When seeking a mate in chat rooms, don't forget to turn on the charm!

Let’s face it: we all hope we can meet that special someone online, and news stories about people meeting their future mates in the chat rooms are a dime a dozen. Less common is media coverage about spending hours of your life that you can never get back chatting up someone who swears that the magnificent “southern belle” JPEG she sent you is genuine, only to find yourself in a dingy airport face-to-face with the finest that ten generations of southern-fried cuisine, trailer living and inbreeding have to offer.

We have determined, through extensive research done at two a.m. with a truly heroic blood alcohol content, that people are about fifteen times less likely to meet a spouse online than they are likely to meet the Bride of Frankenstein. So, as a public service, we’d like to teach you how to meet that special person online, cultivate a relationship, then drop them like a bad habit, eliminating that annoying middle step of looking disgusted right to their faces.

1.       Develop your alias

Our research has indicated that many people seek to find men and women in regional chat rooms, hoping to find an intelligent, articulate person close by their homes, with loose enough morals to invite them over for some hot, drippy sex right now. The problem is, we’re often going in the chat rooms drunk, and use our real names like suckers. Bad move. Right out of the gate they’ve got your name and general area of residence; do you think there’s a long directory assistance list of people with your stupid name in your area to pull your name and home address out of a hat?

Come up with a simple alias to protect yourself; all you need is a name, a hometown, and a few simple pictures, perhaps from Gay Stud or Juggs Magazine.

Many of you are saying to yourselves: “But eventually, isn’t he/she gonna want to talk to me on the telephone?” Of course. Just remember three simple words: I am deaf.

For the name, thinks simple: we recommend John or Jane Smith. You’d be amazed how a single, simple joke about how your name sounds like an alias will obfuscate the fact that your name is an alias. Remember: people want to trust you. Exploit that.

For a hometown, pick one that is close by your own town, but in a different area code and not readily found on a map. By this, we mean make one up. We recommend “Fabricaçion, (your state here)”

Anyone worth cozying up to in chat rooms will want to see your picture. We would like to remind you that most of what we recommend here can be considered, in some more Republican jurisdictions, to be wire fraud, and the cops still use mug books.

Most members of the opposite sex are suckers for a sob story of a dysfunctional upbringing. When your online friend asks for a picture, say you hate cameras because of your “difficult” childhood. Find a filthy fetish sex site, steal a grainy still picture of, say, a junkie reaming a horse, and pass it off as a picture of your dad. You may feel some guilt passing off such borderline illegal filth to get cheap sympathy, but it’s better than using your own photo and risking getting pulled out of a lineup.

2.       Build your fake identity

The most treacherous part of meeting people online has always been that, at some point, you have to give out your e-mail address.

Thankfully, you may now choose between several free Web-based e-mail providers, such as Hotmail, with which you can set up a new e-mail address in seconds using totally bogus personal information, or if you’re feeling mean-spirited, Reverend Jerry Falwell’s personal information. Say what you want about banner ads, but so long as Microsoft can flash one in your face while you read your e-mail, they don’t give a fuck if you’re Ronald Reagan or Ronald McDonald.

In addition, AOL now offers a simple program that allows people to access chat rooms without being an AOL member. This means that your chat nickname can be anything you want, provided you have six or seven hours to think of one that isn’t already taken. We recommend using a cute, cuddly, neutral nickname, since this will inspire trust in others and all the good obscene ones were snapped up by 1994.

Please note that, for security reasons, AOL will not activate a chat ID unless they receive a reply from a valid e-mail address. Please see the above information about Web-based e-mail, and remember that ironclad security whenever AOL asks for your credit card number

This could be you, except we guarantee you won't meet anyone this attractive in chat rooms.

3. Start chatting

You’ve got your identity and your fake ID, now its time to start chatting! Please realize that we can’t teach you how to make someone fall in love with you; if we could do that, we would be millionaires who bang supermodels.

Our best suggestion is to lie. Lie continuously and copiously; the truth may set you free, but it will never get you laid.

Start by checking out their user profiles. Most people list the type of person they’d like to chat with, i.e., “Strong, sensitive men,” or “Smart, sexy women,” so you know how to pretend to act right out of the gate. In addition, many people, lacking anything intelligent to say, list their favorite musicians, movies and books in the profiles. You’re already on the Internet; find the FAQ files on these subjects so you can pretend you give a damn about Ricky Martin or, God help you, The Horse Whisperer.

Don’t be afraid to lay on the bullshit. Describe your income and appropriate sexual parts as “gargantuan.” Mention all the rooms in your mansion that you have no idea what to do with. Talk about the joys of driving a Ferrari. Speak self-deprecatingly about your upcoming Playboy or Cosmopolitan interview. Make up fake encounters with celebrities, referring to them by their first names (“I drank Matt and Ben under the table,” or “Calista was good in the sack, but she only wanted my gargantuan ‘income.’”).

Cybersex may eventually be mentioned. If requested, do not refuse it, no matter how repugnant their sexual fetishes. Don’t forget, just because your online honey is frantically masturbating and shakily typing one-handed during sick, twisted cybersex doesn’t mean you have to stop playing Quake II in another window.

Many of you are saying to yourselves: “But eventually, isn’t he/she gonna want to talk to me on the telephone?” Of course. Just remember three simple words: I am deaf.

Enjoy that warm feeling of trust and mutual respect that only new love can bring until you see those three little words burning on your cathode ray tube:

“We should meet.”

4.     The Burn

You may be tempted to actually meet your chat room companion. Don’t be stupid. Watch Fatal Attraction, take a cold shower, and get ready to pull your fade.

Agree to fly in to meet him or her at the airport. Make sure to supply them with your flight number and arrival gate, which can be obtained by making up some numbers. Send a final e-mail confirming that they will meet you, and agree on distinctive clothing to wear. Try to make them wear something stupid, like or crotchless panties outside their clothes. This works particularly well for guys.

At the arrival time of your “flight,” when you know he or she will be away from the computer, cancel your Web e-mail account and delete your AOL nickname from your messaging software. Do it now; otherwise you might get drunk, check the plaintive, pathetic e-mails and respond to them. This unnecessarily exposes you to hard feelings, guilt, and criminal and civil liability.

In conclusion, it’s important to note that these methods, while effective and fun, require a great deal of time and patience, and incidentally include breach of contract, misrepresentation, copyright infringement and capital fraud. We feel duty-bound to warn you that use of the above techniques could lead to a lengthy jail sentence. However, we have had great success in pleading duress and self-defense, since the alternative is marriage.