Unnatural Selection

Story Submitted by Pamela:

I had read Aaron's profile once before, as he had come up as a potential match.  He seemed nice enough, but none of his pictures were of him smiling, and he had a few lines in his profile that made me think twice about him.

I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, "Man is here to subjugate all beneath him."  It was enough to make me click on by, but when he messaged me, I gave him another look.

Rather than ignore those weird statements, I asked him about them, head-on, in an e-mail.

He replied, "I'm a capitalist, through and through.  We're surrounded by resources, and those who don't consume them will perish by those who do."

I've always been a tree-hugger, myself, and I wrote him back to let him know that I wasn't sure if our ideologies were really aligned enough to make for a good compatibility.

He wrote back, saying that he looked forward to the challenge of "re-educating" me.

I wrote back, telling him that I was as interested in his "re-education" of me as he would probably be in mine of him.  I wished him luck, and hoped that that would be the end of it.

It wasn't.  He sent me links to dozens of articles from all sorts of journals, talking about how true capitalism was good for everyone, how the planet's resources wouldn't exist if we weren't meant to use them, etc.  I didn't read much more than the titles to have a general idea.  I didn't bother replying.

A day later, he wrote to ask me if I received his message with all of the articles and asked me what I thought of them.  I didn't write back.

That night, he wrote me a long message which, paraphrased, were his own ramblings about human history and how we're doomed as a species because too many people are "eco-pussies."

I ignored this message and blocked his account.

A couple of weeks later, someone I didn't know sent me a message  to let me know that Aaron had mentioned my screen name in his profile.

I visited Aaron's profile and he had compiled a short list of "Eco-pussies," and guess whose name was squarely on the top?  Yours truly, followed by my user name in parenthesis.

I copied his profile URL and sent it to the site admins.  By the next day, his list was down.  I figured that that would be it.

With another profile, Aaron wrote me a message.  "Dear avowed eco-pussy," he wrote:

"You know that I like using resources.  As such, I have used the considerable ones at my disposal to discover that you issued the takedown order for my profile.  As such, I will not rest until I find you and re-educate you in the best way that I possibly can.

"I have written the site administrators and informed them that we met in person and that you attempted to force yourself upon me.  I will pursue legal avenues to convince you that I am serious about your re-education.  This is important for you, but especially for the human race that you purportedly love."

I reported this message to the site admins, and his new account was suspended.  I haven't heard from him since, but if I do, I'll shove a tree so far up his ass that they'll have to hire a team of spelunkers to find its "precious resources."