I joined a dating service in the early 2000s. It cost a stupid amount of money to sign up. Something like $3k. The women were either a bunch of flakes or fugly if they didn’t have like 6 kids. Most of the people that had any success in it were older. I tried to join about six months before they took me and the woman on the phone told me they didn’t have many women in my age group (late 20s at the time) and when they accepted me she no longer worked there. Probably because she was too honest.

They did a couple mixers at different venues nearby. I went to one on a Saturday afternoon in a public park and I immediately felt bad for the women because the men weren’t any better, not saying I’m any kind of Adonis either. There was this one guy who had either hydrocephalus or cerebral palsy or something because he could barely talk and his teeth were all fucked up. Now how in the hell do you take money from someone like that? Who would date him?

I ended up wasting a lot of money on this place, an I even gave them another thousand dollars for a lifetime membership.

I actually had more fun with the women in the office than anyone I ever went out with that was “in the program”. I say it that way because there was more than one customer I spoke to who wouldn’t date anyone who wasn’t “in the program”, which is really shortsighted. What difference does it make? The money’s gone anyway. One of my bosses at work joined about ten years after me because his long time girlfriend dumped him and broke his heart and his mother got tired of him moping around lonely so she gifted him a membership. He didn’t stay in for more than an initial term (which is a year I think?) and afterwards he started dating his matcher who quit after they got together. They’re still together today.

So I go in on a Saturday for an in person matching session where they lay out a whole bunch of dossiers of people they think would be a good match for you (or so they say) and there’s one I recognize as soon as I hear her first name and that she was “honorably discharged from the Army Reserve”. We were actually in the same unit about six years prior but we didn’t work directly together because she was in a different platoon but I knew her well enough to stay away from her because in those days DoD was on a big s***** harassment kick and you’re better off not doing anything that has even the slightest chance of being interpreted as making a pass at someone. Perhaps she was previously traumatized? Hard to say and I had no inclination to say more than two words to her and even then only when necessary. But I figured several years had passed, we’re not soldiers anymore, maybe she’s changed so I say yes that I would like to meet her, but I said nothing about knowing her before to my matcher. The way it worked was that they would get both parties to agree to a match before they would exchange phone numbers and they wanted the man to initiate contact, which is dumb, but whatever.

Incidentally, I asked out of curiosity if they did same s** matching and they said no because the algorithm doesn’t work for that which is b******* and it’s the same lame excuse that Neil Clark Warren used when he started E Harmony and his dumb a** got sued for discrimination and had to accommodate accordingly. That should have told me something about this company.

It was Monday before I got a call from the office that she was interested and that I could call so they gave me her number, which was a landline. I don’t remember if they gave me her cell number too, or whether or not she had one. Not unusual in those days, and she’s a few years older than me anyway.

When I had a few minutes I gave her a call. From the beginning, I told her I’m an over the road truck driver and I’m only home on weekends so the earliest we could meet would be Saturday. She seemed cool with it. She gave me a general idea where she lived and I did the same. Then she says “I was honorably discharged from the Army Reserve!” just like they told me when they showed me her folder on Saturday. It struck me as a little odd to put it that way because it’s like “no s*** D***, if it was a bad discharge or an entry level separation, you wouldn’t be bragging about it”. Beside, everyone else just says “I just got out of the army. But I let it go and asked her if she was in the XXXth ABC whatever Battlion and she was surprised that I knew that until I told her I was in the same unit but she didn’t remember me. At one point she also said in a really snotty voice “I hope you don’t smoke because that is the most disgusting habit” and I remember thinking that chewing tobacco is orders of magnitude grosser than smoking it and I see she hasn’t changed much but whatever. We ended after a few minutes of chatting and I told her I would call her in a couple days and maybe I would have a better idea when I was getting back home depending on where I was and which way I was going. Maybe I would be home Friday evening and where she lives is usually on the way home for me (depends on where I’m going) perhaps we could meet at the truck stop about ten miles from her.

So I called her back later in the week. Wednesday or Thursday maybe just to say hi to her. I already wasn’t feeling her very much because based on our first conversation her opinion on smoking made her sound kind of miserable and someone who talks about being in the Army the way she does is, honestly, a real t*****. The people who actually did something when they were in and actually have something to talk about rarely say anything about it. It’s certainly not the first thing that comes out of their mouths, especially if you’re like she and I. I was in 3 years and never made it past E-4 and she was already in for a few years when I left and she was still an E-4 which I seriously doubt she made it past because if you don’t make E-5 in four or five years, it’s not likely that you will. My record was by no means exemplary (meaning no active duty other than training and no deployments) and she certainly wasn’t in Desert Storm (I know this because someone who was there knew when she enlisted and it was after that) in spite of KKMC (King Khalid Military City) written on the back of the headband on her kevlar which this person who was there also said that she should remove it because she wasn’t there. It was probably put there by the original soldier who was issued that, because it’s part of your TA-50 that you return when you separate.

Anyway, this conversation ended after she told me “I don’t think you really want to meet me” and I reiterated my original statement of only being home weekends. Her reply was that she just didn’t want to talk to me anymore because I’m not putting enough effort into meeting her. Obviously she’s a little dense so I left it at that and we said our goodbyes.

The next part is very important: after I took the phone away from my ear and pressed the hang up button I said out loud (no one else heard ad I was driving at the time) “F****** b****” and put it out of my mind.

A couple hours later the phone rings and I see it’s the dating service but I was driving and let it go to voicemail. I was glad I did because when I checked, it was the supervisor who “…just got of the phone with t***** lady from your Army Reserve unit and she told me you cursed her out over the phone.” and had I taken that call I probably would’ve jumped through the phone. This was my first match after giving these people another thousand dollars (for lifetime membership) and this one tries to jam me up. I told the supervisor that “I in no way cursed her out. I may have used a four letter word here and there but none of it was directed at her. I can call her and apologize if you want” but the response was not to bother as it may not be a good idea and we’ll just move on, so I wonder if she pulled this s*** with other guys. Quite possible, but no way of knowing.

I got a few more matches from them but after all this with that lady, and another one who lied about her age (some background check they did) and another weirdo who lived some distance away from me who when we were talking on the phone about where to meet and I suggested a place halfway between us and I heard a man’s voice in the background “how the hell far does he think you’re gonna drive?” and I asked her who that was and she said “my father” I had about enough of the basket case crazy cat ladies (one had 12 of them and she brought a photo album of them on our first date with her) and I just stopped returning their calls. This was 2002 or 2003 and the last call I got came in 2006. Since then one of their customers who was a fairly wealthy business owner bought the company and it went out of business shortly after. Good riddance.

But before I finally had enough stopped calling them back I plotted my revenge. I did this while I was still a satisfied (although becoming dissatisfied) customer. I waited about a month and called her from a payphone. Remember, she had a landline and this was the one I called. My only regret is using my Comdata card. Trucking companies use it for payroll and also as a fuel and repairs payment card but it also used to function as a calling card for a dime a minute against whatever balance you have on the card, so it could probably be traced if someone really wanted to.

After calling her once to make sure it was still her number I set my plan into motion. In those days AOL still had chat rooms so I created a screen name incorporating her first name and stole a picture from somewhere on the internet that vaguely matched her description, not that it really mattered but I wanted to make it good and people are reluctant to chat unless you have a picture. I then logged into a lesbian chat room and chatted up a few people and gave them her phone number. I even argued in the main room with a few guys and dared them to call that number. Then later that day I called her from a payphone. She sounded quite angry when she answered and and didn’t say anything. I just held my hand over the receiver so she couldn’t hear and after the third “Helwow who is dis” she started screaming “you need to stop cwalling me!” I tried again a few days later and her phone was disconnected. I’m sure she got a bunch of calls from creepy dudes but I doubt she got very many from actual women (which wasn’t really the point), either way I’m sure it drove her up the wall and she got rid of the landline and disconnected or changed it

I don’t suppose it was a good thing to do that and she didn’t deserve a beating or getting raped by some thirsty rando even if she was a miserable c***. And a c*** she was and I don’t regret doing it.