Web 2.0

This morning when I woke up I had an email indicating a message on a social networking site. The one I hate. The one that is cluttered up with creepy bad backgrounds and such. I figured it was a spammer or bot or some other pernicious crap. I usually ignore that kind of thing, but since I'd recently had some breaches of security on there I figured I'd check it out and make sure nothing major was amiss.

It was from a guy, my age or thereabouts, smoking hot, single, and living in the area. Now, I wasn't born yesterday; I know that dating sites or other ad-driven places put these kinds of messages up and do bad things (like what? I don't know...hijack your account? Install malware?). But...he's just so so hot. I'm conflicted.

Here are the things that make me suspect it's not all it seems:
• He has no friends on the site.
• His profile is mostly, though not entirely, empty.
• He's seriously hot. Like...model hot. Did I mention that yet?
• The message didn't say anything much that would identify that he was talking to ME as opposed to the gazillions of other women on the site.
• One thing he says on his profile is that he hopes this is a place where he can meet a woman who doesn't subscribe to the stick-figure ideal body image. (Either he's perfect or he's preying on fatties)

Here are the things that make me wonder if it could actually be a real person.
• The little that IS on his profile is not cookie-cutter spambot typical.
• The place where he says he lives is just specific enough that it would have to be someone local rather than national. (i.e. not RDU or Raleigh)
• He gives a yahoo IM address.
• The message wording sound like a real-person. It references the holidays.
• Looking to stereotypes, his ethnicity matches his location (omg i'm going to hell!)
• He could be a non-native English speaker.
• Some of the pictures I have up on there are kind of out of date, hearkening back to a time when I was particularly svelte. Not all of them, but there are some of me looking like the hot hot hottie I am when I'm little.

Those of you who know me, or even those who don't, will note that my body image insecurities have woken up and raised their heads, getting ready to join forces with my current low self-esteem to put me in a place where I'll assume nobody like this guy would ever show interest in me.

Let me inject a little reality/counterpoints here.
I'm a cute, cute cutie.
I have a lot to offer.
I have lots of interesting good things about me.
I just finished writing a freaking kick-ass project proposal!
/stewart smalley

I have two choices. Action or inaction.

I'm leaning to action, believe it or not, but there are a couple of things standing in my way; the main one is fear. There are two fears. One emotional and one practical. Emotional? What if he's just being a tool? I don't want to be a pawn in that kind of shit. Pragmatically, I don't feel like dealing with another security breach of the gmail chinese spammer sort.


In fact, here's the message:
*******
Subject: WoW
Body: Hello Princess,

How are you doing?I hope you are having a wonderful time.
I am really attracted to you & your profile.I am wondering if you are interested and available.

My yahoo/myspace IM is REDACTED

Please buzz me when you are online.

Happy Holidays hun

NAME

**********

So, what do y'all think?