Single White Nerd: Online Dating Danger and Flockter Mill

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a blogumn Michael Kass

Flockter Mill and Machel May Embroidery: TotallySevere.com

If you’re reading this, the odds are that you have tried online dating at some point. And as someone who has tried online dating, you are no doubt aware of the many risks involved. You may have faced countless pictures of shirtless men posing in front of their hot rods. You may have been stalked. All of You may have faced people who posted fake pictures, lied about their criminal records, had baby mama or papa drama.

Goes with the territory.

I’m here today to add another item to the extensive list of Warnings About Online Dating. Here you go:

Online dating may lead to the chance to humiliate yourself on a national—no, international—scale.

Three weeks ago I received a message on an online dating site that, quite frankly, I forgot I had joined. “Hello,” said the message, “I am a producer for a daytime talk show. We are looking for men to come on the show as special guests to give the male point of view on dating. The show tapes on August 25^th. If you’re interested, please call me at [phone number].”

Many people would have ignored the message. Not me. I called.

It ended up being completely legitimate. The number connected me to a staffer on a daytime talk show. I can’t tell you the name of the show. But it sounds a lot like “Flockter Mill.” The staffer explained that the Flockter was doing a show on women who are over-eager to get married and wanted to have “average American males” on the show to give their honest, uncensored reactions to these women’s dating tactics.

I suppose that I may appear to be an “average American male” on my profile. The good Flockter’s minions knew nothing of my not-so-secret identity as the Single White Nerd. They had unwittingly given me the opportunity to reach millions of people with my message of. . .I mean. You know. My message. The things I want to say about stuff. My highly specific, unambiguous message about dating and relationships!

How could I say no?

On the appointed day at the appointed time, I went to the studio dressed in my Sunday best. I signed the Flockter’s confidentiality contracts and liability waivers. I gave them the right to use my image as they see fit in perpetuity. I gave them the right to delve into my past. I gave them my social security number.

With each successive form, my sense of unease grew. Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea. Perhaps my visions of using the Flockter to spread my Message (see above for highly specific nature of this Message) to the masses were ever so slightly grandiose. It occurred to me, a bit too late, that I was, maybe perhaps possibly, setting myself up for Humiliation on a National (no, International) Scale.

I continued to the taping. A few, disconnected observations: debutantes are so tan as to be orange, the Flockter is quite tall, and the other four “Average American Males” selected from the vast quagmire of online dating sites wore a black suit with a blue shirt. I wore a blue sport-coat with a pink shirt. This is because I am very rebellious.

So how did my visit with the Flockter go? If you’ve read any of my previous entries here, you can probably figure it out. You can see the carnage (or maybe triumph) yourself on September 25 during about 2 minutes of a special, nerdalicious episode of the Flockter Mill Show. No, I’m not kidding.