A Weirdo in Eight Parts

Here’s the thing. When I started doing the Weirdo of the Week, I promised myself I wouldn’t post messages from guys who just couldn’t spell. Who was I to make fun of someone for barely being able to speak English when I myself can barely speak Arabic (and I have lived for 16 years in a county where Arabic is the language).

But, well. I couldn’t help myself with 38-year-old Ahmed.

Subject: tiger

Body: Hi,
How r u ?
Am a new friend,half egy and half british,a doctor(cardiologist)heart disease,living in kuwait.If u r interested to know me,it'll be a pleasure to recieve ur reply.
Have a nice day.
Ahmed

Part I: The Subject

“Tiger,” he says. When I clicked to open the message, I was fully expecting the actual message to have something to do with the subject line of “tiger”. Why did he put that in the subject? Am I the tiger? Is he the tiger? Is he a tiger in bed? Is he implying that he’s on the prowl? Seriously, Ahmed, I’m dying to know what you meant by this.

Part II: “Am a new friend.”

Ahmed, darling, you are NOT a new friend. I know you want to be my friend, but friendship is a two way street. It’s very presumptuous for you to just assume that we’re friends. That’s like me meeting Christian Bale one day, and walking up to him saying “Am new wife.”

Part III: Race

You’re half “egy” and half British. I have lived in the Middle East and have never once heard someone refer to themselves as “Egy”. Egyptian, sure. From Egypt, yep. “Egy”? No. That’s just stupid.

Part IV: Profession

“a doctor(cardiologist)heart disease”. Ahmed, I know what a cardiologist is, for one. For two, as a doctor, do you not know how to construct normal sentences? “a doctor(cardiologist)heart diseases” literally makes no sense at all. At least you knew how to spell your profession.

Part V: “If u r interested to know me”

Ahmed! I thought you announced that you were my friend? Why would you ask if I was interested to know you if you already said you were my friend? Come on, dear, get with the program.

Part VI: His Page

Go visit it, please. His “friend” Janice covers his page with sparkly, flashy MySpace images and tells him that “ANGELS SURROND YOU ALWAYS”. My favourite is her first comment:

THANK YOU FOR ADDING ME AND SO NICE TO MEET YOU. HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEKEND. ANGELS TO WATCH OVER YOU AND ALWAYS KEEP YOU SAFE FROM ALL THAT IS BAD. WHAT A WONDERFUL FRIEND YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TO ME. PEACE, LOVE AND LIGHT IN YOUR LIFE. MUCH LUV ALWAYS JANICE

Janice. How can he have always been a wonderful friend if you say that it is “so nice to meet him.” Did you meet in another life? I hope you met in English class.

Part VII: The Whole Package.

For a doctor, who is half British, he certainly doesn’t have a grasp on English. Spaces after commas, Ahmed. I before E except after C, makes it “receive”. Fragments!! Stop the fragments!

Tiger, man. Tiger.

Desperation doesn’t smell good on anyone.

That’s why some of my favourite weirdoes are the ones who just REEK of the stuff. You know the type. They’re the ones who consistently send you messages, asking why you aren’t responding to their witty repartee (though their version of witty repartee is something like “wOOOwwoOO! U r so sexxeeback. Letz chat?”).

I was lamenting to Anne earlier this week that I didn’t have a Weirdo of the Week yet, and that the messages had kind of tapered off. Was it something I had done or said? Did my profile need to be spiced up?

Then, Sam came into my life.

Sam is a special kind of Weirdo, the kind that sends you a message, then sends you another one wondering why you didn’t respond to his original one, then sends you yet another one still wondering and dropping hints that the two of you are soul mates and you really, really, really should send him a message so you can begin planning your life together.

Message #1 was sent at 1:07 p.m.:

Subject: Hey coolish!;)p

Body: Hey ..
You've got a wonderful profile! even the background color! it is really warm! ur pics are nice! I just wana tell u that u gain my interest , if u dont mind .. Lets chat through MSN

My… background colour is really warm? And wonderful? I actually like that he asks if I mind that I “gain his interst.” Why, yes, Sam, I do mind.

Message #2 was sent about ten minutes later, at 1:17 p.m.:

Subject: is that mean

Body: Is that mean we cant chat? It is just simple thing to do , am not asking for much .. chatting is good to discuss thoughs and share information , get to know people too!

See, the thing is, I’m not so much a fan of discussing “thoughs”. Nor am I a fan of sharing information. And I know enough people, thanks.

Sam, however, was persistent. Because he sent Message #3 six minutes later:

Subject: hmm

Body: We are both Online right now . this is my MSN ID OneLastThing.79@xxxxxx.com

dont be so lazy to not replay me .. ;)

Oh, Sam! You know me so well already! It’s because I’m lazy that I’m not “replay”ing you. If only I had the energy and motivation to respond to the One Last Thing, I’m sure we can share all of our thoughs and have little MySpace babies and live happily ever after.

Addendum: I had written up this blog a few days earlier, when I initially got those messages. Right before posting, I received yet another message from Our Friend Sam:

“Hello, I am not sure if you will ever see this msg or NO,
but you deserve a try! , I came here to Kuwait few month ago , and now I think am lacking everything , useful conversation , good friends and many things , so I thought that I may find nice people over here , I mean in this cyber Place, I understand that most of the people they use Internet to fake each others , but still for me Internet is a good technology has been created for us, where you can share your information and discuss ur thoughts and issue, also to get to know people and differenet culture.Your profile attracted me thats why I am sending you this msg , if you are interested it will be really nice if we start our first convesration through any Chat Programe , MSN or Yahoo Messenger
my ID is OneLastThing.79@xxxxxxx.com
and for yahoo SamQxxx

Thanks
Sam.”

OH, Sam. That almost made me feel sorry for you. But the stench of desperation made me look away in disgust.

kuwaitairways777

Originally Posted Wednesday, November 15

Weirdos are everywhere. It's even scarier when they reveal to you that they work for one of the two major airlines in Kuwait, because, really, who are they allowing on board the planes these days?

Subject: SWEEEETY

"hi
nice to meeet u
i'm from kuwait
i'm working in kuwaitairways
kuwaitairways777@emailaddress.com
i'm steward in the airline

my name is jasem


i wait u email and u can send to me SMS XXXXXXX*"


First of all, what? "SWEEEETY"?

Second of all, do you love your job THAT much that you put company name in your personal email address? You didn't see me wandering around with an email address like "courtesymortgage4eva@gmail.com". That's just bizarre.

I wonder if I could get free tickets and airline miles if I wrote him back. I'm too afraid to take that risk.




* number deleted to protect the innocent.

Doodos

Originally Posted Wednesday, November 8, 2006

Men are pigs.

Not all men, of course. I have a handful of men on my "Men Are Not Pigs" list. But just about very male who randomly sends me a message on MySpace hoping for me to call them/IM them/have cyber sex with them is a pig.

Every once in awhile, however, I get a message that makes me not only want to shoot the sender, but I also feel compelled to share the message with the world. So I'm beginning a new feature: MySpace Pervert of the Week. Random men, if you're reading this, keep sending me messages. Maybe you'll be featured.

This week's MySpace Pervert of the Week is this gentleman:

"in black dress u r looking too hot and i like ur doodo is too big and nice shape i wana play with ur doodo plz i m in kuwait is posible any time i can com my id is princecoolc@xxxxx.com u can chat with me and decide to which place to come"

a) What is a "doodo"? Is that my breasts? What's wrong with the word "breast"?
b) Why on earth would you try to attract someone by telling them you want to "play with [their] doodo" and that it has "nice shape"?
c) My god, I think I just had an aneurysm.

what's this all about?

I fully admit it: I'm a sucker for those social networking sites. I'm a member of MySpace, Facebook, hi5 (which, really, is just a terrible, terrible site), and the now-pretty-much-defunct Friendster (I don't even remember my log-in for that, which makes me a little sad).

If you're female and a member of any of those sites, you'll know that because you are a female and a member, you're just gagging for creepy perverts to send you messages. I'm no exception. I'm not claiming that I'm Hot Stuff, I'm just saying that because I have breasts, it seems that the general mentality of the majority of male members on these sites is that they're welcome to send me messages asking me everything from my phone number to if they can play with my "doodos" (true story).

So I started blogging about it. I began blogging on MySpace, posting the strange messages I get. But then the other day, I got a message on hi5. I wondered if I could cross over, posting about that on MySpace, but it just felt dirty somehow. As if I was stomping on the sacred Holy Ground that is MySpace.

That's why I'm on blogger.

If you have any weird messages that you've received and you want to see featured here, send them my way: weirdooftheweek@gmail.com