I’ve been getting a ton of emails from Match.com lately—people that would be the perfect match for me or have liked my profile.
If I were into guys in their 50s. That really liked cats. And lived in Canada.
The curse of the Totally Awesomely Cool Gmail Address strikes again.
I swear over the years I’ve gotten more emails for other people than for me. Most are just sign-ups for random newsletters like hotels or musicians or clothing stores. Some are a little more interesting like vacation snaps or emails from friends and well-wishers.
Some get a little more questionable. Like the guy in Minnesota who entered my email address as his iTunes account (I kept getting his receipts—really horrible taste in music). Or replies from credit card companies to people asking for their PIN (actually ended up corresponding with that Planet Claire and building her a website).
Then there was the span of two weeks where some guy mistyped his email address (I suspect it was Mr. iTunes) into an “adult dating” site, and I started getting emails from people who had just spoken to Mr. iTunes online and were (as requested) sending me pictures of themselves in various states of undress. Or emailing to arrange a tryst. That was creepy.
Oo! Sidebar! One of the picture emailers sent me like five photos of herself literally doing this awkward shot-by-shot strip tease. I got tired of it so I eventually emailed her back, pretending to be the mother of the Claire she had been mistakenly emailing and absolutely berating her for sending lurid photos to an innocent eight year old girl.
But I must admit the coolest was during the London Olympics when I was mistakenly sent a schedule detailing a private event attended by visiting dignitaries and hosted by HRH. When I emailed the sender back I think he sort of freaked out (kind of a big error, but definitely not his—the same person always gave out my email address as her own). So he ended up calling me and asking me (very kindly) to delete the files. Which I totally did. I swear.
Stop looking at me like that.
Back to Match.com. I ended up emailing them and explained the error. I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t get a response, since I was tempted to do a “Lost Your Password?” thingie and logging into their profile. But alas they promptly responded and fixed the error.
Next time, man. Next time.