i am being stalked by aliens

and i do not mean the kind that have entered the country illegally: i mean the kind that have entered the planetary atmosphere illegally.

they are stalking me, monitoring my email and phone messages and abducting - for some nefarious purpose - any man that expresses an interest in dating me.

it happened with todd (not his real name - ed). i got a voicemail message from him one thursday afternoon, telling me what a great time he'd had on our last date, and that he would call me the following monday to make plans to "hook up again".

i haven't heard from him since.

then the same thing happened with kevin (might be his real name; then again, it might not). after a wonderful first date that included pastrami, william shatner impressions and a pamphlet advertising radiation detectors, i got a lovely email from him saying that he'd had a great time, and would i like to catch a movie, maybe go browsing in indigo or watch a dvd? i replied that i'd really like that, and *POOF!*, he's disappeared....no doubt never to be heard from again.

i am convinced that in a millennium, in a massive cylindrical spaceship orbiting europa, a thousand or so men will spontaneously awaken to find themselves the victims of this nefarious alien abduction plot; and as they shake the woozy cobwebs from their cryogenically frozen minds, and puzzle over the anal probes (ok, the anal probes are pure conjecture, i know) they will start to figure out what it was that has happened to them.

i figure the conversation will run along these lines:

lewis (might or might not be his real name, who knows?): "hey, what happened? where am i? last thing i remember is trying to set up a second date with some chick named annie..."

gerhardt (oh please God don't let that be his real name): "ja, annie! in toronto? me too!"

at which point 996 other men will chime in with a muted yet ominous chorus of "me too"s!

at this point i think the aliens will have a serious problem on their hands....if they even have hands. see, the men they have abducted are the finest the planet earth has to offer, truly fine examples of human maleness.

how do i know?

because these aliens have not indiscriminately abducted every man i have gone out on a date with. no, i went to dinner recently with a man whose nose hair was so rampant and aggressive, i thought he might have been sporting an ingrown moustache.

the aliens did not take him.

then there was the radio dj with breath so hideous that it could knock buzzards out of trees. he is still around. i know - i listen to his show anyway. its a wonder the microphone doesn't melt.

no, these aliens are very discerning. they only abduct men with deliberate facial hair and breath that will not singe off one's eyebrows. and somehow, i have become the focal point of this nefarious (you really like that word, don't you? - ed) human culling exercise...

clearly, the men i am attracted to are in great danger..... and yet, i really DO want to date. and let’s face it: what other logical reason can there be for a man not wanting to date me? i have the one trait any not-too-picky man over forty is looking for.

i have a pulse.

and if he were half blind, with a crippling squint in a dim room on an overcast day, it could be said that i am not too hard on the eyes, either.

no, alien abduction is the only reasonable explanation.

the sense of responsibility is almost crushing: i have become the siren charybdis, luring hapless men to their doom at the hands of feckless - and let's face it, nefarious aliens...

so perhaps, for the safety of the human male, from now on i will wear a tinfoil hat on all dates (at least until i am sure that the men are safe, or that they have some noticeable irregularity that would make them unsuitable to these aliens' nefarious purposes). tinfoil hats are an excellent way to block alien thought waves (i am told by several acquaintances, all of whom, oddly enough, live in their parents' basement...), and can be styled in a number of attractive ways.

i figure that if, on a date, we go for pizza, i can make a tinfoil ball cap. if we go for moroccan, perhaps a stylish silver fez...

after all, i don't want to stand out or anything....