I'd Like to Take This Opportunity

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce my feud against Oliver H. Gustafson.

Some might say an online dating profile is no place to do such a thing, but to those some I would say—“Where is a good place to do such a thing?  Is there such a place?  Who can say?”

“Not me,” I would say, “I certainly can’t say.”

And then I would go on with my announcement, as I’m now about to do:

I realize the purpose of an online dating profile is to tell you about me, but enough about me, I already know me.  You need to know Oliver H. Gustafson.  He’s the reason we’re here.

Not to get him a date, of course, but to end his reign of terror.

Oliver has the following hobbies:

Tennis

Sailing
Destroying people’s lives.

Golf—Miniature and Regular

Sex with Other People’s People

Clean Cooking—Whatever the fuck that means.

Carving his name into wooden furniture—Like rocking chairs and oak dressers (I’ve seen him do it.  He says he was just “goofing around with a penknife because I kept him waiting for thirty-eight minutes while I was getting ready to go out” but I think it speaks to a pattern.)

Lying

Lying

Lying

A Little More Life Destroying

White Water Rafting

He’s about 5’11 if you believe him, but really, I think he’s 5’9 tops.  He’d also tell you he’s 178lbs, which, if he were really 5’11, would be a totally appropriate and attractive weight for him, but anybody looking at him can tell you he’s at least 200lbs and probably more.

Oliver also says his eyes are blue, but only if by blue you’re thinking of water that’s been polluted with dirty brown oil, in which case, yes, they’re very, very blue.

He’s looking for someone to share his life with—for about thirty-six hours, maybe forty-three, if you’re lucky.  After that, he’ll get tired of you and invite you to go sailing with him, which will sound wonderful you, because you won’t realize that ‘You should come sailing with me sometime’ is actually just code for ‘I’m never going to speak to you again.’

You’ll have visions of a boat and a harbor and wine on the mizzenmast watching the sun go down before you make your way up to the crow’s nest to make love under the stars.  And yes, maybe after a few moments of fantasizing, you’ll realize that you don’t know anything about boats or how they work or what anything’s called, but that won’t matter, because you’ll have Oliver H. Gustafson firmly implanted in your mind like an extra tooth that pops up in the back of your mouth because you’ve been grinding your teeth for twenty years and never knew it.

All that will be ripped away from you when you message Oliver several times and never get a response.  You’re left waiting like a widow on a widow’s walk waiting for her husband’s ship to come back into focus on the horizon knowing full well she’s going to have to move into her sister’s spare room in Buffalo because the rent in the city gets more outrageous every month and she quit her job at the call center because she if she didn’t she was going to get fired because she kept taking breaks to call her dead husband Oliver and tell him that he’s the worst fucking sailor she’s ever had sex with and she just wanted him to know that before she jumped off her widow’s walk into the rock garden she made because one time he mentioned liking rock gardens before he set sail and now the rocks spell out his name and her blood is going to be spilled all over them.

Oh, that’s right, Oliver’s interests also (potentially) include rock gardens and getting people fired from their job right before they quit.

He’s also a non-practicing Unitarian.

He’s a Libertarian.

He’s a Pescatarian.

His current girlfriend is a librarian.

Because of course she is.

That’s everything about him worth knowing, and now I think you know why my feud against him is justified.

If you’d like to aid me in my quest to stop this soul monster from eating up the kindness of innocent single people only to spit them out again like the rice he spit out even though you warned him that sometimes you use a little too much salt when you cook—

Please message me and we can formulate a plan to unite against this heartless, strictly fish-eating cretin.

And also, if you’d like a date.  You can message me about that too.

You probably won’t believe this, but I’m single.

I know—I’d be surprised too.