Ms. Amanda

Amanda, I hope this letter finds you well. When I came across your profile, so moved was I that I decided to forego my usual email that simply says, “Sup, girl?” In fact, I might even throw in some fancy-pants vocabulary words to impress you.

You ever been hit on by a guy who uses the word “indubitably”? Well, stick around, Amanda; today may be your lucky day!

Your photos show a lot of personality. I would have to say on my part, the last festival food I had was in the month of June when I had my first fried Oreo. You ever have a fried Oreo, Amanda? It’s a flavor I never experienced before, and as I felt a sharp, unforgiving pain radiate down my left arm as I took my last bite, I wondered, “Who is the culinary genius who came up with this?”

I also like the photos of you holding random children that aren’t yours. Don’t get me wrong, Amanda, I can and have lifted any number of my friends’ small children (I do pushups!), but there is a severe lack of photographic evidence in my circle of friends to corroborate my claim. And to be honest, I don’t hold them for too long, as I have a slight aversion to tears and urine.

I do apologize for a lack of questions to you on my part, but I wanted to show that this isn’t some form letter. I figured this format would be better than a bullet list of typical date questions like, “What do you do for a living,” or “How come you never see a homeless person drinking Gatorade?”

Oh, I do have a leading question for you though: which comedians are your favorites? I too enjoy stand-up comedy, although I don’t think I could ever stomach a cruise ship comedian who is always so close to bombing epically.

Thanks for reading, Amanda, and take care. Would I like to hear back from you? Indubitably!

Cordially,

Mike

Ms. Kenzie

Kenzie, hi!

I came across your profile and thought I would write you an email. I admire your honesty in your profile, it was refreshing. It’s inspired me to tell you that I as well did suffer from anxiety. I’ve had two full-blown anxiety attacks in my life and they were quite the thrill! The last one I had was about 6 years ago and of course it happened while I was driving, because panic attacks really like to lay it on thick with the dramatics. However, it has really has given me a different outlook on things.

I have become a much more relaxed person and am able to focus more on things that I enjoy rather than problems I can’t fix. Basically, I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. Unless we’re being literal and talking about actual small things; like bees. Ohhhhhh, I don’t know about you McKenzie, but I do not like bees, no no no.

Did I ever tell you about the time I was last stung by a bee, McKenzie? It happened just this past summer. I was playing a round of golf with my Dad and after I hit a shot I noticed there was this yellow-jacket clinging to my hand and when I tried to shake it off, I felt that nostalgic, familiar sting of a bee; a pain I have not felt in nary 20 years.

Reminding myself that I was 32 years old, I mustered up all of my courage and acted like a man as I shook my hand casually and was like, “I think I was stung by a bee. I hardly felt it, of course, because of my coarse skin and I have felt so much other pain in my life up to this point that a bee sting is trivial nonsense, but I saw the bee and I felt a wispy tickle, so I put 2 and 2 together…we got any whiskey?”

On the next hole, I was looking at my hand and I said to my dad, “Well, at least he didn’t leave the stinger in my hand.” And he informed me that yellow jackets don’t do that; they can sting repeatedly. And I said, “I thought only wasps did that.”
“A yellow jacket is a type of wasp,” he said.

And then I started to cry.

So now, to never forget that day of 3 months ago (7-26-15-never forget), I keep a spiteful jar of honey in my cupboard. Whenever I open the cupboard door, I take a look at the jar and I glance at my hand and go, “Eff you, bees. Eff you.” And then I was told by a friend that yellow jackets don’t actually make honey; they only manufacture and export pain.

And then, of course, I started to cry.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, McKenzie. I’m glad I came across your profile and was able to write to you. I hope to hear from you and if not, best of luck out there!

Bee-lieve it!

Warmest regards,

—-Mike.

Ms. Shell

Hello, Shell!
My name is Mike. I came across your profile and thought I would write you a letter. I am impressed that you have a horse. Isn’t that every girl’s dream, to have a horse? I can understand if you omitted in your profile that you are also a princess, as it might be a bit intimidating for us guys.

I also like to think that I am drama-free and have no baggage. I’m thinking about it now and the only baggage I have is my fear of heights, I suppose. Like, if you were to drag me into a hot air balloon or something similar, I will probably scream and smack myself in the head until I pass out, but other than that, no, I don’t think I have any drama, although that scene is pretty dramatic, to be sure.

I am an animal lover as well. I have a Golden Chow mix named Goober who turned 16 years old this year. Despite her age, she is still a happy-go-lucky dog, although she may smell like she’s 20 or 21. Do dogs live over the age of 20? I figure that with Goober by the time she turns 25, she will have reached the tipping point where she will be more machine than dog.

It’s a shame you’re reading the book American Sniper after seeing the movie. It takes away that snobby pleasure one gets when walking out of a theater and you get to say with your nose held high, “The book was soooooo much better.” Isn’t that a great feeling?
Have a great day, Shell! Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you.

Respectfully,
Mike.

Ms. Rockout13

Hello, Ms. Rockout13, I’m Mike2614231. I live in Glenside now, but I used to live in Green Lane. It’s true! I lived there for about 5 years, in a tiny apartment on the corner of 63 and route 29, by the Sunoco gas station. Have you ever been? It’s a nice gas station; they sell ice cream for kids as well as minnows for fishermen. And they also sell pornographic magazines sealed in plastic bags, which… well, look, I just know that they SELL them. That’s all I know about it, honest.

Honest.

At any rate, the apartment I lived in was an old house from the early 1900’s that was converted into 5 small apartments. Everything was slanted: the floor, the windows, the door frame… Hey, you remember in the movie Beetlejuice when Beetlejuice was going to marry Lydia and he created that crooked door in the wall for that old priest to come out and wed them in marital bliss? My door frame looked like that. When people came over I told them to enter on the right side of the door frame, lest they hit their heads on the short side.

Are the door frames where you dwell crooked as well? I didn’t know if I was living in some kind of architectural oddity or if that’s just the way things are up there. I am sorry to say that I don’t have a single piece of plaid in my whole wardrobe; not a stitch. You probably read that sentence and wondered how I get by, but somehow I do. Somehow.

I am envious of your wide array of photos. I especially like the professional photographer’s shots of you in the felled cornfield. I guess you could say the photographer was…”stalk”ing you? Ha, you’re welcome; feel free to use that and take it as your own, I won’t mind.

Have yourself a wonderful day!

Signed,

Mike (The guy with the Beetlejuice door frames and puns about corn, which are a-MAIZE-ing!)

Ms. Tara

Dear Tara,
I hope this letter finds you well. I was intrigued by your profile and thought I would write you. I have been called ‘funny’ and never ‘funny looking,’ although I have once been called, ‘unforgivably ugly.’ To be fair, the person who said that was referring to my personality and not my physical appearance, which—thank god, am I right, Tara? The phrase ‘irrevocably damaged’ also rings a familiar bell, but since I cannot recall the exact context, I’m not going to mention it.

I think your career path as a model is a brave one. I’m a bit too introverted myself (see: writer) to put myself out there the way you do. But if I were to model, I’m sure the highest I’d be able to reach career-wise would be as a sock model for a Kmart circular. And I’m talking tube socks with the bold yellow stripe on top, not ankle socks (let’s not kid ourselves here, Tara). And maybe I’m casually holding a football while donning these stunning tube socks that are on sale until Monday and I’m chuckling a little bit as if someone off-camera made a joke and broke the tension of the shoot.

Anyway, that’s about as far as I’d think I’d ever make it as a model.

I do not consider myself an INFP (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving) anymore. However, I do practice selfless acts whenever possible and listen to people more than I speak to them, but I suppose time and my own life experiences has made me incredibly suspicious of anyone that is willing to do the same for me. So what would that make me? I guess that would make me an HPRT (HyPocRiTe).

As for the other attributes that you are looking for in a partner, I do believe I possess them and I look for the same little nuances and quirks that two people can share to make a very loving, lasting relationship. But those things are only proven in actions, not words, so I will end my letter here and say that I would like to get to know you better. Have a wonderful weekend, Tara!

Sincerely,

Mike

Ms. Bird

Dear Ms. Bird,

I enjoyed reading your profile. I too, am a Bill Murray fan. For me, it doesn’t get any better in Scrooged when the props guy asks how to put little antlers on a mouse and Bill goes, “Have you tried staples?”

I admire your decision to work in the medical field. I have a couple of friends who are nurses and they say the work is as rewarding as it is challenging. It’s a lot of grace and stability under pressure and to be honest, when I am faced with such a task, I find that my go-to move is to pull on the fire alarm and run out the door. Sometimes I have to go running out of the building screaming, you know, really sell it, because there’s only so many times you can pull that off and make it believable. Hint: You can do it up to 3 times before people get a touch skeptical when they see you nearing the wall during questioning.

In the early mornings I write humor articles (hence the time stamp of this email) and during the day I work in the Chalfont area where my supervisor is an admitted former crack addict. True story, he smoked crack back in the day and now he falls asleep on the forklift.

Granted, it might be the apnea and not the remnants of inhaled cocaine from 1989 that causes the sleep spells, but whenever he approaches me and says for instance, “Here’s how I would have done this…” And if I don’t agree with him I simply say, “Yeah, but you’ve smoked crack, yes? Sorry, I just wanted to ask that again; I keep forgetting.”

Of course, if I find that I am completely in the wrong and have put my foot in my mouth (which, believe it or not, has happened), most buildings (if they are up to fire code) have what I call a, “Get out of Argument Free” lever on the nearest wall.

I hope you have a wonderful day, Ms. Bird! And I’ll leave you with my favorite poem by one Bob Wiley: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’m a schizophrenic, and so am I.”

Cordially,

Mike

Ms. Fallon

Dear Ms. Fallon,
Good morning! I hope this letter finds you well. I came across your profile and thought that I would write you a letter. I too am looking to someone to laugh with. I wasn’t too sure about this match.com business, but I was feeling a bit of pressure from a coworker of mine who gave me an insightful observation about myself.

I’ll never forget what he said to me. It was an unseasonably cool Wednesday morning when he said to me, he said, “Mike, your life is terrible.”

And I said, “Matt, you don’t even have a home. How can you be telling me that my life is terrible?”

“You need a girlfriend,” he advised me. “You’re in a rut. And before you ask, yes, I have a girlfriend.”

“Matt, you sleep in the park! How can you possibly have a girlfriend?”

He then went on to describe some vagrant “hot spots”—places for the transients to comingle and get together. Most of these places were tucked below underpasses and were not fancy enough to have a place to set down your stick and bindle. I finally had to cut him off and say, “Match. I’ll join match. Please just stop talking. Please.”

It was a very eye-opening conversation for me, to say the least, Ms. Fallon. What made you decide to join match? Do you have a homeless friend that coerced you into joining? I have other friends who live in solid housing structures and they said match was the best bet; it cuts out a lot of the riff-raff, I hear.

Ms. Fallon, have yourself a wonderful day! I hope to hear back from you, unless of course, your name is Ms. Taken…

Signed,

Mr. Mike

Ms. Cubs

Hi, Cubs

My name is Mike. I came across your profile and I found it very endearing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have six siblings; I just had one older brother so a drive to the beach left me nowhere to hide. He’d look around for someone to hit and he’d look over and go, “Oh, hey, there’s Mike.” Then he’d punch me. I really could have used a couple more siblings to help dilute the punching, is what I’m saying.

And for a bit of transparency, since you actually had the bravery to admit that you’re human and do clumsy things, I will tell you one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. My friend once left his cell phone over at my place and I thought, “Oh, I should let him know.” So I called him. And then his cell phone rang, but it said the call was coming from me, so I picked up the phone and placed it to my other ear, saying, “Hello? Hello??”

This went on for approximately seven seconds, which is eight seconds too long. What’s more, this happened in the privacy of my own home and nobody saw it but me, but it was so “Looney Tunes Elmer Fudd” dumb that I told everyone I came across for the next few weeks, even my boss.

Thank you for admitting your human side and I hope to hear from you! Take care

—Mike

Ms. EBEB

Dear EBEB,
Hello, my name is Mike. I came across your profile and was intrigued to write you. As far as Drunk History goes, I personally had no idea Al Capone lived the rest of his life as a syphilitic moron, casting a fishing rod into a pool, did you? I’m sad they didn’t cover that part of Capone’s life with Robert DeNiro in The Untouchables.

And hey, speaking of museums, have you ever visited the Mutter Museum? I went there a few years ago to check out all the weird medical abnormalities. It really is quite a place and really gets you to thinking. For instance, as I tried to relate to an 18th century French woman who had 9-inch horn drooping down her face, wondering how she lived day to day, I couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that The Mutter Museum itself should smell a lot worse than it does. Don’t get me wrong, EBEB, it does smell a little off, but it should smell like formaldehyde and nightmares, only it doesn’t! I was very surprised by that aspect of the museum, more than the giant colon, even.

…

Well, how’s that for an introductory email? Syphilitic morons and genetic deformities that are surprisingly not offensive to the nose. Would you get an email like this on Tinder? It is doubtful. At any rate, I should probably wrap this up before I say something that one might find gross or tactless. Have a great day, EBEB! I hope to hear from you.

Respectfully,

Mike.

Ms. Matchme

Dear Matchme,

My name is Mike. I came across your profile and found it very refreshing. I too do not take life too seriously and think that an ideal evening is not about the activity itself, but about the company you keep. Sure, I could sit in a fancy, stuffy restaurant, tug on my chin and say incredibly insightful things like, “Yes, things are quite tumultuous in the Middle East,” but I think you and I both know that it’s more fun to do anything except that. And if it involves puns, well, we’ll puntificate until the sun comes up.

Don’t let this overwhelming confidence of mine intimidate you, Ms. Matchme. I also have modesty in spades. If I don’t know something, I’m not going to sit on a high horse and pretend that I do. For instance, the moon: I just don’t get it. I don’t know how it works, I don’t why the whole world only sees one side of it… it baffles me. Maybe it’s shaped like a banana and we only see the bottom of it, I don’t know.

I went to Temple University, by the way.

Sorry to…space out on you like that. Have yourself a wonderful day, Ms. Matchme! I hope to hear from you.

Respectfully,
Mike J