okay. i’ve already made my point about net people in general – they’re troublemaking losers with waaay too much time on their hands. but now it’s time to get specific. i don’t chat online so i can’t logically rant about that (though from what i’ve heard the problem i’m about to discuss here also applies to chat big-time) what i AM going to talk about is email, both solicited and not, and many of it’s senders’ insatiable cyber-sexual urges...and YES, all you girls who think you’re the only victims of this sort of thing, us guys get it just as bad and nearly as often.

first point in question...unsolicited mail. where does it come from? well, as you’ve seen if you’ve been paying any at all attention to the layout of this site, my email address (and my personal email, that is...i tried to establish a separate address awhile back and kinda...errmm...LOST TRACK of it) is posted at several points, for the purpose of receiving feedback, whether it be praise, complaints, or rants from visitors. while i’ve received a couple of each of the above since the establishment of this site, the vast majority of the letters i’ve gotten have been of a totally different variety...a mixture of veiled (and not-so-veiled) death threats and offers of sex. i kid you not. and to be completely honest with you, the sex letters freaked me out a hell of a lot more than most of the death threats did. first and foremost, these wackos don’t frickin’ KNOW me. up till a few weeks ago, there wasn’t even a picture of me on this bloody site (the pic is there now, not to enhance or even hinder their desires, but rather to satisfy the curiosities of some of my more NORMAL visitors) i don’t see my "literary persona" (or even my real-life one for that matter) as particularly sexy, and god knows i don’t make anything that could possibly be misconstrued as an advance to sex in any of my writing. all i do is bitch and complain. SO WHAT THE FUCK IS IT??? i’m afraid the answer is quite simple. there are a lot of sad, desperate bastards in this world, and most of ‘em have computers. they will make aggressive advances on everyone of their chosen gender who makes the grievous error of crossing their path till one of ‘em finally caves and gives them what they want. but sorry peeps, i have NEVER needed it that bad. i don’t know why these people can’t just track each other down and screw each other and let the rest of us be.
if you’ve been lucky enough to avoid this sort of experience thus far, let me give you an idea of how these folks operate, using one particularly forward lass as an example. about a week after i aired this site, a young lady (at least i HOPE it was a lady...she SAID she was a lady) wrote me a letter. a long letter. a very complimentary letter, but a very unsettling letter...telling me how wildly turned-on she got from my writing. naturally, i assumed this was some kind of joke, but as i read on and she began to add details of what she would like to do to me if she could get her hands on me, i decided that even someone who'd send me something like this as a prank could really use some help. she was into bondage, s&m, and as she put it, "giving little irish bad-boy wanna-be's a taste of their own medicine".
now, i am not gonna say i wouldn't like to try some of that one day (giving ye more fodder, i know, but at this point...) but that's what i have a GIRLFRIEND for. if i want a girl to dress up in a leather bustier, bind and gag me and beat the tar outta me, it's gonna be her or no-one. (well, maybe laura san giacomo and megan mullally have a chance at it as well, but let's save that for a different discussion ;P) what it all boils down to is this : i'm rather insulted and thoroughly disgusted that anyone thinks me so stupid enough as to go and hand my address out over the net to someone who i wouldn't know if she up and bit me on the arse (and she'd probably want to as well) so she can come to my gaff and beat me with a cat o' nine tails. give me some credit. i'd at least have to see her first.

right. now on to the subject of SOLICITED emails. now, i'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but before i tell you, let me assure you this was done as a lark, NOT as a serious endeavour. a while ago, i posted an ad to an internet penpal site. it was truly more part of this ongoing sociological research project of mine than anything, but i figured if i met a few nice, intelligent people in the process, that wouldn't be a bad thing either. good news : thus far, out of god-only-knows how many responses, i met 4 semi-normal, semi-decent human beings. one man who responded was just a plain old lunatic, but the rest just wanted to fuck, and said so quite openly in their letters. i had profiles mailed to me with descriptions of their favourite sexual positions, 2 seemingly normal letters that only got bizarre in their last paragraphs, and 3 that were a bit more insidious. by that i mean i had to write to these gals a few times before realising what they were on about. two of 'em began inching sex into the convo slowly and asking me questions which i nonchalantly ignored till i could no longer. the third was, i suspect, more a sad little geek-girl than a twisted sex-fiend, and after a few letters began pouring her guts out to me about her (not so recent) breakup with her ex, who she's still mad for. this didn't faze me atall, as people (for whatever reason...maybe cos i give good advice...or maybe just cos i don't tell them to shut up...a lot) often pour their guts out to and unload their emotional baggage on me. she then asked me if i had a girlfriend and i said yes. and then...KABOOM!...a letter arrived in my inbox, virtually reaming me another arse-hole, accusing me of leading her on...what was i, a pervert? what sort of girl did i take her for? yadda, yadda, yadda...WHAT DA FUCK? not once...not in my ad or in any one of my letters did i EVER show interest in anything that was not PLATONIC. perhaps she took my sympathy for her obviously frail mental health as somethin' more, i dunno. all i DO know is she wrote that last letter ALL IN CAPS and she was, to say the least, very p.o.'d. (here, another dilemma comes into play, btw. i ask myself, which of my personalities is the safer of the two : the kind, sensitive one or the bitter cynic? answer : neither, cos they're both apparently irresistable to madwomen ;P)
anyways, stupid me wrote her back trying to explain my point, but luckily (i believe) for me, she never responded. and so went my net-pal adventure. i've gotten me a few normal correspondents who i see no reason (for now, anyway) to discontinue my letters to, but as for placing any more ads for ANYTHING...i am done. no more. no way. no how.

i don't think there's any way to totally avoid wackos online, at least no more than you can avoid them in real life. and some people (like my good self) seem to attract them EVERYWHERE more than most. it's better, i suppose, than being one of those people NOBODY likes. or at least...that's what i keep telling myself...