From Jughead's Crown to Your Insignificant Town

It's a small world

I hate that I can't use keywords to drive traffic when those keywords are people's names, because then it looks like I am being vindictive. There's just no way around it, so I will just have to suffer.

At any rate this is relevant today because I actually read the perfect personal ad on Craigslist. I felt like I had known the person forever, and it was just a stupid ad. Well, there was a picture, and that likely helped, but I really felt these weird connection, and it was beyond wishful thinking. So I respond to the ad, but I don't mention this. I mean, that's just creepy, you know? Save the creepiness for the first date, when you tell her you had a booger wall when you were eight.

Well, she pulled and re-posted her ad, which is nature's way of saying to the people that responded the first time, "I'm not going to write back." And that's fine. It is Craigslist after all. But something was gnawing at me. But I figured it out. This gal is someone I know from high school!

I was a volunteer at a local hospital as a high schooler. It was a nice thing to do, and it got me out of the house. There was this one girl that volunteered with me that was a couple grades below me that went to a private school. Tall and hot. I was/am not really into the whole private school thing, but when you're 16, you aren't nearly as discerning as you are at 30. Anyway, it sounded like her. So I jumped on Yahoo this morning and searched for her name. There were four responses, and they were all related to a certain prestigious university, where apparently she works... and it's medical-related. But of course!

And this all fit with her ad. So it's totally her, and the subtle snottiness of her personal ad (no, I am not bitter, honestly) totally befits her personality, which is amusing because, 14 years later, she seems to be the same person she used to be.

I remember knowing at the time that she was a high-maintenance gal that had the same values I did (in terms of health and nutrition as well as politics and religion -- hey, that almost rhymes), but it's weird how two pretentious people cannot necessarily get along. It's weird, too, how some people never change.

No, I am not going to respond to the new ad with my discovery. It accomplishes nothing, and now that I realize who she is, well, I can go out with her when she turns 40 and has a midlife (midwife?) crisis. She will still be out there. And her e-mail address where she works is readily available online.

Published Saturday, July 08, 2006 6:37 AM by Jughead