised."

I'm sure book store clerks get a lot of this sort of thing. Or maybe not. But that was the point of my exercise. I'd never attempted to return a book after I read it. I always put the onus on myself when it comes to disappointing book investments. I reason with myself, "There is a library...you don't have to buy it...it's your own fault for spending the money..." and that's that.

But this was different. I took it as a personal insult to my intelligence and good nature. I gave the author a weekend, a full two days, of my life. And I gave up $19.95 plus tax. I realize the author only gets a fraction of the cost of the book, but to us, the consumer, the price of the book is paid for wholly by us.

I didn't get a refund for the book I hated. The store manager gave me a coupon for 15% off my next purchase. The insult to injury came when I couldn't even give the book to my local book swap store. They were flooded with copies and were not accepting any more. Yes. I couldn't even trade the book for an paperback book from the '70s. It was that bad.

You may be thinking, "Should have waited for the online reviews written by people other than the publisher's chosen few..." Not necessarily. The online reviews for this book, even now, several years later, are generally positive. I don't know anyone in real life who likes the book, and since this book's publication many people I know in real life are wary to invest in what that author has since written. I presume the author has such a devoted following that there are several readers who will applaud anything he writes simply because he's their adored darling of choice. They will support the team, even, especially, during a losing season, and write positive online reviews in defense of their star player. And, perhaps, some or many of those online reviews were written by "someone" paid to submit positive reviews.

I'm a trained and experience marketer. I get it. I understand. You want to move inventory. But. I also hold myself and other legit marketing professionals to a high level of ethics. If you don't stand behind a product, don't market it. If you have to pay for fraudulent, positive reviews, the product is flawed and shouldn't be marketed. Take it back to the drawing board, work out the problems until you have a product that merits legitimate positive feedback. From there the marketing takes care of itself.

Which brings me back to the point of the NY Times article on epublishing review fraud. Epublishing is great, power to the people, write on. There are some hidden gems to be found "these days" and I'm in full support of the medium. But. It's creating a false sense of talent which leads to a false sense of entitlement. There may be a few people willing, and happy, to pay a couple bucks for a book on the pros and cons of making necklaces out of dominoes versus mahjong tiles, or a personal account of life as a geologist in Newfoundland in the 1960s. And that's great, that's a couple bucks more than the authors had before they published their books and for the people who were chomping at the bit for books on those topics, it's a glorious dream fulfilled. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

But. A little encouragement can be a dangerous thing if desperation and/or greed set in. The author thinks, "Hey! I sold four copies! People like my book! I'm an author! I'm gonna quit my job because I'm an author, now! How can I sell more books?!" Their thoughts turn to two things: Writing more books, and marketing. They decide to focus on the books they've already written, because, heh heh, writing books is hard. But marketing is easy! They know it's easy because everyone knows marketing is easy and because there are tons of ebooks on marketing! It's a serendipitous moment for new e-authors. They invest the profits from their book on, what else? ebooks on marketing. They get all hopped up high when they learn inside tips and tricks to making money with ebooks. (I'm rich, I'm gonna be rich I tell you, rich! dancing in their heads) They don't stop to consider that the person who self published those ebooks on marketing are just like them: Trying to make a few bucks via epublishing.

Yes. There really is one born every minute.

And this is where things take an ugly, unethical turn down a slippery slope. Their ebooks on marketing told them they need a lot of positive reviews on their book. They try to get their friends, family and coworkers to submit positive reviews on their book. Great! Three positive reviews! Awesome! The money's going to start rolling in any second! When it doesn't, the author starts Googling and finds marketing resources for ebook authors. Most of those resources are review writers. For a fee, the reviewer will write a positive review. The more naive ebook authors may honestly believe these reviewers are reading their books. (I'm cutting slack, being generous, not making assumptions about IQ.) So we'll take the author out of culpability for fraudulent reviews. (I'm cutting slack, being generous, not making assumptions about IQ.)

The pay-for-reviewers, like Todd Rutherford, then, bear the brunt of responsibility in perpetrating the scam. Yep. I used the word. Scam. But. As I stated up front, I'm not begrudging the enterprise. They are filling a need, providing a service, and if authors are a) desperate enough to believe the reviews they're buying are legit, and b) consumers are stupid enough to think all online reviews are legit, well, you know, if you can profit off them, well, that's capitalism, baby. I do not ascribe to that type of marketing, the lack of ethics makes me nauseous and frustrates me because it makes all marketing professionals look bad. Pay-for-reviews is an enterprise based on lies. Period. But so is a good percentage of merchandise hawked online. Buyer beware. Is Todd Rutherford any different than any other snake oil salesman online? I don't think so.

Unfortunately, though, the people involved with marketing pajama jeans or miracle cures for baldness in the form of spray paint are not creating legions of "authors" who honestly believe all they need are some positive reviews and their writing careers will skyrocket. At worst, they're creating a questionable fashion choice by a few women or giving false hope to men willing to spend another $39.95 on creating the illusion of hair. There's a far more sinister result from the eBook reviewers' scam. I have no idea how credible any of the eBook reviewers' backgrounds are - maybe they do know a lot about writing and prose style and editing and have legit comments - but once they sell positive reviews, they lose all credibility. Everyone involved loses credibility. When everything merits 5 out of 5 stars, everything reviewed devalued. When everything is special, nothing is special.

And meanwhile, speaking of devaluing, the epublishing world is flooded to the brink with crap. Which is the point of blogs, for crying out loud! Blogs are where you post badly written crap, or niche crap, or manifestos, or how-to processes for making/fixing off-the-wall items. I don't want to pay to commiserate with someone like me, I want to read their blog. I don't want to pay for instructions on how to repair my parents' circa 1967 blender. I want to go to a blog or YouTube posted by someone like my dad. The second money changes hands is the second the whole spirit of community is lost.

The message is clear: Someone's looking to profit from their words, they're pimping out their thoughts and/or knowledge, and if you won't pony up, you're not going to get to read the words. Okay, maybe "pimping out" is a little harsh. Okay a lot harsh. But you know what I mean. If someone is a truly talented author or has a great knowledge-base, and the drive and patience to get legitimately published, without the aid of get-rich-quick scams, that's great. I fully support their endeavor.

Unfortunately a lot of eBooks I've read to date are not great. Some would make great blogs, and I would read them if they were blogs. But they're not. The authors want me to pay for their words. And I don't want to do that. No matter how good or bad the reviews, fake or otherwise, there are some (a lot of) words I will not pay to read. And I presume most other people are the same way.

ePublishing has brought vanity presses to the masses, and that's not a good thing. It instills exaggerated senses of ability and accomplishment and that leads to an exaggerated sense of entitlement. There may very well be a Confederacy of Dunces lurking in a 99¢ eBook somewhere, in fact I suspect there are several lurking "out there," but they don't need to buy fake reviews. And they shouldn't have to fight for download ranking with "books" that barely qualify as blogs. It's not just up-and-coming or hidden-talent authors who suffer. Credible authors' works are devalued because, gasp, their publishers dare charge more than 99¢ for the download of their latest work. And they're not spending their marketing budget on pay-for-positive-review scams. (at least we presume not, we hope not, we choose to believe not)

Maybe I'm cynical. Maybe I spent too many years in marketing. Maybe I am a savvy consumer. Or maybe I just have the ability to reason. I have never taken online reviews seriously...except the negative ones. If I read online reviews, I head straight to the negative/lowest rating reviews. I find it fairly easy to discern between someone with unrealistic expectations and someone who has legitimate feedback, so I can weed through the "I hate everything" types and glean insight from the legit feedback types of reviews. Consequently, I find negative reviews are the most helpful to me. I consider them "buyer beware" notices. If someone doesn't like a book because it's too sarcastic for their taste, there's a good possibility I might love it. If someone doesn't like a book because it's not up to par with the author's past works, well, I'll get it from the library at some point way in the future when I'm feeling charitable or bored.

Ultimately, the consumer is the one who has final responsibility in all this. I don't condone the lack of ethics in pay-for-review scams, but - presuming it's not children buying eBooks - anyone buying anything based solely on positive reviews deserves whatever buyer's remorse they get.

And. There is a possibility for a silver lining. If enough readers get burned by purchasing highly rated books that turn out to be awful, that will, eventually, lead to a more discerning eBook crowd. That, in turn, will discourage not-so-great authors, who will then go back where they belong: Blogging. And hey, there's always AdSense. There are bloggers who make money, even more than 99¢, via pimping out their blogs to ads, which is a bigger win for everyone involved. Readers read for free, writers can choose to pimp out their words, or not. Win-win for everyone except pay-for-review scammers. Job done.

Weirdest week ever.

Okay, well, maybe not ever. This is me, after all. There are a number of weird weeks in my ever thus far. But. This I'm reasonably certain in the final assessment of my ever this will rank near the top of my weirdest weeks.

Lots of big lessons learned.

Wanna talk about dating and boys and stuff?

Yeah, why not. We haven't done that for a while.

Let me begin by acknowledging my love/hate relationship with the internet. Love it and hate it. Let me follow up that sweeping statement by acknowledging my love/hate relationship with social media. It's the best of times, and it is the worst of times.

Some dogs should be left alone to peacefully slumber. But thanks to social media, those dogs are not allowed to quietly sleep themselves to death. The internet came along (thanks, Al Gore) and social sites came along, and now it's just one big free-for-all of intrusion.

I have my personal accounts set to ultra highest privacy. But, for job sites, like LinkedIn, the whole point is to be "out there." Exposed. Public. Searchable.

I get a few "hi, how are yous?" from some long ago friends and coworkers, and that's usually nice. Just polite, "Oh, hello! Fancy meeting you here!" kinds of things.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before things took a more sinister turn. I'm kind of surprised it didn't happen sooner, but because it didn't, I was lulled into a false sense of security. I foolishly figured that no one "uncomfortable" from my past would bother to search for me online.

And then blam! I got an email from an old boyfriend via a professional site. This is a very old boyfriend. A very, very, very long ago boyfriend. Somewhere between Rock Star and HWNMNBS. We'll call him He's So Dreamy *sigh* because that was pretty much the way I felt the entire time we dated. I was smitten. And I knew I was smitten and I knew because of that my judgment was impaired. So I tried to tread carefully because He's So Dreamy *sigh* was a real charmer. And boy did he have my number. He knew exactly what to say or do when, and said or did it. He was too perfect for me. Even in my smitten state I knew he was too perfect and, hence, not perfect because no one is that perfect and anyone who appears to be that perfect for me is faking it, or not being seen clearly, or a figment of my imagination. He's So Dreamy *sigh* was real, I didn't imagine him. I had physical proof, I kept a few photos, a couple mementos until I moved a few years ago. Although in all the years since we dated he has sort of receded to a fuzzy, dreamlike place in my memory, so on the rare occasions I think about him it does seem like he could have been a figment of my imagination. And I don't think he was faking anything. So, that means I was too smitten to see him clearly.

The great thing about He's So Dreamy *sigh* is that from start to finish, our time together was pretty much perfect. We respected each other. We shared enough interests to understand each other but had enough different interests to keep things interesting between us. We had great communication, so much so that we never argued, we discussed our feelings and reached compromises. And he was the best kisser who's ever kissed me. His kisses were the stuff of poetry. Intoxicating. Transporting. Life altering. Oh yes, the man was gifted with some sort of crazy kiss mojo. The first time he kissed me I honestly thought he'd slipped me some sort of mickey because the second his lips touched mine I felt lightheaded and woozy and I'm pretty sure my eyes rolled into the back of my head. He remains the standard by which all other kisses are rated. Since I'm retired from dating and up on the shelf we can safely say his were the best kisses of my life.

We broke up because the timing was off. When we met, neither one of us was in the market for a relationship. But, that's exactly what we got. So there was always an understanding that the relationship probably wouldn't work out because neither one of us wanted a relationship at that time. Yet we kept seeing each other, we kept caring about each other, and yes, we kept kissing. From start to finish the whole thing lasted about 9 months. Which is supremely ironic because the main reason we stopped seeing each other was children. He was at a juncture in life where, if he was going to be in a serious relationship then he wanted it to be a serious relationship, a lifelong relationship with children. Otherwise he was going to dedicate himself to a deeply focused couple of years dedicated to nothing but his career with no personal distractions. I wasn't quite there, in either of those places, yet. I was willing to adjust my timeline, but he would have had to adjust some serious stuff in his life, he was at an "either or" point, and ultimately it wasn't the right time for either of us to commit to a lifelong relationship and children. Much as I wanted to get married and have children, and maybe with him, I wasn't ready to make that decision then. I needed more time to date him. I knew I was smitten and I knew I need to get a better, clearer-minded, realistic sense of him. I needed more time in my career. And I certainly didn't want him to sacrifice the career opportunities he had ahead of him for me.

We were both heartbroken, neither of us wanted to break up - another irony since neither of us wanted a relationship in the first place - and there were a lot of agonizing conversations. Followed by those kisses which completely impaired my ability to reason. Ultimately we severed ties. We deemed it the only, and best way to end it. No ill will, heartbroken but not hurt. All very mature and enlightened.

He moved. I moved. I got a new job. I started dating new guys. Life(?) continued. I never looked back with regret. I missed He's So Dreamy *sigh*, but I knew we made the right decision. I knew the timing was wrong for both of us and ultimately I knew my judgment was impaired, I knew under all that perfect-for-me-ness there where annoying flaws and traits and habits, an ugly underbelly. And more to the point, he would have eventually discovered my flaws and not-so-cute traits and bad habits, my ugly underbelly. My admiration for his thirst for knowledge would have turned to contempt over his need to always prove a point to the point of beating a dead horse. His chuckling "you're so cute" attitude about my determination would have turned to scorn and disdain over my stubbornness. That kind of thing. And if we made the huge sacrifices required to continue the relationship, resentments would form, his kisses would lose their mojo and we'd see each other through clearer vision. So it was good we ended it. I have always been certain we did the right thing. We each walked away with no hard feelings. Not an easy thing to accomplish, so I have always been proud of us for our maturity and insight.

And that was the beauty of it. We never grew complacent or resentful of each other. Every moment we shared was, well, pretty darned good. And we ended it, purposefully, before anything could creep in to create negative feelings between us. The worst thing about the relationship was the romantically tragic demise of it. I, and I hope he, was left with nothing but sigh and smile inducing memories.

I was perfectly happy to keep it that way. He is my one perfect dating memory. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him, but I push it away with a kiss to karma that life has been good for him. And I leave it at that. I've never been tempted to Google him. I've never looked him up on any social sites. I've never pursued anything other than the occasional recollection of his kisses. I don't want anything to taint my memories of that perfect dating slice of my life. I've never even considered him one that got away. After all, I got away, too.

We dated in the halcyon days of yore before internet stalking. The internet was a real thing when we were dating, but not a huge thing, not a social networking thing, not the thing it is now.

So I was not pleased to see his name in my in box. So much so that I stubbornly refused to open the email for several days. I wanted to delete it without looking at it, but I couldn't bring myself to delete. I was giving myself a cooling off period. "Give it a week or two and see how you feel about it then. You can delete it whenever you want, but once you delete it you can't get it back, so just let it sit there for as long as you need to sort out your feelings about hearing from him. This is Pandora's Box stuff, so tread carefully."

Maybe he has some horrible terminal disease and he's reaching out to you because he's dying. Maybe he's been carrying a torch for you all these years. Maybe it's not even the same guy, maybe it's another guy with the same name. Those thoughts and many (many) more crossed my mind. 

Yadda yadda yadda I finally I just read it. Like ripping off a bandage.

He didn't say a whole lot, it was just a general query to see if I was his old girlfriend and if so, "Hi!" and an invite to join his professional network.

Here's the thing. I didn't mind him finding out that I'm still single (and that was presuming he's married - so no, I'm not hoping to get something brewing again), but for some reason I'm mortified that since he's seen my professional profile, he knows I'm unemployed. That is really upsetting me.

I don't post photos of myself on professional networking sites, so if I don't accept his request, he'll just think I'm a different person with the same name as his former girlfriend. So I decided I could still literally save face.

And.

I had a few drinks and I did the unthinkable. I looked at his profile.

Hey, I'd gone that far, I'd had a few drinks, it was a really weird (and not in a good way) week. Cut me a little slack. 

You can never go home again and I shouldn't have tried. Poof! illusions were shattered and memories were tainted. Oh, he's fine. Based on how he wrote his professional dossier he's still witty and intelligent and talented. It appears he's been extremely busy and wildly prolific and the work samples he posted are impressive. Yay him! I was happy for him. His professional life appears to have followed his plan and he seems to be successful as a result. And he's still handsome. Aged, of course, but still recognizable.

But. He's also taken up golf, cut his hair and seems to spend a lot of time drinking beer in plastic cups with 22 year old blondes wearing bikini tops and Daisy Dukes. He is nowhere near 22. He's older than me. Yeah. He's one of those guys.*  The girls could be his daughters. But I'm pretty sure they're not. For the record, I'm not upset that he's "spending time" with young scantily clad women. Smoke 'em if you got 'em, dude. I'm "upset" that he posted photos "like that" on a professional networking site.

It's in huge opposition to the guy he was when we dated. That guy mocked and ridiculed middle aged men who dated girls "like that." He hated golf. And he kept his hair longer because when he cut it short he thought he looked like a pervy history teacher who's trying too hard to look innocent and pretends to be sensitive and helpful to students in need as a ruse to molest them. I never saw him with short hair so I took his word for it. Looking at the photos, especially with the young women on his arms, he's right. Short hair makes him look like a pervy history teacher wearing a disguise of trustworthiness as a way to seduce young people.

I don't wanna know any of this. I want him to be the singularly perfect guy I dated. I want him to be the guy in my memory, the memory that is shrouded in those mesmerizing kisses. 

But now my lone perfect dating memory is shattered. I was given a time machine, took it for a test drive and didn't like what I found in the future. No one to blame but myself.

Oh sure, the platitudes about shattering illusions being necessary to keep a grip on reality write themselves in this situation, but I don't need a grip on reality. I have a firm grip on reality. And the memories of dating He's So Dreamy *sigh* were the one escape I had from reality. Those memories help me cope with being a spinster. I remind myself that I had a good run, I had some good dating experiences, even one especially great dating experience that included kisses that are the stuff of poetry. I had more than most people get because most people do not get those kind of kisses. (Seriously, they were akin to the things you hear when people describe pleasant acid trips: hearing colors, tasting music, feeling the sky, all of it on some out-of-body plane of being in a different but joined dimension.) 

Mine is a cautionary tale of the dangers of social networking that's been told countless times. When it comes to old flames, leave the past in the past. Were it not for the internet there's no way either of us would ever run into each other. Without the aid of a private detective there's no way either of us could find the other, and even then it might be difficult. But, thanks to the internet, there we are peering into the details of each others' lives. It hit home, hard, that for all the glories the internet gives us, it has taken away some valuable psychology. It's difficult, if not impossible, to leave the past truly in the past. There's always the chance that someone or something from long ago will reappear in some form online. Oh sure, this has a good side, you don't lose touch with people, you maintain friendships, blah blah blah.

But. The kid who purposely hurled a ball at your face and broke your nose in a game of dodge ball in gym class, college roommate you grew to detest, former coworkers who slacked through days and then stole your ideas and presented them at the meeting with the senior manager, the one perfect guy you dated whose kisses were the stuff of poetry...people best left safely tucked far, far in the past can reappear and bring all the baggage and psychology from the past with them. Even if it's a momentary, "Are you kidding me? No way do I want to get in touch with him!" moment before hitting delete, they're there. They force themselves back into our heads.

We haven't lost innocence, most of us were not naive, we knew moving on meant moving on and not looking back. You know, a healthy way to progress through life. Living, learning, evolving. We've lost opportunities for wisdom and insight that can only be gained from time and distance combined with the knowledge that people in our past are truly in our past.

All the more reason to not name names anywhere on the internet. One Google search can open a floodgate of emotions that were neatly processed and tucked away in the memory files. Do you want to know that a coworker of your former flame is angry at your former flame for not putting a cover sheet on the TPS report? Do you want to know your arch rival on the high school debate team is embroiled in a nasty divorce wherein the feuding spouse is posting vitriolic criticism about the sexual shortcomings of your former debate team foe?

Do you want to know your one perfect romance, the guy you though could never be that guy, is golfing and traveling the world drinking beer from plastic cups with fake boobed, bikini clad women more than half his age and posting them on a professional networking site?

Naming names online hurts everyone. It has far reaching consequences. The pen is mightier than the sword. Truer words n'er were written.

The memories of He's So Dreamy *sigh* are still there, you can't change the past. But. You can add to the file. And now, unfortunately, there's a permanent addition to He's So Dreamy *sigh*'s file. I decided to not accept his request. I am getting out quickly, hoping in a few weeks my cherished memories will prevail and all will be psychologically well. And I'm giving him the gift he took from me: I'm letting him keep me in his past.




*The women in the audience who've perused online dating sites know what I mean by one of those guys. The men probably don't know this, but you see a lot of those kinds of photos on dating sites. It's a thing amongst a certain type of over 40 man. They seem to travel around the world going to places where they drink beer in plastic cups with 22 year old scantily clad blonde women. And then they post copious photos of themselves at these events on their dating profiles with titles like, "Me in Barcelona," "Me in Rio," "Me in Monaco," "Me in Shanghai," but the photos have no distinguishable landmarks and the girls all look the same - generic blonde 22 year olds with fake boobs busting out of bikini tops and Daisy Dukes breaking the span between their tanned thighs and flat stomachs. I presume those guys think they're providing a template for the kind of women they want to meet online, visually saying, "See this, ladies? I date women like this. If you look like this please contact me. If you don't look like this, move on to the systems analyst who likes World of Warcraft two profiles over." Because, you know, 22 year old blondes with enormous fake boobs who like to trot around the world in bikini tops and Daisy Dukes spend a lot of time on online dating sites, and when they see photos of women who look like them in a guy's profile they think, "Perfect! This middle aged guy likes to date women who look like me! And he likes to travel the world drinking beer from plastic cups! Awesome! I love online dating! It's so awesome!"