Life Through Craigslist

Being jobless, I have to look for new, cheap venues for my entertainment. And lately, I have been really entertained by Craigslist. It’s my new crack, almost as good as TV. If you haven’t trolled there, you’re missing a lot.

First off, I go there for job leads. And truth be told, I have gotten some good leads and interviews from there. I have yet to be kidnapped or molested. But there’s more to CL than finding jobs.

I highly recommend you check out the personals section. Simply type in your current town of residence (or prison, wherever you might be, dear reader) and select personal from the drop down menu. You might be surprised by what you see. For example, when I type in my town, I discovered something rather shocking.

I am surrounded by gays and perverts.

Yes, it seems the prevailing amount of personal posts are dudes looking for dudes. I mean an overwhelming amount are guys for guys. Some of the titles of the posts are a scream. And I will admit, I have clicked on a few, STRICTLY for investigative purposes. Some even have the pictures as well. I feel a bit weird doing this type of stuff. I fear one day my internet records will be released, and everyone will see me clicking on the gay stuff and get the wrong idea. I said this is STRICTLY for entertainment and investigative purposes. So I make sure I spend double the amount of time looking at porn, just to cancel the gay stuff out. I also fear that my wife will somehow discover this and totally get the wrong idea. But it makes it OK that I write about it, since, like most of my friends, she doesn’t read my blog.

Of course, there is a certain lingo you have to get into to decipher some of these ads. I’ve found if you just look at enough ads, you can pick things up. Still, there are letters and combinations of letters I have no fucking idea what they stand for, and I am probably better off not knowing.

You can also check out rants and raves, where people anonymously post whatever they want. People can pretty much say whatever they want, regardless of whether or not it’s true. Gimme that. network news. It can be inane stuff like the employee at the local Dairy Queen, to jerkoffs down at the local bar.

Missed connections is another compelling read. Now, I will hazard a guess that most of you would totally be thrilled to one day read an old ex openly pining for you. Or an old date that still thinks about you. Or an impression you made on someone that you never knew about. Some of these posts are seriously about one meeting 3 years ago in some bar. It’s both flattering and scary what people hold onto as they move about in their life. And it’s always kind of fun to type in a place you were recently at, and see if anyone was checking you out. If you’re single of course. I admit I did that after we went to the Nickelback show to see if anyone said anything about “the asshole Chad Kroeger wanna be at the show”.

I would like to think one day, in a Warhol like 15 minutes of fame kind of thing, you find something about yourself on there. And not in a negative way. Thank God they didn’t have this sort of thing in my formative years. Instead, I just had to suffer the slander they ran in my yearbook.

Of course, you can be less ‘hardcore’ and choose the casual encounters option. After further research (as all good writers should do), there appears to be minimal difference between casual encounters, and any other option. The pervs are there just the same. Maybe they try to class up their ad a bit, but let’s face it, there’s only so many ways you can class up that you are a ‘power bottom’. It seems ta me the casual encounter stuff is sort of a psychological buffer. I imagine that the people posting here are just as hardcore, but they just haven’t accepted it yet. So this is the easy and ‘polite’ way to deal with one’s perversions. I guess it’s an easier psychological burden to bear if you list your affinity for benoit balls in ‘casual encounters’ than in ‘men seeking men’ (AKA m4m).

Regardless of where one places their ad for whatever deviation they are in to, it always cracks me up because most of them put in some terminology like “no weirdos” or “no perverts”. Huh? Isn’t that kinda what you’re looking for? “I want a guy to put an anal plug in me, but he has to be successful on Wall Street.” When did weirdos have to have credentials?

Of course, you can always list your ad under ‘platonic’. To be honest, I’ve never even checked these ones out. I’m sure it’s for boring shit like nerds looking to play Magic together or some such. Actually, judging by the few titles I’ve seen, it still looks like a playground for the twisted. I guess there’s just more of a fear of commitment here.

So I stumbled onto all of this because I troll CL for jobs. And coming from a sales/marketing background in the entertainment industry, I guess I kind of have a niche. In searching for such jobs, I still manage to come across jobs that reek of shadiness. I come across a lot of ads looking for ‘models’. Now I skim some of the ads, and it barely appears it is anything more than taking nude pics in a basement or garage. Hmm, I have a garage….

Apparently, ‘intern’ is now a job, as just about every seemingly legit post is looking for interns. In other words, you don’t get paid shit. Yea, next. If you are going here for job leads, I also highly suggest a site called RipOffReport.com. I have run many potential companies through this, only to find they are scams. I recommend you use that site for any company you might be looking at. So what was my point?

Yea, free entertainment. If you get the chance when you’re not reading my awesome Klogs, go fiddle around on Craigslist.