I canceled my Match, JDate, and Nerve memberships when I met someone I was ready to date exclusively. Recently, though, I’ve become a marketer’s dream because I simply had to email this guy, and doing so meant signing up. It was all thanks to an IM window from my matchmaking friend Erika which read, "I think I’ve found the guy for you. He sounds just like you–read his summary!" She was being serious and thoughtful, looking out for my dating hellfare. She included a link to his personal ad. Wow! He was just like me. And then some.
Here was my profile:
I don’t like long walks; I cab it. Hiking to me sounds like a fate worse than death, yet I love the idea of camping. I think it’s the food. Second, who doesn’t like to travel? And why does everyone have to say they like "curling up" with a good book? Come on people. I Love Milkduds in my popcorn and cold air; movies are a given. The girl can cook and dress. And please, dear god, enough with the jeans to evening gown cliché. Yawn. I use lotion on my legs and like high thread count sheets. I have so much passion, I assure you, you’ll be floored. I can bait my own hook, but I’ll count on you for moving the hair off my face, back scratches, letting me eat the fries off your plate, and definitely good bedtime stories. Flowers from Takashimaya certainly don’t hurt, especially when sent to the office, but I’ve learned romance is about sacrifice and compromise..about lemon water in the middle of the night.
You don’t pronounce dog, “dawg,” lounge in Sean John velour, and you know jewelry belongs on a woman, not your neck. If you want to cook me dinner on the second date, you’re cheap. You don’t refer to yourself in the third person or drink anything pink. You do eat carbs but will never Blackberry over dinner. You would never say, “the bomb.” If you always order chicken teriyaki at Japanese restaurants, I’m not the girl for you. I need someone with a sense of adventure, even if that means a spicy tuna roll. LOL would never be used in any of your communications with me. You live in Manhattan and ideally live alone. You’ve experienced pain at one point in your life, have evolved communication skills, and want to find a partner in crime. You’re intelligent, tender, and audacious with an enduring sense of character. You know when to swallow pride, grab me, and fight for it. An emotionally available man who doesn’t acquiesce because it’s easier than confrontation has a spot beside me. Men with mommy and daddy issues or who manage their anger with drugs or alcohol need not apply. A robust sexual drive is essential, really, no seriously, I mean it. Enjoy listening to music, with me by your side, sipping wine from your glass. You won’t mind if I drag you around the city and have you hold my light meter while I photograph the grit and splendor of the city (for a living). Holding my hand and kissing me on the street is a have-to. It’s all about passion. I crave it and give it, good. A good first date would include honesty and alcohol. And, most of all, be armed with attention span, an appetite for everything, and an open mind to chick flicks and music that might as well be a chick flick. Oh, and you can’t mind that my Toy Fox Terrier, Linus, sleeps under the covers with me and licks my sweet face.
Here is Stephen’s Profile (aka nycmedia):
I don’t like long walks; I’d rather use a car service. Camping to me sounds like a fate worse than death, yet I love the idea of hiking. But to be honest, I never have been camping. Second, who doesn’t like to travel? And why does everyone have to say they are "tired of the club scene"? Come on people, I saw you last night freezing your ass off, waiting in line for bottle service at some cheesy west side club. I love cold air; movies are a given. This college educated guy can’t cook. And please, dear god, enough with the "sweat pants to black tie" cliché;. Yawn. I wear a suit 5 days a week I like high thread count sheets and love my 4 adorable nieces.Except I am losing my cool uncle status as they grew into teenagers. I am cokcy yet blunt, successful yet not arrogant, witty and attractive, I assure you, you’ll be floored with my dynamic and sometimes flawed personality. I won’t take you to a Sizzler-type buffet or what I like to call "public food". I’ve learned friendship is about loyalty, sacrifice and compromise.I never, ever lounge in Sean John velour, and I know "bling" belongs on a woman, not my neck. If you want me to cook you dinner, we’ll starve and end up with takeout. I don’t refer to myself in the third person or drink anything pink. I enjoyed Notting Hill, Love Actually, Scarface and True Romance. I will never Blackberry during dinner. I would never say, “You da bomb.” I did own Paula Abdul’s CD in 8th grade but I also saw the Beastie Boys with Run-DMC in grade. If you always order chicken teriyaki at Japanese restaurants, I’m not the dinner partner for you. I prefer friends with a sense of adventure, even if that means a hot dog from the corner of . would never be used in any of my communications with you. I live in Manhattan and thank god that I live alone. I’ve experienced great joy, pain, love and loss and am thankful that I was raised by two older sisters, but never taught how to do laundry or cook.
I know what you’re thinking… it’s a fake profile; it’s all a joke. I’d emailed him warning him to remove my writing from his profile without ever receiving a response. So I used the cell phone number he’d sent me from a while back (thank god for archives) to speak with him about this. He answered the phone, "This is Stephen." He sounded southern yet anxious.
"Hi Stephen," so it was a real name, "I got your number from an email you sent me from match.com."
"Oh, is this the redhead?" Clearly he’d recieved my email earlier in the day, or he wouldn’t have known the color of my anything.
"Yes, this is she."
"Yeah, there’s been a big misunderstanding. A friend of mine, a married guy, stole my photo and is pretending to be me. Ran up the charges on my credit card, too." None of this makes any sense. If you’re friends with the guy, close enough for him to swipe your credit card number and your photos, couldn’t you get it to stop? If you’re receiving unwanted emails, wouldn’t you have cancelled the account a long time ago?
The boy mad-lib’d my profile. Clearly, the boy needs to change his screen name. I hear he’s taking suggestions. nycplagiarist just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Or am I being too harsh? Is he telling the truth? Perhaps I should change my screen name to matchdetective. You decide. (PS, His profile is now down… shocking)
the best is that he's wearing bling in the photo!! haha!
Ummm, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
What an idiot. The poor girl who matches him will think he's smart and clever — at first.
So — are you going to wink at him or whatever it is you do on match.com? And then bring him down? I'm interested in seeing how this story unfolds.
I think you should toy with him as well. What an idiot. He obviously isn't nearly as clever as he'd like to think he is.
Hm, well I have no opinion on whether or not you should believe him. However, I do think your profile is pretty darn good. Worth ripping off I'd say.
well, my sister did put up a profile for me. but I don't think "Stephen" deserves the benefit of the doubt. if he knew who you were, he likely knew exactly what was done.
updates appreciated, matchdetective.
I'm surprised he didn't also pull from Kurt Vonnegut's famous "Wear Sunscreen" commencement speech of lore while he was at it.
Who knows who else is claiming your profile as theirs?
Kurt Vonnegut?
Weird thing is if you squint hard enough at the photograph you can see a press release in the background that announces his deal with Judith Regan for a book called "Straight Up and Stolen."
well my question to him would be "if you EVER want to get laid via match, you should remove that profile immediately."
Who knows their friend's credit card number? That is total b.s. He wanted you to e-mail him and then call him.
Clearly someone needs to work on their moves.
Or maybe he is thinking about getting an operation and becoming you.
and any guy you find that is willing to hold your lighter, follow you around like your puppy, and likes to watch chick flicks, is a pussy. you will tire of him quickly, and have to start from scratch on the dating circuit after you cant stand the very sight of him within a month.
He's definently talking out of his you-know-what. He obviously admires your writing style and your straight-up attitude. It's funny, because the sentences he added about himself are not as interesting as the beginning. It's all in the phrasing, as you know.
So he took your profile, tried to make himself SEEM witty and fabulous, and then lied to avoid the heat.
Email match.com and tell them what's up.
Freak. Asshole. Run run run.
Or he may have seen your profile, liked it a lot, and wanted to show that he was your match by jokingly answering all your questions/concerns in his own profile? That was my first thought.
Lucie,
I believe you're refering to film director Baz Luhrman's pilfering of "Everyone's Free To Wear Sunscreen" in song form. The original speech was incorrectly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut. It was actually written by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich in 1997 when she imagined what she would say if she was ever asked to be a commencement speaker.
Rather ironic given the subject of this last entry. Perhaps Vonnegut wrote Stepahnie's profile.
Kimberly, I'm with you…..that was the first thing that ran through my mind. I think he wanted to make sure he got her attention……and he did!
so there i was dating stephen exclusively when i found out he cyrano'ed your thoughts. i've had it with him. next i'll learn he really didn't invent the housebreaking wee wee pads he uses for his dog linus. i need a woman like stephanie in my life.
Unbelievable. Someone is playing some kind of joke here, be it on you or on Stephen, be it done by Stephen or his imaginary friend (ha). Maybe he's trying to get your attention, as some other commentors mentioned.
I was very amused, to say the least.
Oh, and the fact that he asked for a woman 18 – 35 irked me. First of all, why would an 18 years old need dating service? Granted, they're allowed, but I'd find it sad if an 18 years old actually needs one. Secondly, I find that the idea of a 32 years old man even considering dating a teenager makes me kind of…queasy
I'd be more upset that it was a total GUIDO who was pinching my style, than anything else.
Some people think that the Internet is a big place…and it IS. However, so is Manhattan – yet i was always AMAZED at how small of a world it can be sometimes.
All of this to say that perhaps nycplagiarist is too much of an idiot to thinki for himself so he thought that ripping off some lines from someone else's profile would never be caught. Until he was.
Karma, man. What a bitch.
Lovin' your site Steph. Long time lurker.
Not for nothing, but he looks like an asshole.
Such drama. You mean someone lied in an online personal?? I'm shocked. Shocked and appalled. At least he stole some good material. (In the music industry, they would call it a remix.)
Thanks, Stephanie — you gave me a good laugh this morning.
My fiancee (note the attribution) recently reminded me of an old adage: "never mess with someone who buys ink by the truckload.". I'd have added to this "or writes number one hits" (think "You're So Vain" and Carly Simo and Warren Beatty (or Kris Kristofferson, or Cat Stevens or Mick Jagger).
Now, we can definitely add "or whose 'blog get 20,000 hits a day." I'd suggest to anyone who's on Match to send nycplagiarist a note of congratulations for his appearance on this site, along with any suggestions you may have as to how he might get a life (of his own, that is).
As I was walking home this morning, pondering the fate of my poor sock, I wondered, could it be ex-Times journo Jason Blair? So sad, yet so entertaining; bizarre ones like him do provide such great comic relief and great material…
I think the sad part of this post is that so long as it remains your most recent one, his face is the first mug you see when you browse over here. Ick.
i thought you were cute but WOW, you're high maintenance!!!
yeah…you're writing is terrible, bland, and not at all inspiring…i take that last comment back…you inspire people to hate you. you lead this fake sex and the city life, and you're only encouraging others to do so. so much for being romantic. you are jappy. high maintanence is only the tip of the iceberg with you. you want to be treated like a princess…but you don't really bring much to the table. and don't say that i'm bitter or poor. you're just bitter that you're tainted goods
I think its his hair that creeps me out. Maybe i'm just jealous cause I dont have that much.
Something about him reminds me of Joey Buttafuoco.
While I can sort of sift out the point of what youre[sic]writingsucks is trying to say, the spelling alone discredits it.
I was going to say something about your profile being ridiculous and long-winded, but if that's what you want, you have to let guys know that's what you want, even if it does annoy others. It's better than you going on the site and pretending you're easygoing, low maintenance, and not incredibly egotistical and narcissistic. That would be an outright lie.
If your "imitator" was a little bit different, I would say he was just making fun of you. Overall, he's just pathetic and unoriginal. Wait, you guys would be a perfect match.
first off, yeahno and yourewritingsucks are two different people…
i like your writing but i definitely think you're a high maintenance chick. but hey, at least you know what you want so more power to ya.
Was his 'imitation posting' overboard? Yes. Pathetic and even a little sad? Absolutely.
Was it really necessary to post his picture? No. That was mean-spirited.
His 'profile', while annoying, was truly harmless to you on a personal level.
Your public outing of him was kind of cruel.
Methinks anyway. Clearly a minority opinion…
Jane-I like your style-if I could write I couldn't have written it better myself-really I couldn't Thank God you did. Girlfriend is too high maintenance and brings nothing different to the table other than red hair..
Look on the bright side: at least he didn't try to palm off "100 things about me" to beef up his profile OR was he copying you in this manner in the hopes that you might run across his profile, because he wanted to be everything you might want in a man? (Except for slim….he's kindof jowly)
Please post again soon! I can't take this guy's glowering photo, so large and jowl-ly, when I come to your site.
Thanks, Stephanie. It was getting pretty damn annoying.
I removed his photo because it was annoying… and it was a little mean-spirited too.
Some guy stole my JDate profile. When I wrote him and told him to cut it out, he said he could do whatever he wanted since I didn't have a "copyright" to it. So I called JDate, made friends with customer service, and they removed his profile, and continued to do so until he cut it out.
I can't imagine any man taking the time to read through that entire profile (yours, I mean.) It was really good, but I'm a girl and I like to read. I've never used a dating service, though, maybe that's what you're supposed to do. I don't think posting his picture was mean-spirited at all. I even went back to look at it when I read later in the comments that it was there. Oh, and I'm going to look for your book next time I go to the bookstore, has it been published?
First book is due to hit stores in April
Yea and if nobody mentioned it…what about the whole Stephen and Stephanie thing…? Is this guy even real?
Thanks for taking the photo off – he looked like he was trying to create an image of an overtanned and over slicked Ricky Martin.
You had taken the time to write an original profile, he couldn't be bothered, so he used your work. Pfft to him. Must be kind of strange to have a stranger using you, another stranger, to met yet another.. umm… stranger?! Very sad on his part.
but i just bpught this velour tacksuit…sigh…why cant i find the george costanza girl…
Geez! I thought the guy in that photo looked suspiciously like Karl Rove?
That's too funny. Was he just screwing around?- or hoping that some girl would be like – "aawwww, he's purrrfect!"
I actually have a friend who had her identity stolen by her roommate and didn't find out until she tried to by a house and found out she had bad credit. The roommate was a family friend that she had known since childhood. It just goes to show you can't trust anyone. This "friend" opended a number of credit cards under her name and even bought a used car…just didn't pay anything off…
a) He stole your profile
b) He claims it was his friend who stole his credit card and photo, then gave you his cell phone number.
I get several things from this.
He's a pathological liar and he's irresponsible. Those are two big red flags that would NOT make me want to meet him.
He's also smarmy looking.
Your writing is entertaining, but I would think only a masochist would answer your profile. I thought I was exacting!
What a boob.
I can't believe all these nasty and jealous posts. These guys can't afford you, emotionally or fiscally. So what if you're high maintenance? You say it, you know and you deserve it!
It's like when Harry says to Sally,
"You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance."
If you're high maintenance and you know it, clap your hand! Clap! Clap!
I know someone on facebook who has used your profile as well.