What’s Happening Hot Stuff?

Does anybody remember the movie Sixteen Candles? Remember the character Long Duk Dong? I still snicker at that name like the twelve year old I was when that film came out.

Remember the scene where Molly Ringwald is laying on the bottom bunk in her brother’s room and Long Duk Dong swings down from the top bunk and greets her with, “What’s happening hot stuff?”

This is how I often feel now when I open my Twitter to find that yet another “single dad” or “single guy” whose bio sounds like it belongs on Match.com rather than a regular social media account has started following me. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I’ll click on their profile to see what they’re all about and that’s when you discover that they are following 300 people but are only followed by 30. And of the 300 they’re following, 250 are women with profile pictures that look like something that once again belongs on a dating site rather than someone who is just hanging out on social media. And the guy in question has been a member of Twitter for several months but only has six Tweets.

That’s when you realize that you’ve been added to somebody’s “collection” and that he’s really probably just here to meet women.

There is absolutely nothing on my Twitter bio or feed that even remotely indicates I’m looking for a man. Most of the people I follow and/or who follow me are writers, bloggers and comedians with a few random others thrown in who appreciate a sense of humor. When you “follow” me and your bio practically screams “I’m a single father looking for my next baby mama!” and you only have 30 followers and they’re all females and you follow 200 females and you only have like three Tweets, then we all know why you’re here.

This mainly started happening AFTER I changed my profile picture. When I first signed up for Twitter, I used my  AWS logo as my profile picture and my banner picture is my whole logo with my tag line “Commentary from a reformed good girl”. I changed the profile picture to one of me. It’s a simple, picture of me smiling and it’s really only from the neck up though you can tell I’m not only wearing clothes but I’m wearing a scarf around my neck. I left the banner picture the same so that people would connect it to the blog. Here is a screen shot of my bio.

Yet after changing the picture, the Long Duk Dongs of the world started coming out of the woodwork.

And I know they don’t read blogs because some of them can barely write a gramatically correct sentence.

Dudes, seriously, if you paid any attention at all to my bio or my feed, you would know that I retweet a bunch of Mom and lady jokes, sarcasm, hashtag games and my own blog posts. For crap’s sake, the Tweet pinned to the top of my feed is from a hashtag game that I played and my answer was really popular so a lot of people “liked” it and retweeted it. It says “My X Factor is my resting bitch face” and features a GIF of Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

Does that look like a “single white female seeking companionship”?

And while I’m ranting, what is up with the whole feast or famine thing? All you guys sniffing around on social media are the same dudes who ignored me in high school, college and my early twenties. Where were you when my love life looked like this?

Now you’re middle aged and divorced with a receding hairline and a beer gut, so you’re “casting a wider net” just in case? That whole love affair you had back in the 80’s (in your mind) with Tawny Kitaen and Kelly LeBrock didn’t quite pan out?

Sorry. Not sorry.

Perhaps you’d like to meet my jealous, Italian husband, who does not have a beer gut or a comb over and who bench presses guys that remind him of the assholes that picked on him in high school.

Or that stare a little too long at his wife.

He’s full of pent up rage. Wanna meet him?

I’m kidding. Sort of.

The Long Duk Dongs are not just male, either. How many porn chicks out there need me to “fill their inboxes”? Several, apparently. They are probably just bots, but it’s still very odd, considering my profile doesn’t scream “I want all kinds of sexual attention!”

This one has to be my all time favorite, though, and he only just started following me as I was writing this blog post:

Meet Prince Hamdan Bin Mohammed. The name may not sound familiar to you at all, but you should know there is a REAL Prince Hamdan Bin Mohammed and he is the actual crown prince of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The photo in this profile? It’s the real prince.

Here is the part I find most amusing, though. The real Prince Hamdan has 6.1 million followers on Instagram alone. Apparently, he’s not doing as well on Twitter, because he only has fifteen followers and he hasn’t bothered to Tweet anything. I especially like how he added all those numbers to the end of his Twitter handle.  Very authentic. I’m sure we’ll be corresponding in no time, discussing how I can deposit a small sum of money into his offshore account…

Speaking of Instagram, there isn’t so much an issue with men wanting to flirt or hit on you, but definitely a case of mistaken identity. You can see either to the right of my blog page or down below (depending on if you’re on a desktop, mobile or tablet) that my Instagram feed is comprised mainly of personal photos that give a glimpse of my life, combined with photos that publicize my shop products and/or my latest blog post.

I posted ONE picture of my car undergoing repairs, along with hashtags I thought were relevant, and suddenly I’ve got all these mechanic and auto parts businesses following me.

I’m sure they’re quite disappointed when they realize the majority of my feed are pictures of my teenager, my pets, and random jewelry and quotes. Kind of like the really religious people who follow me on social media because of the whole “Angel” thing and then discover the “Who Swears” part is no joke. I feel bad for them and wish I could warn them, but they usually “unfollow” me once they realize profanity is my co-pilot, so I guess it all works out in the end.

While I’m on the subject of Instagram, I’d like to commend the people who are able to coordinate the lighting, filters, colors and themes of their Instagram photos so that their feeds look like something out of a magazine. Here is an example:

Then there’s mine, which looks a little dark and creepy:

Oh well…you know what I always say…Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!