Guest post: An open letter to desperate men on social media

This is a guest post from Chelsea Fagan. Chelsea is a Senior Writer at Thought Catalog and the author of the forthcoming book “I’m Only Here for the WiFi”, out next month!

Hi Guys,

How are you? I hope the day finds you well, though I must admit that I imagine you don’t receive an enormous amount of sunlight in the basement-caves from which you are posting your lecherous, unsolicited comments. If I had to pinpoint an image in my mind, I would guess that it’s one of those basement rec-rooms from the 70s, complete with olive green shag carpeting and faux-wood paneling on the walls, with perhaps one of those tiny basement windows which is just big enough to allow the errant millipede to crawl through and get into your Hoarders-esque stash of Doritos.

But I digress.

I’m here today to talk to you about the comments you’ve been posting and messages you’ve been sending — notably on dating sites, but found just about everywhere — which are simply unacceptable. No unsuspecting woman deserves to wake up to see her picture of herself at a picnic, or her profile which talks about her love for Game of Thrones, being bombarded with commentary about how much you want to fuck her with a beer bottle or pee on her in the bathtub. If you’re going to be allowed internet, to be counted amongst the humans and not the bridge trolls whose questions you must answer correctly before crossing the magical bridge, it must stop. No more creepy, wholly inappropriate commentary on women’s profiles.

To illustrate my point, a few salient examples of your misdeeds:

Let’s ignore the problems in grammar and spelling, as — aside from it being a recurring theme in nearly every Desperate Guy’s opening statements — it really just serves to detract from the issue at hand. For a large majority of the human population, the idea of an incestuous roleplay relationship between father and daughter is unpleasantly unexpected at best, viscerally revolting at worst. And I’m not here to yuck anyone’s sexual yum, but to open up on someone (someone who has shown no signs of being interested in such activities whatsoever) with this kind of proposition shows, at the very least, a stunning lack of tact.

No, sir, your zesty little tongue-out smiley is not going to soften the blow of replacing “Hello” with “I want to strip off your clothes and paint you.” (???) Apparently, your idea of curing boredom — instead of, I don’t know, reading a book or drawing a nice picture of a flower (which, knowing you, would likely be in the shape of a disfigured vagina, but at least it would be kept to yourself) — is harassing women on dating sites with inappropriate messages.

I was informed by the owner of this… I want to call it an exchange, but it’s just you repeatedly talking to her in spite of absolutely no response… that the two of you in fact met one time, while she was on a date with another man, and therefore should have been more than aware that your constant efforts at flirtation were falling on deaf (and very much taken) ears. That being said, there’s nothing quite like the limp sadness of seeing someone’s repeated attempts at contact over several weeks, even in the face of absolutely no interest. A for effort, F for execution.

According to the owner of this image, you were a classmate who, despite never really interacting with her in person, added and proceeded to message her on Twitter, seemingly out of nowhere. Though she almost never checks her DMs (and therefore didn’t respond), I must commend your initial bravado in simply asking when she was “free” for lunch or dinner, instead of even finding out if she was interested in the first place, only to much later get indignant that she didn’t follow up with you. (And then claim that it was sent to the wrong address… one can only feel envy for the message’s intended recipient — it’s going to be a fun moment for her to try to explain her disinterest to your satisfaction.)

Anti-semitic and incompetent! The panties are flying across the room and knocking over lamps on their way to smack against the wall.

It takes a bold, bold man to attempt to be intellectually pretentious and condescending while repeating himself, abusing semicolons, and liberally employing the word “fucktard” to describe the myriad other men who don’t meet his standards on the internet. In fact, it’s precisely the kind of boldness which leads a man to believe that the best way into a woman’s heart/vagina is by insulting her right off the bat and attempting to mystify her with your King’s English which has gone through several rounds in a garbage disposal.

All of this to say, gentlemen, that if you ever find yourself cruising social media and are overwhelmed with the desire to engage in some incredibly niche roleplay — head over to FetLife, where you can find someone whose tastes comfortably mirror yours. If you want to give a compliment which is immediately followed up by aggression for not responding, you may want to just skip the compliment stage altogether. If your desire is to sexualize someone, why not try a model’s pay site, where you can be met with trained professionals? And if your desire is to condescend because you learned in some horrible Pick Up Artist Subreddit that the key to a woman’s affections was abject humiliation, perhaps you should get off the internet once and for all, as it’s clearly only exacerbating your existing problems.

Good luck in your journey forward, and may all women block you with the swiftness of a thousand falling daggers. Cordially,

Chelsea