Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

There are far too many examples I’ve been receiving lately that make me seriously question the mental fitness of my countrypeople. I wanna feel proud of this beautiful land, but damn, when I read things like the fact that 13% of registered voters believe Barack Obama is Muslim (even in the wake of this Reverend Wright silliness? Who are these people?) or witness talentless, perpetually stoned warbler Jason Castro propel to the #3 spot on “American Idol”, I get very sad. And angry.

Nothing, however, perplexes me quite like the emails I receive when I have an article up on MSN.com. As most of you who read this blog know, I am a freelance writer, and often, I pen dating and relationships-oriented articles for MSN.com’s “dating and personals” section. Most of these articles focus on a particular dating topic like “dating after divorce” or “how to get over your fear of first dates”, and are written in a question and answer style, with my interviewing an author or professional who lends his or her thoughts/professional advice on the topic.

It is ABUNDANTLY clear - if you actually read the articles, that is - that the opinions expressed in said articles are those of the experts, and that I’m merely the interviewer/transcriber. However, there are lots of folks out there who don’t quite comprehend that, and this baffles me, much in the way Paris Hilton’s celebrity or the popularity of the WWF does.

Each time one of my articles goes up, I get countless emails from nutjobs across the country who have found fault with what “I” have to say on each subject. I won’t even get into how frightening I find people who actually take the dating and relationships pieces I write MSN.com seriously enough to track down my email address, much less write me with their thoughts, but what really strikes me is how it seems most people don’t understand how a question and answer exchange works, and the difference between one who “questions” and one who “answers”. I mean, am I the idiot here, or is this a concept one learns in elementary school?

For the past couple of days, I have had a piece up on the site called “How to win over a bad boy”. For this piece, I interviewed and quoted Lauren Frances, celebrity love coach and author of Dating, Mating and Manhandling: The Ornithological Guide to Men. While your average 4th grader could figure out after reading the article’s intro that the opinions listed next to each “A:” section are her answers, all sorts of wackos don’t, and email me their irate comments.

Here’s a sampling of some I have received today (some of which were actually posted to the blog, as it’s listed in my byline):

“Just read the stupid Bad Boy article on MSN. God you’re an idiot. Why the f**k are you wasting space like you are? I hope you’re kids are smarter than you - we don’t need any more dips**ts sucking down what clean air is left.”

I love how that person called me an idiot, yet is unaware of how to correctly use “your” and “you’re”.  And such rage over a dating article on MSN.com. And I’m the dips**t sucking down what clean air is left? Discuss.

“I have been a frequent reader of your articles that appear on the front page of msn.com. I hope you are able to handle constructive criticism because I have plenty of it for you. Just when I think you were incapable of writing something more moranic than the day before, you do. You suprise me once again with your article about winning over a bad boy. What do you hope to accomplish by these articles? If you are trying to come across as a secularist, libretarian, atheist, pagan, individualistist, hedonist pig, then you more than surpass that title. You seem to be encouraging women and men to have fun at all cost. Do you believe that hopping from bed to bed will somehow make things better for people and not worse? In any relationship emotions are invloved. No matter how hard you try to keep things “fun”, you are really leading people down a road of misery and heartache with your senseless babbling articles which will have an adverse effect on many of your readers. Your endless attempts at comedic humor are an insult to people with a brain. As a Catholic, I am offended by your writing and I insist you stop encouraging sexual promiscuity in your articles. The lives you damage by your articles will be on your conscience and you will be called to account for it. Perhaps if you yourself were on the recieving end of one of these “relationships” that ended with heatache and pain, you would learn sooner or later that its not all about “fun.” Perhaps you should investigate the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality and the sacredness of the human body. Specifically the Theology of the Body written by Pope John Paul II. Here you will find the true value of the human person instead of making people sexual toys. In closing, I believe your writing needs to change. You need to find ways of focusing on helping people instead of focusing on perverted desires.”

I’m not even sure where to begin with that one, but that spelling-challenged gentleman writes me all the time, calling me a pervert, moron and, my personal favorite, “hedonist pig”. How very “Catholic” of him! Uh, dude…the last time I checked, Jesus wasn’t so into name-calling…

“Chelsea- 

You know really nothing of bad boys…

I’m a bad boy and you have us figured out only just a little bit, But nice try kid!!

If I caught you, I bet I could make you love me & do everything I want,even something you said you never would do. But I’ve got what I want, cause that what every smart bad boy is doing , working on finding what he really wants and then when he get that he makes the right moves to get & keep it…So anyway…keep taken those lessons wherever you are getting them, but get some more tutoring from a bad bay, before you talk about them. Cause there are women out there who are gonna take your advice and end up getting hurt emotionally. cause a bad boy is still a bad boy for life.He just always play it smarter than the average male,cause to him it’s strategy,from beginning to end,for life.”

Abundant grammar and spelling mistakes aside, what I like most about that one is his “knowledge” of me.  And the bold text added nice emphasis - thanks!

“I normally don’t comment on anything that I read, but I felt compelled to do so from this article that was written from extreme arrogance and ignorance, obviously from a woman who is bitter and inexperienced…I have slept with many (beautiful) women who were absolutely drop dead gorgeous and never 1 time even complimented them on their looks and treated them like dirt. In fact, I found out later that the reason I ended up with them was because I never did compliment them or treat them well at all and they wanted to ‘conquer’ me to change that. It never worked and I saw them again…until I became bored and broke it off.”

I love how this gentleman boasts of his “many (beautiful)” conquests and demeaning treatment of them, yet bashes “my” take on bad boys. He also goes on to list his MySpace page - seriously, who has a MySpace page anymore ? It’s hilarious - check out his identifying photo. Classy.

I’m all for spirited discourse and even criticism of my work, but seriously, people, if you’re gonna write to me about my articles, try reading them first, ok?

Labels: in the news, interesting articles, rants