Hola! Via the Yakky Widget

Now there’s a groovy little hot pink box in the sidebar in which you can chat with me. Or you know, distressed family members in need of rides can also keep in touch. Named it “Yakky Widget” because I have no idea how to use most of these widget things but know their functions.

So, spew forth your venom and wit, minions, friends and freeloaders. I will respond — when able.

Blogging the break-up

The online world is a playa’s dream…and his worst nightmare. Here’s the virtual Shangri-La where he can ensnare the usual suspects: trollops and trolling feministas, seven-thousand myspace chicks in string bikinis, a dozen four a.m. femme fatales. Women of all ages, geographically scattered, all looking for love and centrally located by just a few light taps on his keyboard.

The Internet is like the world’s largest 24 hour access Little Black Book.

With one, he can be sweet, loving, romantic. (Any toad can Google Byronic verse these days, right?) With another, he can be suave, sophisticated – once he bookmarks all those glamour and Wine Tasting Weekly sites.

He can be, in short, anyone he wishes to be – for everyone he wishes to meet.

And then, the worst nightmare part waltzes in: he can be caught. But not just busted and scorned: that’s too easy. Right on his favorite world wide playground, he can be busted, scorned, nailed to a cross, publicly scrutinized and inivited to his very own www-dot-crucifixion in full view of all those who once held him in highest regard.

Don’t believe me?

Growing faster than John McCain age jokes, websites dedicated to exposing the playas, bad boys, hoodlums, nogoodnicks and other assorted dating cretins that give bad names to nice guys everywhere are making lists and taking names. Quite possibly, yours. From fabulous fall-outs to dating disasters, sites like Don’t Date Him, Girl and Cheater News are springing-up like weeds to chronicle the past and current exploits of rotten Romeos everywhere.

Entries range from garden-variety jilted, angry lovers to depictions of defrauding dipshits in our midst. But for the real lowdown on the worst of the worst shady psychos, sites like Players and Psychos Cyberpaths and Lovefraud are must-reads.

Hard to know how seriously to take some of these sites, but Cyberpaths and Lovefraud are both very credible sites filled with information on what constitutes an abusive relationship, what you can do to find help and how to get out safely.

Along with clearinghouse-style websites, more and more people are turning to public exposure via personal blog – a practice either utterly foolhardly or fearless. Haven’t quite decided which, yet. Either way, googling your next potential paramour is becoming standard practice.

For the truly industrious willing to do their own legwork, online sites like People Search, Accurint and Intellius will provide every available public record in a handy downloadable report for nominal fees. Sweetie got a firearm fetish? You can find out. Is the boy bankrupt? That’s the next column, right after the firearm license report.

Of course, much of this information is also available individually at much less cost, if you know where to look. Sites like Pacer link to all bankruptcy cases across the US, for instance. For just $.03 a page, you can learn everything there is to know about someone’s Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 filing.

But it’s the exposure that’s remarkable. Here’s an aggregator, Blog Toplist, filled with kiss-and-tell breakup articles from bloggers. And that was just from a two second Google search.

With so many blogs and websites from which to choose, your entire romantic history can be read by anyone capable of pointing and clicking. If that doesn’t dissuade many people from dirty dating practices, not sure anything would.

And me?

Well, I prefer these stories in book form. Much more dignified, dontcha think?