I did my usual trick on the dating site, firing off a large mass of emails, and waited to see who would reply. one reply, was this:

Hey there

Thanks for the email, very flattering, well I guess there’s no harm in just chatting right?

Jill

[Jill's MSN contact details]

This struck me as a bit odd, so I decided to take a closer look at her profile, I found two things of interest, number one, Jill was married, number two, Jill had kids. Now the second one did’nt bug me. I’ve chatted with single mom’s before, and had some very pleasant experiences with them.

The married part was a first though, what on earth was married woman doing on a dating site? then I saw she was looking for friends/penpals only. Ok I thought, not a problem, it might be kind of fun to get to know a married woman, Hell I might learn something. So I added her to MSN, and sent her my details, sure enough, half an hour later we were chatting.

The chat was fairly standard, until we got to the more serious “Getting to know you” stuff, what transpired was as follows:

Sheppard: So how long have you been married?
Jill: four years, but it looks like that might be ending
Sheppard: Oh I’m sorry to hear that (ok I get it, she’s looking at a divorce, and considering her options, seeing whats out there, THATS why shes on a dating site)
Jill: It’s Ok, how about you? ever been married?
Sheppard: No, fraid not,
Jill: What about the dating site, have you met anyone special on there? in real life I mean?
Sheppard: A couple, nothing that lasted though. you?
Jill: I’ve met two, the one guy couldn’t understand why I wanted to meet him if I was married, the other one… we had something.

Now at this point a vague warning bell goes off in my head. So I politely try and get more out of her.

Sheppard: Something?
Jill: yes something.
Sheppard: Lol, ok I won’t pry (Damn! I want to pry, but don’t want to come off as a nosy asshole)
Jill: Yeah, was supposed to see him on Friday, but he bailed on me, and yelled at me the next day.

It’s become apparent to me at this point, that this guy was obviously more than a friend, she went on quite a bit about him being mad at her, and she was quite worried he wasn’t going to talk to her again, much more so than she should have been if he was just an online buddy she’d taken to coffee

Sheppard: So I take it this is the reason your marriage is in trouble?
Jill: Oh no, thats been going on for years… (Well at least she’s being honest)
Jill: My husband does’nt know about the other guys (Did she just pluralize that!?!?)
Sheppard: (pause) Oh Ok… (At this point I’m kinda at a loss, I think I’m being groomed as a replacement suitor for the drunken yeller, which I have no desire to be.)

Jill goes on to tell me about her little girl, and what she likes to do with her free time, she discovers our workplaces are relatively close, and thinks we should have coffee sometime. Throughout the whole conversation I’m just amazed, This woman was calmly and calculatingly sizing me up as a potential fuck buddy on the side. possibly it became clear, in addition to drunken yelling guy. I would have ended the conversation. but I was so fascinated by this woman, this cold, self centered …sociopath, I wanted to see what she’d say next. At no point did she ask me if I was ok with any of this, try and justify that her husband was an asshole, it was all about her. Judging from her picture, she was drop dead gorgeous and used to having men fawn all over her.

I ended the conversation and sat back, realizing how angry I was, Having cheated on, and been cheated on, I find it one of the most despicable things a person can do to someone they claim they care about. I did it very early on in my romantic career, and felt so guilty I told my then girlfriend almost immediately. more recently, a girl I was deeply in love with, cheated on me in an attempt to make me dump her so she could walk away guilt free(does anyone else see the logic issue there?) and when I forgave her, she was forced to dump me in addition to said infidelity, seriously scarring me with trust issues for the rest of my life.

Now these are relationships I’m talking about, not marriages, I’m not a religious person, but as far as I’m concerned Marriage is sacred ground. People tend to think they get married because their partner is the only one they’ll ever want. Not true, not in the least, Marriage is a commitment to stay faithful to each other despite being attracted to other people. I understand that if a marriage is in trouble, that staying committed is more difficult, but then have the courage to end it instead of making it worse by adding infidelity to the list of charges. If this woman had fallen in love with someone through the course of natural day to day events, I could understand it better, but she didn’t. she sought out a potential lover online, and followed through with it. While at no point that I could discern, even consider leaving her husband, I suspect yelling guy figured this out as well, he got played. Hence the drunken yelling.

So my new search filter now includes married women. and my faith in humanity is just a little less for that.

Now the specifics of the evening or how it started are lost to me through a haze of drunken memory. I think I started to tickle my girlfriend, and she responded in kind. This escalated till she, with a wicked grin, hooked her fingers in my baggy denims and pulled, intending to pull pants down and humble me in front of her brother. Her plan worked better than she thought it would, because she had also managed to hook my underwear, and took those as well.

So there I was, completely exposed I panicked and grabbed the first thing I could find, which was a pillow , and covered my naked crotch with it. while my girlfriend doubled over in laughter, my friend, still very drunk, and apparently somewhat emotional, looked at me with these huge sad eyes and said in a voice you expect to hear bambi use when he’s trying to wake his mother up: “Dude…your cock is on my pillow.”

Such sadness was in those words, such heartfelt sorrow that he may have to rest his head where my genitals had lain. I could not stand it, I looked around for a suitable replacement, and saw a small, tartan blanket resting atop the windowsill. with a flourish I grabbed it and wrapped it around my waste creating a hybrid between a kilt and a very small miniskirt. I replaced the pillow and looked at him triumphantly, he did not look appeased. With tears in his voice he whispered “That’s my baby blanket.”

My girlfriend handed me a sarong, she had intended me to replace the MiniKilt™ with it, I however didn’t cotton on to this, instead I tied it round my neck forming a cape and attacked her again, determined to pay her back for removing my pants. Now again drunken memory fails me, as somehow, I managed to get her bra off without actually getting her shirt off. This is has always puzzled me because I could never get the damned thing off her even if it was the only thing she was wearing. apparently on a roll, I tied the bra around my head, each cup covering an eye and cheek. catching sight of myself in the mirror in my MiniKilt™, my cape and mask, I lept onto the bed struck a heroic pose and declared loudly “Behold I am Bra-man!” just in time for my girlfriends mother to walk in and see me.

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, then she looked at her children and said “suppers ready” and looked back at me just in time to see the MiniKilt™ Dislodge itself and flutter to the ground, leaving me naked from the waste down, with a cape and a bra tied round my head…still standing in that ridiculous pose…

A few days later, still mortified in the presence of the mother, I was watching tv at their house, when nature called. I dislodged myself from the girlfriend, and padded through to their bathroom.

Earlier that day I had gone shopping at the flea market and bought a small silver skeleton on a chain to wear round my neck, during the course of the evening the chain had broken and the little skeleton had disappeared. As I un-zipped my fly, the skeleton, who had fallen into the fold of my zipper, flopped out into my hand. I was delighted, as I had given up all hope of finding it.

“There you are you little shit!” I declared loudly, and looked up, just in time to catch the reflection of the mother who had been walking past the bathroom, looking at me. all she could see was me with back turned, my hand at crotch level, apparently talking to my penis…

To the poor woman’s credit, she always gave me the benefit of the doubt, and treated me like gold. But she must have thought I was completely insane.

Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do, and I’m pretty good at it as well. But I’m damned if the rest of my life is going to revolve around a place I’m forced to spend eight hours every day, five days a week, any more than it has to. In my view, a job is a tool, it allows you the freedom both financially and mentally to pursue the things in life you really care about.

But I get teased by coworkers, and dirty looks by management when half past four rolls around, and I pack my things and leave. I’ve put my eight hours in, more often than not, skipped my lunch hour, my projects are all well ahead of schedule. I find it ridiculous that because I don’t knock off at six like every other drone in there, I’m a bad employee.

and thats another thing, what do these guys do at six? they all go off to a bar together. Now I know I’m a picky person when it comes to who I spend time with. But these people are my co-workers, I did not choose them, I have no say in who sits next to me at work. and I have to see them everyday all day all week, so why in gods name would I choose to spend more time with them after that? surely forty hours a week (which is more than my family and friends see me) is more than adequate? But no, because I’m not putting social hours into it, suddenly I’m not team player.

Seriously, when did this happen? and this is not the first job I’ve been in where it’s an issue. And maybe if my job was something I found more fulfilling, or I found people more like me in the office I would understand better, and be more amenable to these things. but for gods sakes, I resize adverts for widescreen digital billboards. I think in 50 years, hell I think in 10 years no one will care at all about that. so I want to head home, write my stories, see my friends, spend my free time, making the most of a fairly mundane life, that does not need to be made more vanilla by centering it around the job I use to pay the bills.

and you know what? it’s an office thing, I bet no McDonald’s flunkie works over his shift, or construction worker is frowned upon because he’s more interested in spending time with his kids than going for a beer to schmooze the boss. Some job’s force you into a lifestyle, modeling, airline pilot, firemen, astronauts, rock-stars… do you notice something these all have in common? they’re the things we wanted to be when we grew up. because as children we see these things, and say, “That’s who I want to be, how I want to live my life.” and somehow, that sentiment gets transferred to jobs like tele-marketing or web design? the hell with that.

So thanks but no thanks, No one can complain that I don’t do my job and do it well, and that is enough for me. I’ll go home and write ranting blog entries because it’s something I find a lot more fulfilling than pixel aspect ratios and codec compression rates.