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Besides the funny stuff, craigslist.org also has job postings, things for sale, discussion groups, and housing information. It's fun to look at and it's free.
It is actually a place you could shop for a man, woman or a used refrigerator, which brings me to the point of this post.
"Aha," I hear you say, "So there is a point."
Yes! I think I finally solved the puzzle of life.
I found the missing piece painted underneath the Freemont bridge.
Ah but I digress. I just thought that graffiti looked like a puzzle piece and wondered why it was painted there. If you have misplaced that piece, send me an email and I'll give you more precise directions ;-)
So...on Craig's list we can advertise to sell ourselves or browse the ads to find others. You can find woman seeking men, woman seeking woman, men seeking men, etc.. Being a student of the human condition I find myself drawn to looking at those ads, and the ones on The Stranger, Match.com, on the bulletin board at the laundromat, or written on bathroom stalls, to see what the story is. I think the story is messy and complex, maybe beautiful, ugly, tragic or funny; not unlike human beings.
One thing that strikes me is the number of ads written to find the "perfect" match/friend/soulmate/companion that assume perfection would be finding someone just like yourself. If I'm a toned, muscular, hiker, biker, club-going, beach-walking, hang-gliding, heli-skiing, white, Christian; then my perfect match would be someone just like me?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
What if I'm also a neurotic, anal retentive, mean spirited, narcissistic jackass, who judges people by their looks, the clothes they wear, the cars they drive and places they live? Then would my perfect match be myself? My clone? If it's another person it will probably need to be someone who will share the mirror and understand how great I am.
Interlude - Here's a couple of posts for the best of Craig's List for your entertainment pleasure:
Are you my soul mate?
I'm like the entire A-Team rolled into one guy
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Maybe opposites should attract. Maybe that's what keeps the gene-pool strong. Maybe it's okay if you like to ride bicycles, and your soulmate likes to knit. As long as you're happy, or maybe - what is most important in the word's of the famous philosopher/song writer Jerry Garcia,
"What I want to know, is are you kind?"
Maybe if we thought back to what attracted us to friends when we were children. You didn't go looking for another kid who liked the exact same things you did. They might have liked one thing you did (perhaps riding bikes or swimming), which is how you met them, but they liked other things too; which is why you found them interesting friends to have, and you both had fun showing each other new things.
Finally I have to say some people who write these ads seem to be stuck in one area of childlike fantasy. Not the fun, let's see what we might do together, laugh about stage...but rather the idea that people should look like children - even old people, or grown-ups (over the age of about 30). Maybe your best friend when you were nine was flat chested, weighed ninety pounds, was toned and muscular and looked like a boy (maybe he was a boy) does that mean you have to keep looking for that person when you are an adult?
Perhaps it is better to realize, like one of the queens of relationships, Gloria Vanderbuilt says, that romance is an imaginative, rather than a physical, activity. It happens in your mind not in your eyes. Of course if you are an adolescent, or remained an adolescent, then you can lust after anything you "see". Maybe rear ends turn you on? Maybe the rear end of a bus turns you on? (Lenny Bruce said that while describing how young men can be sexually attracted to just about anything).
I saw Gloria Vanderbilt talking about her book, "It Seemed Important at the Time - A Romance Memoir" last night on the television and thought she had some interesting and wise things to say. This quote is from the beginning of the book -
"In romance what do you seek? Something new and Other, although you don't quite know what it is? For me romance is a yearning not fully conscious, but what I find is always the search for something else, a renewal and a hope for transformation. The creative risk-taking of passionate love not only gives you the chance to change the past, it gives the imagination one more chance at an exciting future."
I'm very very fortunate to have a lifelong companion who likes some things I like. I like some things she likes too. We are very different in some ways (it's a good thing) and very much the same in others (that's a good thing too).
May you find romance and friendship in your own special way, or for that matter, be a hermit if that's what you decide works best for you. Maybe alternate; recluse one week, bon vivant the next?
Wishing you a good starting week of August; enjoying the sun or for those in the southern latitudes, waiting for it's return.
