A Fool's Test

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Story Sent in by Sean:

I had a profile up on a dating site when Lynn messaged me.  She had a quirky way about her, but I found myself smiling through most of her message, and I wrote her back.  We wrote to each other at least twice daily.

A few days after Lynn's first message, I received a note from Miranda.  Miranda was as dour as Lynn was chipper; as mopey as Lynn was peppy.  Another difference, however, was that Miranda was extremely attractive, and had posted two swimsuit photos of herself for good measure.  Lynn was girl-next-door pretty, but her personality won hands down.  Miranda's note came across as desperate and whiny, so I wrote back that I wasn't interested.

The day after I sent that message, Miranda wrote me a second email, as if I had never turned her down in the first place.  She wrote how difficult it was to find a good guy, how guys were only into her for her looks, and she also listed things that she liked to do for fun.  She mentioned some of my own interests, and she also threw in, "kissing, cuddling," for good measure.  I didn't write her back.

Lynn and I, however, had a good time learning more about each other, and less than a week after her first message, I asked her if she wanted to meet.  She did, and we made a date.

Miranda, in the meantime, wrote me daily.  I never replied, but she asked me for my email address consistently, as she wanted to send me some "pictures that might be too racy for the site."  Her desperation turned me off, and I fell into the habit of deleting her messages without reading them.

The last message I received from Miranda before my date with Lynn asked me if I wanted to meet up just to make out.  I wrote back, "No, thanks.  Please stop messaging me."

Lynn and I went out to dinner, and we had a nice time.  Not too long into it, though, she said, "So, about Miranda."

My chest tightened.  How did she know about Miranda?  Lynn went on, "I know you've been speaking to her.  She wrote you an email about making out.  And you responded."

I asked, "Do you…?" as if to ask if she knew Miranda, but then the truth struck me and I changed the question to, "Are you Miranda?"

She smiled and nodded, then dragged me further down the rabbit hole: "You passed the first test, by writing back to her first message that you weren't interested, and then ignoring the rest of her messages.  But then, you wrote back to her last message."

Still mentally wobbly from this sudden realization, I replied, "Yes.  I told her… you… no thanks."

She sighed.  "Yeah.  See, to pass the test, you weren't supposed to write back.  Saying 'no thanks' means that you considered taking her up on her offer.  How can I ever trust you, now?"

I replied, "Saying 'no thanks' meant exactly what it meant.  I didn't consider it.  I didn't want to."

She shook her head.  "That's not the way things work.  You took the time to write back when you could have just ignored her.  You took the time to write six words.  You wanted to take her up on it."

"I said, 'no thanks, please stop messaging me.'  How does that indicate that I wanted to take her up on it?"

She smiled smugly and said, "I'm not going to argue about this.  I just wanted to see how you'd defend yourself."

I tried a different tactic.  I asked Lynn, "Do you want to eat dog shit?"

She replied, "Ugh.  No."

I said, "You obviously want to eat dog shit.  By responding to my question, you considered eating dog shit and so you clearly want to eat it."

She stared at me and said, "You're really sad, you know that?"

I replied, "I'm just using your logic.  I want to make out with Miranda and you want to eat dog shit."

She opened her mouth as if to say something more, then threw up her hands and said, "I'm sorry.  I should go."

She left before I even had an opportunity to ask her who the girl in the "Miranda" photos really was.