The Columnist Manifesto

For the past couple of months, every time I check my Yahoo email account, I'm shown a picture of "Missy," of Watertown, New York. Missy is evidently the current icon for Yahoo Personals, an online dating service that promies "Better first dates, more second dates."

I feel as if I've gotten to know Missy over the past several weeks. She's "shy at first but warms up quickly" and describes her "love style" as "spontaneous." These are Yahoo's prefabricated words and phrases, but here are "her own words":

"I'm looking for someone who knows how to have fun, but also knows what they want to do with their life, and has the ambition to accomplish their goals."

Hey, who does that sound like -- I mean, assuming by "goals" she means "reasonable goals"?

Well, I'm not exactly in a dating mode here, but I have to say I've developed sort of a crush on Missy, and if I were single, and happened to be passing through Watertown, New York, well, who knows?

Can you imagine my feeling of betrayal, then, when I saw this photo recently in my Yahoo internet portal? Missy ... with Brett! Who is this "Brett"? Yeah, he probably "knows how to have fun," but has he accomplished any of his goals?

And just look at those two. They look like they've proceeded well past the "better first date," and the second date, wouldn't you say? Yet Yahoo Personals continues to attract business with the original single picture of Missy! How can they keep pretending that Missy is available, and also be showing me this?

UPDATE: Moral Turpitude reports here that her internet portal says that the way to have "better first dates" is to make intentional malapropisms and bad puns to attract your date with a sense of humor. (Check out the examples -- they're priceless.) Maybe that's how Brett got Missy, who describes herself as having a "Clever / Quick Witted, Dry / Sarcastic" sense of humor.

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