Day 2 - "This person lives approximately 3710 miles from your home"

I seem to be popular with women living in former members of the Soviet Union. Nizhniy Novgorod. I'm very big there. Hmmm, perhaps I was a jerk for writing user 'WHO CARES' about her communication skills. No wait, she's in Los Angeles. She deserved it. So as of today, nearly ALL of the women who wrote me have deleted accounts. 1 or 2 remain. Lavalife... spamming ground? No anti-spam protection whatsoever? Not looking good.

The woman from Novgorod has no profile, like the rest of them ("Member no longer has a profile in this community"), yet she is still able to write me. Nice big gaping security hole.

Today's lessons learned:
* lavalife is apparently easily hackable.
* Lots of spammers, fair amount of Russians and Romanians.
* USERS WITH NO ACCOUNTS CAN SEND ME MESSAGES!
* Half of the users want me to email them; the other half want my email address.

Why do spammers go through all the trouble of creating fake accounts on lavalife just to snag a couple email address to spam to? Is it worth that much? When it comes down to it, I really have no idea what to expect. Perhaps they're not spammers but porn companies trying to sell pics or something? Let's find out. Of course I created a separate email account for this, so bring on the spam. Who shall I write? How about this tasty message I just got:



Subject: Hi, You profile is HOT!
Message: Hello! How are you? I looked your profile and want know more about your. Sorry, but i dont have many time for talk here. You can write me your email address and i send you more photo and tell you about myself? Wait your answer!


Who would have guessed that so many lonely super models would be on lavalife. Wow. I have so much to teach them, about English. I sent her my email address.
Awaiting the onslaught.

Day 1

I filled out a nearly complete profile, except for a few fields that I didn't even know about. It's a bit confusing actually. You get 3 profiles - dating, relationships, and the dreaded 'intimate encounters'. Each one can have a different user name, different pic, etc. They're allowing you to pose as 3 totally separate people. How many people on here have 1 profile professing their love of good conversation and long walks on the beach, and another profile describing their genitalia and sex skills? Um, every guy and 10% of the women? How many 'real' women actually fill out an intimate encounter profile? Let's find out. I created all 3 profiles.

Within literally 10 minutes of hitting the submit button, I have 5 emails. Wow! These women are eager! Let's have a look:

LAPULIA smile Tue 04/15/2008
MARY DREAM28 HELLO!!! Tue 04/15/2008
HAPPINESSNAINA hi Tue 04/15/2008
TEMP_AD_132683 Halloa! Mon 04/14/2008
ESNHLISHA Shalom! Mon 04/14/2008
ESNHLISHA Word!

Impressive. Is Halloa even a word? Every message is essentially the same. Either spam or very bad english. Why is lavalife so spam ridden? What percentage of their female users are legit?

User ESNHLISHA was the first, so let's give her a shot. Her first message:

Hello! How are u? I would like to chat with you. Message me at moonjqd@gmail.com
. You won't regret it. I will not reply through website. Use my personal email only

Her second message:

Hey! Wazzup? I would like to chat with you. Drop me a line at sunlox83@gmail.com
to see my pictures and more info about me. I will not reply through website. Use my personal email only

So we're off to a great start. Then we have the one's who either dropped out of ESL class or were hit on the head at a very young age:

I REALLY WANTTO GET TO MEETTHE RIGHT MAN OF MY LIFE TO TAKE GOD CARE OF ME AND TO BE WITH ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE TIME.
THANKS

I don't care if English is your 2nd or 3rd language. You still know about spaces, and word borders, and logic, right? And ALL CAPS. So I decided to write my first message:

Before:
I REALLY WANTTO GET TO MEETTHE RIGHT MAN OF MY LIFE TO TAKE GOD CARE OF ME AND TO BE WITH ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE TIME.
THANKS

After
I REALLY WANT TO GET TO MEET THE RIGHT MAN, THE MAN OF MY LIFE, TO TAKE GOOD CARE OF ME, AND TO BE WITH ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.
THANKS

I just figured you might want to take 30 seconds to do a spell-check and write proper English before you advertise yourself to the entire English-speaking world. Also, ALL-CAPITALS is considered rude to most people. Good luck.

Her response:

How do you mean?

Introduction

A couple days ago I decided on a whim to sign up for dating site lavalife.com. I remember reading somewhere that this site was popular with a 'younger, hipper' crowd. I got out of a long term relationship recently, and figured I'd give it a shot, partly out of wanting a quick rebound, partly out of curiosity if sites are legit or not. I paid the $56 for 3 months and signed up. What follows will be an account of how things go down from there.