I started to warn her about some “Craigslist Crazies” who will occasionally go so far as to send little more than a picture of their genitals… and right then, in real time, she got a ridiculously rude, short and poorly-written response to her ad essentially telling her that there was no way a woman with a picture as cute as hers could a) be her age, and b) be on Craigslist. Talk about a backhanded compliment! He essentially told her to f*ck off and get on Match.com… interesting stragety.

This was *immediately* followed up by a nice-seeming guy who wrote several paragraphs about himself, asked interesting questions… and then got right to the point: he was looking for a third in an M-F-F threesome. Yeah, in response to her ad seeking, you know, a soul mate. Save a LITTLE something for the second date, buddy.

Ah, Craigslist. At least you never fail to entertain!

There are worse ways to spend a Saturday night. After having been out of the country for two weeks, and off the radar for waaaay longer, it sure was nice to get a bit of positive business interaction!

Hopefully it’ll spur me on to bigger and better things come the new year. As it is, I’m busily working on a Lovebug book, and trying to get through all the holiday travels and parties without getting too frazzled or going broke!

Happy holidays and hugs to everyone… I hope to be back to consulting more often come January!

But this story was so cute and heartwarming that it dragged me out of my blogging sabbatical. To every single client who has expressed the feeling that they are “too old” to have any success with online dating: NUH-UH!

If a pair of 83-year-olds can boldly jump into the online scene and *get married*, no less, I think it’s safe to say you’re never too old. Good hunting, daters!

Well, two out of three of them. I got one for each side of my car (so that the arrow pointing to the Card Caddie would go backwards on each side for optimal placement). They were a pretty good deal, but they still cost a pretty penny!

The very first day I applied them to my vehicle, the driver’s side one went flying off my door in the 520 wind. Oops!

So Grant ordered me a replacement. Which just got stolen (I think last night when I was parked in Pioneer Square for my high school reunion.)So, uh, classmates/drunks/hooligans of Pioneer Square, can I pretty please have my magnet back? It does me a lot more good than you!

I mean, c’mon… the card thing in the parking lot was at least amusing. Sort of. But answer me this: what the heck are you really gonna do with a magnet advertising someone else’s company? I’d like to think you could at least make your vandalism useful, like the hacked McDonald’s sign Grant spotted today. You can do better, vandals! Show me your A game!

At least, I assume it was kids. That’s exactly the sort of generous yet snarky thing my friends and I would do in our bored, antsy, mildly rebellious teen years. Heh.

On the one hand, sweet — free promotional labor!

On the other hand, I traditionally hate windshield fliers on principle.

But back to the one hand, this actually isn’t a terrible marketing idea, even though malls are frequently full of couples and families.  (Every couple knows a single person who could use a few tips from me!)

But back to the other hand, business cards aren’t the cheapest thing to go papering windshields with.

But back again to the one hand, it takes me forever to bother setting aside the time and clarity to design new flier templates.

But back again to the other hand, who am I kidding?  Grant totally does all my graphic design work.

The one again, even after he does it (and he always does a great job), I take forever to get it printed up.

The other again, who am I kidding?  I could easily work something like that into a lunch break if I actually remembered to do it.

The one, I then forget to actually POST said fliers for months.

The other… I need a nap.

Kids, next time, I’d prefer if you could just steal a T-shirt (or better yet, borrow) and wear it all over town, K?  Especially to parties with lots of singles folks.  But thank you for the help (I think)!

And to anyone who received a windshield flier and was annoyed: this was not my doing.  But call me anyway if you like.  And have a great weekend!

Personally, I think half the battle is approaching things in a new light — not constantly muttering how terrible things are and how bad our economy is.  But there’s definitely more to it than that.

My own bit at SHINE was mostly about how I’m seeing business boom lately, despite the recession — my theory is that people are no longer willing to sit back and allow their lives to be unsatisfactory.  Once they wind up laid off from their job, they’re taking the initiative to search for something more meaningful and soul-fulfilling  — in this case, finding love!

I love being a part of that search, and I hope this economic crisis has provided the opportunity for some people to re-examine their priorities and move their emotional happiness up a bit on the list!  I’ll post a full clip of my interview once it’s done being edited.

Craig states that participating in social media and reviewing sites is an act of patriotism and compassion to other consumers.  I tend to agree — I’m one of the most review-happy people I know, possibly because I’m overly critical, but I like to think of it as simply having high standards.

Especially when something is very pricey or when there is a lot at stake, I’m known to be VERY vocal about it later on.  Usually just a so-so experience warrants no comment, but if I have an experience that’s either extremely positive or extremely negative, you can bet I’ll be mentioning it on Google Reviews, Citysearch, Judy’s Book, Yelp… you  name it.

I’m glad to see Craig encouraging consumers to get involved, especially when it comes to dating-related sites.  I like to think of myself as one of the few positive reviews out there, since I don’t think many people are convinced by the models and actors in eHarmony commercials and Yahoo banner ads.  Here’s hoping that we can start to balance out the often overwhelming negativity surrounding online dating!

The era of Myspace was a favorite for lots of people I know.  It was so easy — if you had a unique Myspace URL, it was a great way to send a potential online date a simple link that included some photos and snippets about you, but didn’t disclose your most personal information (like your last name, place of work, etc.).  While Myspace allowed for lots of disclosue, the culture wasn’t wild about putting too many details in, so it was a pretty safe and secure way to show someone a snapshot of your personality without disclosing too much sensitive stuff.

And it had another great application — as an online dating network. I know TONS of singles who used to use Myspace as a way to search for and contact other compatible singles.  Now that Myspace’s heyday is over, those singles are lamenting all the changes to the online social scene — private profiles mean you can’t search for cool matches as easily, and Facebook’s dominance means it’s not a good dating platform.

Did you catch that, readers?  Facebook is NOT a good dating platform!  First and last names, places of work, detailed geographical and employment info, and no unique URLs means bad news for online dating.  Facebook is a great tool in many ways, but this is just not an area where it shines.

So for now, stick to hand-picking which details your potential bachelor(ette)s receive, and happy (and safe) dating!