Are People Really THIS Lonely?

This post is part of The Couch Potatory; our official excuse to cancel plans and call it “enrichment.” If it's worth watching, reading, or falling down a rabbit hole over, you'll probably find it here.

Several years ago, I wanted to get rid of some old patio chairs, so I placed an ad on a local classified site. I was giving away the chairs for free, so as you can imagine, they got claimed almost immediately.

The lady who came to pick them up must have felt guilty about taking them for free because she brought me a carton of Sunrype apple juice. WTH? I had to laugh to myself a little. I didn’t want anything in return for the chairs, but I guess she felt compelled to give me something. I thought it was cute.

Anyway, I don’t drink apple juice, so I put it in my fridge.

A few days later, I thought it would be funny to place another ad to try and give away the apple juice. Clearly I was bored that day because here’s what I wrote in the ad:

“A while back I gave away some patio chairs on Kijiji and I think the lady who took them felt guilty about getting them for free, so she brought me this unopened carton of apple juice.

I would have been excited if it was pineapple juice because at least that mixes well with rum. But apple juice?

I took this photo with a nice background to make it more appealing, again, because it’s just apple juice. This unopened carton is good until August and it’s yours for FREE!”

I put the ad up as a social experiment just to see if I could have some fun with it, but alas, there didn’t seem to be any fun people where I live. I got ONE reply. And here’s how it played out.

NOTE: This was years ago when I had a job outside the home and obviously still drank alcohol 😆

If you’re reading on a phone, put on your glasses. I don’t know how to make these screenshots any bigger. My replies are the dark blue ones on the right.

Is this really what it has come down to? Men looking for dates through apple juice ads? Honestly, I was a little taken aback by this, and pretty offended that he assumed a lighthearted ad was intentionally placed to look for a partner.

A “proposition” even.

If I want propositions, I’ll head straight to Tinder. At least on a dating app there’s no way to mistake intentions.

I knew the conversation had diverted from apple juice as soon as he said the word “text.” He was trying to get my number and I thwarted his attempts by not replying to those messages. I’m sure you can all spot the point at which I started sounding annoyed.

Or are men really just this brazen? I was a little speechless to be honest. So speechless that I’m not even sure how to finish this story for you.

I felt like this guy, Chris, was invading my headspace with his presumption about me looking for a “lover” as he calls it, through a funny classified ad. If that’s what I was looking for, I would have clearly stated it in the ad. I’m not shy; I don’t need to beat around any bushes.

Call me dramatic if you want, but isn’t this kind of presumptuous mentality akin to the “no means yes” attitude? It’s a little creepy.

After this all happened with my apple juice, I immediately thought about a Medium story written by Kyrie Gray, years ago, about something she also tried to sell online, and her responses were just as invasive, if not more.

Maybe Chris genuinely is just a lonely guy. Maybe some apple juice could have been the start of the greatest love story of all time. Just not in my lifetime.

Can’t life just simply be funny? Am I wrong in my thinking?

Men and women, weigh in on this for me. Help me understand!

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