Gender

The short story "Liking Men," from Margaret Atwood's Simple Murders, begins:  "It's time to start liking men again.  Where shall we begin"?  Atwood finally concludes that the feet of the sleeping man presently in her bed are kinda cute and, all in all, acceptable.  She'll begin, by liking his feet.

There is nothing like online dating to make me read Atwood, all Atwood, and nothing but Atwood. The most rabidly feminist man-hating screed in the world is mother's milk to me after just one date with a guy I meet online.  Nothing will sink men in my estimation quicker.  Since I published my Online Dating Dictionary in my blog last year ( http://www.ls.net/node/448 ),some of my girlfriends have suspected that I have online dating horror stories which I've yet to spill.  They want to read about them.  They think they will be amusing.

So.  Here goes.

Newsflash #1:  Man beheads his wife when he finds out she wants a divorce.
Newsflash #2:  Man kidnaps woman and puts her in a diaper and chains and reads her passages from the Bible.  Sometimes he tries to smother her with a blanket or pillow.
Newsflash #3:  Woman who already has six kids has octoplets out of wedlock.

Whole world outraged--by newsflash three.  Nadya Suleman, the octuplets' mother, hired a public relations agency to deal with the crush of media attention, but the PR firm quit when they started receiving death threats.  Even Suleman's own father has attacked her in the media.