Chatting Part I

IT ALWAYS STARTS THE SAME WAY. There is a pattern. A message pops us, from a young lady. (I never message anybody, everybody messages me, either young ladies seeking love, money, or both, or "gentleman", offering me a free government grant.) "Hi!", they begin...."Howdy!", I respond, thinking this might dissuade them. Terse answers help limit typing.(I always respond, and participate; I'm doing research for a book). Sometimes this countrified approach indeed dissuades them, and I hear nothing further. My loss. Then, the inevitable "How are you?"..."Well", I respond, everytime. If they understand this, they continue. "What are you up to?", always comes next. I Always answer "little"..this confuses and dissuades about half of them, the lower verbal half, perhaps Trump supporters. Then they ask all the usual questions. Age, location, marital status,children, job. How long have you been single? Sixty nine years. What do you do for a living? "Nothing",I say. That always confuses them. (I'm retired, as I eventually help them deduce.) Why are you not married? (as if being unmarried is a deadly disease). "According to my mother, its because I'm smart", I say. (my mother really said that, from experience, I think). How long have you been single? "Sixty nine years", I repeat. This confuses them,until I help them figure it out; I've never been married. That utterly perplexes them. Aren't mothers supposed to want their sons to get married and produce grand children? Isn't that the only option? Then comes the quinessential request, usually expressed in the form of a demand, for a picture of me. Sometimes, I suggest that they make a request,not a demand, and that they use the word "please". This, invariably, is when the "conversation" goes off the rails. I do not have a picture, I do not share or trade pictures, I tell them, because I do not care what people look like (this is only partly true), but rather, how they treat me, whether they are good ctizens, intelligent, kind to animals, blah blah,high sounding stuff. However, I continue, there is a picture of me on my website. (There is). This is my shrewd and subtle way of getting people to visit my website, this website. Instead of volunteering the name of my website, I wait for them to ask for it. They never do. Instead they start arguing with me. Why can't you just send me a pic? Why can't you just take a selfie,and send it to me? Because I choose not to,as I just said, I say. One thing is evident; women care a great deal about what a man looks like, almost but not quite as much as men care about women's looks. As for me, I really don't care; I know in advance that I am not going to have a "relationship" with a twenty three year young girl, not at my advanced age of sixty nine. No, I tell them, age is more than "just a number" (they always try that approach) ,notwithstanding what everybody says. Everybody is full of it. Old people, afraid of dying, say that. Ninety nine percent of young ladies who message me are trying to endear themselves to me, trying to start an online pseudo relationship, to lure me into an emotional state, to trick me into sending them money. Ninety nine percent. What would you guess are the chances that I actually send anybody money? Well and then, there are an infinite number of creative ways of dealing with attractive young ladies in bikinis who ask me for money, and I employ them all. This, for research for my forthcoming book on "Adventures On Facebook". I hope my book is as interesting as the experiences which precipitated it.