If you’re looking for unusual and disturbing, Craigslist is the place to go.

I had an idea to write a mock dating site style post about an out of work English Ph.D.  I tried to access dating sites to learn how they work, what language and phrasing they use, etc., but I didn’t want to create a profile, so I couldn’t.

So I turned to newspaper personals, which were equally disappointing, until I clicked on a Craigslist link.

Oh my goodness!

I hit the depravity jackpot. That wasn’t my goal, but that certainly was my result.

I was completely unaware of the range of human predilections that can be advertised for without fear of legal sanction. And the pictures. To my horror, I saw images I now wish to unsee.

It was like the best of train wrecks – perversely riveting and peculiarly revolting.  And I only stayed on the site for less than a minute.  I can’t imagine what anomalies I would have encountered I had dared to stay longer.  But alas, I didn’t learn all that much about dating site jargon.

Back to the drawing board.