http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/local/faq-fork.html
or better yet the archives
http://xent.ics.uci.edu/FoRK-archive/
and although our discussions meander this way and that, the only context
you need to read this particular post is that we got on the subject of
how incredibly difficult it is to find a needle in a haystack when
you're looking for a particular needle.
In this case, the needle we are looking for is a single Indian female
(not Indian as in Native American, but Indian as in the Asian
subcontinent), preferably Hindu, who would not mind living in the United
States, who is intelligent enough to follow discussions about just about
anything, who is patient enough to read each of the 8000 articles in the
aforementioned archive, and who is caring enough to hold a man who
really needs to have a good cry after penting up his frustration with
the world over the course of 23 years and counting.
A little back of the envelope calculations:
1 billion Indians in the world.
500 million Indian women.
250 million Hindu Indian women (admittedly, this estimate may be high,
as may be the estimates to follow).
Let's say 25 million single Hindu Indian women 18-34.
Let's say 2.5 million single Hindu Indian women 18-34 willing to
live in the United States.
Let's say 250,000 single Hindu Indian women 18-34 willing to
live in the United States who have advanced degrees.
(Though this number seems high too.)
Let's say 25,000 single Hindu Indian women 18-34 willing to
live in the United States who have advanced degrees,
and who have access to the Internet.
(Since many doctors and lawyers can't be bothered.)
Let's say 2500 single Hindu Indian women 18-34 willing to
live in the United States who have advanced degrees,
who have access to the Internet and are able to follow discussions
about the business, politics, sex, religion, technology,
entertainment, and world events ("The Big Seven").
Let's say 250 single Hindu Indian women with all those things
who also regularly read the Economist, the New Yorker,
the New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly.
And I'll bet that's being WAY overly conservative.
I think we cross-correlate the Economist subscribership
(0.1% of Americans) with the New York Times subscribership
(0.5% of Americans) and we are lucky if we find just one
single Hindu Indian woman 18-34.
Let's say 25 single Hindu Indian women with all THOSE things
who would be willing to pour through the 8000 messages
posted to the "Friends of Rohit Khare" mailing list
aforementioned. Again, I'm being my usual optimistic self.
Of those 25, let's rule out the ones with overwhelmming
social, emotional, or psychological scars or hangups
that would doom an otherwise beautiful relationship.
What does that leave us, maybe 3 people in the world?
Now of those 3 single, ambitious, confident, intelligent,
wonderfully independent women, care to guess how many
are caring enough to hold a man who really needs to have
a good cry?
For the sake of optimism, let's say that there is 1 such
person out there who meets all those qualities.
The question now before us, the question that's been haunting this
mailing list since 8000 messages and 3 years ago, is, if this mythical
wonderful woman who is the soulmate of Rohit Khare does in fact exist,
how on earth are we going to find her?
My solution has been the occasional bout of websurfing with the hope
that one day she or someone close to her is going to advertise her on
the Web the way we advertise Rohit. Then we can match them and never
again have to listen to whines about "the void that is Rohit's social
life."
So this represents just the latest in a series of posts about that.
Like I said, you're Cc'd for no particular reason other than you got
caught in my web of surfing during this round... And now, back to the
discussion...]
dcrook wrote:
> > > Adam how you ever considered renting yourself out to match.com or
> > > similar services as a push agent?
> > > Forget the Tim bot and the Lloyd bot, I think the Adam bot has definite
> > > commercial possibilities.
then i wrote:
> > Except there's still a bug in it which caused it to post the
> > four lesser Metallica albums...
then he wrote:
> No seriously, think about it, a web crawler that searches the web for
> homepages with the words "single" "female" and emails the page back to
> the user. The perfect thing for single male geeks. At least it would
> reduce the "Void of my social life" posts from Rohit.
Amen to that, brother!!!
> Maybe we could include options to look for "Indian" or "Frequent-Flyer".
Okay, you've piqued my interest. The Altavista search for
+Indian +woman +frequent +flier
reveals 129 hits. This could be promising...
http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=web&kl=XX&q=%2BIndian+%2Bwoman+%2Bfrequent+%2Bflier
Until I realized that I myself was hit #3
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/CLEVER/clever6
Paging through the 129... not finding anything... let's make the search
more specific:
+"Indian woman" +"frequent flier"
Oh dear. Zero hits. Let's loosen the constraints just a little.
+"Indian woman"
gives me 3045 hits, but unfortunately like the first 100 of them are at
How about
+"Indian woman" -"nude"
giving me 2887 hits, some of which are downright fascinating. For
example, look at
http://resoslink.com/chat/messages/1101.html
Or rather, let me quote it for you:
> Posted by just call me Rita on October 09, 1997 at 18:08:38:
>
> In Reply to: dfadsfafd posted by afsdfasdf on September 15, 1997 at
> 05:20:38:
>
> I've never done anything like this, so I'm a bit nervous. Here goes.
> I'm a 32 year old, attractive Indian woman living in Manhattan. I'm also
> married, but terribly lonely. My husband is travelling most of the time.
> I'm looking for male companionship (initially only electronically).
> Please post a response if you are interested. Thank you.
Opening this would be like opening Pandora's box. But what the heck,
I'm a gambling man by nature. So this woman posts the item above and
gets a flood of messages. This in turn leads other Indian women to
post. I just love this one...
http://resoslink.com/chat/messages/1132.html
Allow me to quote:
> All the responses to Rita's message prove my point: Indian men think
> with their dicks; all you want to do is get your dick wet regardless of
> the concenquences, ie, whether you break up this troubled woman's
> marriage.....
>
> think about it guys, when you break up this woman's marriage and she has
> no place to go, will you take her in?
What's hilarious is the fact that she thought to use the word "Indian"
as a modifier to the phrase "men think with their dicks". After all,
it's a well-studied scientific fact that ALL men can only have blood
flowing to one area of the body at a time, and let's face it, the brain
is a lesser organ...
Of course, the aforementioned discussion at resoslink devolves from
there (no discussion of Hitler that I can see, but there is an anal sex
thread). Let's go back and see if Altavista has any other salacious
goodies... and mind you, I'm just looking for the (non-salacious)
+"Indian woman" -"nude"
Darn, even Altavista sees "Indian woman" and thinks it means "Native
American woman"!! Let's try again... and add single so we don't end up
with married women looking for companionship...
+"Indian woman" -"nude" +"single" -"native"
boils me down to 324 hits. Let's hope some of these are good...
Hit #1 is the Telusa mailing list out of Wisconsin, not nearly so
populous as FoRK but with some interesting threads.
http://smartcad.me.wisc.edu/~ratnakar/telusa/
Hit #2 is a bona fide legitimate person
http://www.pacificcentury.com/bmag/016B.html
> 016B Rajathi (36) Malaysia (Malaysian Indian, 4/13/60, 5'7", 115 lbs.)
> Costing assistant. I am kind, considerate, thoughtful, happy; don't
> smoke or drink. I like to exercise, keep fit, go for walks in the
> evenings. I love nature. I like to bake. I would like to share my life
> with someone who has good values and would be a good friend and husband.
> Age between 36-42.
Darn, Rohit, if only you were 50% older. Okay, at this point I'm
willing to settle for just one person who fits Rohit's search criteria...
although hit #15 is worth a luscious sidetrack...
http://www.cfpub.com/bigbib.asc
The first few lines:
> THE DEFINITIVE (PROVISIONAL) ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
> SPANKING SCENES IN NOVELS
>
> Some of us are obsessed with spanking. This is not the
> time and place to discuss why we are that way or why so many
> of our fellows are not as fortunate as we.
Back to the prime directive. Hit #20 gives us a self-proclaimed
"excellent Indian marriage service".
http://www.22support.com/matrimony/
The ads for the men are downright precious, but let's stick to the
women, sorted by caste
http://www.22support.com/matrimony/women.htm
Darn it, I wish I had paid attention to what caste Rohit wanted.
Alright, I'll just pick a couple of the more interesting sounding women
for him.
Contestant number 1 lives in SoCal, always a plus:
> Caste: punjabi kumhar
> Age: 21
> Height: 5' 1"
> Alliances invited from good family background Punjabi Kumhar
> Professionals. working in USA for a very intelligent,beautiful,family
> oriented college going girl. Height 5'1 US Citizen residing in
> so.California. Home Phone(562)921-1660 .
>
> Click here to e-mail immediately: jbhopal@aol.com
Contestant number 2 has studied computer silence:
> Caste: Telugu Brahmin
> Age: 25
> Height: 5' 2"
> Brother in Chicago-USA invites correspondence from well-settled Hindu
> Brahmin Professional Boys for his Professional sister 25 / 5'2",
> Post-Graduate, Diploma in Computer Science, Fair, Good Looking, Strong
> Indian Values. Girl is currently working in India. Contact at
> c4meher@worldnet.att.net
>
> Click here to e-mail immediately: c4meher@worldnet.att.net
How about contestant number 3, a fashion designer:
> Caste: HINDU
> Age: 22
> Height: 5' 4"
> Alliance invited for Very beautiful, well mannered, 22 years old,
> 5'4", US resident (green card holder) girl. Fashion designer by
> profession, winner of several awards on international level. Hobbies
> include: cooking, general house-hold work, Swimming, reading, painting.
> Alliance is invited from well educated, good looking, 24-27 years old
> Hindu boy.
Think you could act like a 24-27 year old, Rohit?
Hey, this one was just posted 2 weeks ago:
> Ad# 178 F
> Added or updated on 3-12-98
> Caste: Hindu Punjabi
> Age: 23
> Height: 5' 5"
> I'm a 23 yr old Hindu Punjabi Computer Engineer.. I'm looking for a
> tall, attractive, non smoker, and who an never been married... I love
> indian/american music, films, dance, etc..looking for a guy that has
> american indian values... also who is a professional...
>
> Click here to e-mail immediately: nk75@yahoo.com
No one embodies American Indian values more than Rohit. I think you'd
impress her.
Finally, I like this one because she mentions that she knows how to
drive a car and has a passport (!)
> Caste: Hindu Brahmin
> Age: 23
> Height: 5' 7"
> We are looking for VADAKALAI, NON-ATHREYA groom aged below 28 years,
> tall, well built with pleasing personalities, well settled in
> ADMINISTRATIVE position for our grand daughter, Very fair, slim with
> pleasing personality, Convent Educated, Completed Graduation in Arts,
> knows Car Driving & having passport.
>
> Click here to e-mail immediately: venkateshrajan@hotmail.com
And at this point, I give up. Every time I try to do this I have
newfound respect for all the garbage single people have to wade through
on a regular basis.
I hereby resolve not to talk about The One on this list again.
Well, after that sentence, I mean. Okay, NOW.
That said, I close with two more personal pages of people you might like
to invite to FoRK. First there's Star...
http://www.prairienet.org/~star/
whose personal ad is, um, differnt...
http://w3.aces.uiuc.edu/SSS/history/personal.txt
Check out "relationship status" and see if you don't say to yourself
[big Willie Smith style] "DAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM":
> Looking for a sparrow in a city full of wrens.......
> (NOTE: I am not interested in relocating or any long-distance
> relationships)
>
> Some info about me:
> Female, 33, network analyst, mild smoker, owns 2 cats,
> eats meat, bisexual, polyamorous, pagan, been in C/U area a year (8/97).
> Physically I'm 5'6", Long Salted Brown hair, blue eyes, typical
> "viking breeding stock".
>
> What I do in an average week:
> Horseback riding, goto Unitarian Universalist church, watch TV with
> my cats, have dinner with friends, goto some social meeting,
> volunteer at Outpost, work, have friends over, e-mail.
>
> Newsgroups: Alt.polyamory, uiuc.bisexuals, uiuc.polyamory,
>
> E-Mail lists: Interweave-announce/committee, Leadheads, T*SO, UIUC-GLB,
>
> Some things I like:
> Coffee, movies, science fiction & fantasy, vampires, Highlander,
> Friends, ER, folk music, rennisance festivals, Bass Ale, fondue
>
> Relationship status:
> I have a longterm primary partner (M) and a serious TOCTX (to
> complicated to explian) (F) and a 3 Secondary partners (M). Long
> term I would like a 4-6 adult household, but currently I am looking
> for friends and partners, in the Champain/Urbana Area.
>
> Some things about you:
> Honest, queer friendly, Not looking for 'soulmate', did I say honest
> yet <g>
>
> Bonus points for (but not limited to):
> Hungarians, drummers, guitar players, long hair, slim to medium
> build, science fiction fandom, age 20-30, male
>
> Don't reply if you are:
> allergic to cats
> looking for a wife, kids, white picket fence
> going to be jealous of my boyfriend
> going to try to 'convert' me in anyway (religion, direct sales)
> not queer friendly
>
> Need more info? See http://www.prairienet.org/~star/
Hard to top that, so we'll just sideswipe it with Airyn Darling.
By the way, I found both their pages from WWW6-attending Chad Childers'
page, who I posted several hours ago before passing out.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~airyn/
I can't do Airyn's Web presence justice here, though that won't stop
me from trying... here's just a little bit about who she is, from her
personal FAQ...
> I'm probably going to tell you more than you want to know; if you're
> conservative, squeamish, or otherwise easily upset, bail now. Basic
> nutshell information: I am a 27-year-old female sometimes shamanic
> practitioner of predominantly mixed-bag European descent (with a little
> Native American thrown in for good measure.) I'm a graduate of the
> University of Michigan in Sociology and Criminal Justice. Mind you, it
> took me seven long years to graduate, because I switched my major every
> time the weather changed (and in Ann Arbor, that's about every 35
> seconds.) I began with biology, then went English, history, classical
> languages and literatures, psychology, and finally ended up with my
> degree in Soc/CJ. I'm interested in too many things to just pick one!
> But finally, I buckled down and said "the hell with this undergraduate
> stuff -- I'd like to have a life now." Whether I do or not remains to be
> seen, but at least it's a reasonable facsimile thereof. I still live in
> Ann Arbor, Michigan, which isn't all that bad; it's fairly diverse, if a
> bit pretentious. I have entirely too many interests to list right here,
> but if you spend any amount of time here, you'll eventually find out,
> like it or not. Chances are, if I spend any amount of time thinking
> about something, there's a page somewhere on this websight about it.
> Most of them probably will not interest you -- but you might find one or
> two things that stick to your psyche, much like mashed potatoes stick to
> your ribs.
>
> I tend to repeat myself, especially if something is particularly
> important to me, so if things seem redundant in the websight, I beg your
> indulgence.
>
> I am a fan of a trendy stuffs, despite my best intentions to avoid
> them, and I have actually written three fan letters (emails, actually,
> but picky picky) in my life; the first to Scott Adams, the second to Joe
> Michael Stracynski, and the third to Joe Bob Briggs, aka John Bloom,
> fucking gorgeous man that he is. I'm not particularly proud of the fact
> that I wrote them, and the letters were probably the usual, insipid sort
> of thing they find vile and detestable, but I'm a creature of many
> irresistable impulses,and there you have it. Fan Mail. (shudder) Scott
> Adams & JMS wrote me back, and I just sent John Bloom's off a few
> moments ago, and will be surprised if I hear from someone other than an
> email slave staffperson.
>
> I tend to repeat myself, especially if something is particularly
> important to me, so if things seem redundant in the websight, I beg your
> indulgence.
>
> Last year, I was elected to the AASFA board (Ann Arbor Science Fiction
> Association) by my friends in Stilyagi. Despite this fact, I am not as
> big of a mutant as you might expect, unless, of course, you ask Wes, who
> will tell you that I'm "a big mutant, but I hide it well." I've only
> begun to scratch the surface of science fiction literature, but I've
> been a long time fan of SF film and other media. AASFA does some
> interesting things, among which is sponsoring a Michigan writer's
> attendance at the Clarion Workshop held at MSU each year. Stilyagi hosts
> an annual convention called ConFusion, which regularly gets some
> interesting guests, such as Connie Willis, Marvin Minsky, Lois McMaster
> Bujold, and various others.
>
> I've recently been thinking, "what else is there do with this site?
> How can I possibly update everything?" Some of this stuff is almost two
> years old, and my opinions are in constant flux. Since I've been known
> to work between 50 and 80 hours a week, it's a bit difficult to find
> time to update the damn thing. But I'm hacking away at it, bits and
> pieces, here and there. So, there's a BIGOLE CAVEAT to this entire site:
> look at the dates on the bits; if there isn't a date, who knows when it
> was written. It might be current. It might be two years old. If you've
> got questions, ask.
>
> A lot of people write to me. Every day. Not that I don't enjoy it, I
> really do. The thing is, most people seem to have one major thing to
> say: "THANK GOD! YOU UNDERSTAND!" There's nothing (or at least not much)
> on this site that hasn't been said or done before, but perhaps there's
> more of it stuck together in one place than usual. There are a lot of
> folks out there who are a lot more remarkable than I am; perhaps they
> just don't have the computing resources I am fortunate enough to be
> spoiled with. A lot of people are out there, dying to connect with each
> other, wanting to find someone of a like mind. Well, the only way to
> find people like yourself is to open up and look; put it all out there
> for the world to see. As I have found out, it's hard not to attract
> like-minded souls when you do. Most of the people who write to me have a
> pretty good idea of who I am from reading this site. Sometimes it's a
> little odd for me, I have to do a little catching up. People talk to me
> like I'm an old friend sometimes, when we've never spoken, and I love it
> that they feel comfortable enough to trust me with their thoughts and
> feelings. I really get all of my efforts here returned to me.
>
> And I've had my efforts returned in spades. I've met many very
> interesting people. One was at first a potential long-term romantic
> partner, but we realize we'd have end up killing each other before long,
> so now we're Just Good Friends. Unfortunately, Phil lives in New York
> City, at least for the time being; we're trying to work out who's moving
> where and when and what that means and all that. He is terribly British
> and adorable, and we're just getting to know each other. My point, you
> ask? Ask and ye shall receive, perhaps. Interesting that as soon as I
> gave up actively looking for someone, he appears, though. But those are
> subjects for different pages, which you will no doubt eventually find if
> you have the attention span. One of several things Phil (the Brit) is
> teaching me is that although I thought I had a fairly good grasp of
> British syntax, idioms, and pacing, I'm strictly amateur. My vocabulary
> is increasing with such words as "preferential green," "spanner," and
> "plastic fish slice" which mean, apparently, "green left turn arrow,"
> "wrench" and "spatula," respectively. I keep getting these mixed up and
> saying "plastic fish spanner," which would be, I suspect, a fairly
> useless fish wrench.
>
> Back to the more mundane "who am I/who have I been" sorts of things:
> I grew up in Mason, Michigan, home of the Mason Bulldogs (see logo
> below.) I was on the varsity swim team for four years, and I dabbled in
> softball, volleyball, talent shows, blah blah blah. I was the
> editor-in-chief of our high school newspaper, and for awhile, thought
> that I might pursue a career in journalism. I quickly realized, however,
> that it would involve a lot of deadlines, which I often have troubles
> with. That was also during the stage when I would find something new,
> and decide that I wanted to do that as a career. Sometimes I still do
> that. High school seems like forever ago... would I exchange the easy
> living back then for what I have now? Nope. I'm only 27, but sometimes,
> I feel old. Until I think of everything that's ahead of me, and I feel
> like a child again. I'm one step closer to 30. I'm in my "late
> twenties." I like to think that I'm pretty open-minded, generally
> speaking, and that something as petty as chronological age doesn't
> bother me. It doesn't bother me on other people. However. I am rapidly
> finding out that it matters to me. I'm no longer in my "mid-twenties;"
> I'm in my late twenties. I know all you people out there who are older
> than I am are thinking, "oh, just shut up, you child!" But think about
> it: I'll bet you don't like aging any better than I do.
>
> I feel like I've been in Ann Arbor forever, unless I specifically
> think back to the house in the middle of the cornfield where I grew up.
> It's easy to lose yourself here, just as it's easy to find new selves.
> Ann Arbor is craftily hidden away from the real world; it's a very cozy
> town in many ways, with a very liberal surface that's supportive for
> those people who are experimenting with new identities and so forth.
> I've gone through many phases since I've been here, because I was
> exposed to so much. I went from tiny little Mason, where there is more
> livestock than people, to this diversified atmosphere, and I just
> boggled at it. Still do, sort of. But I love it now, whereas I used to
> loathe it. Not the diversity; I've always loved the diversity. What I
> hated was this city's tendency to absorb people into itself, to suck one
> in. And I was sucked completely in, to the point of nearly being
> suicidally depressed. But like anywhere else, this town is what one
> makes of it, and I've made it into someplace fun for me to be.
>
> I majored in criminal justice here at U-M because I'm particularly
> interested in serial killers, and I originally wanted to pursue a career
> in their analysis...but like most things, I changed my mind about that.
> I am currently delaying entry into The Real World by working on campus
> for the Information Technology Division in the phones room as a
> consultant, and on the login team as a UNIX system administrator, tech
> writer, and various other things. I love the people I work with, I can
> dress how I please, and I have all the computing resources a geek could
> hope for. I even have my own cube. Anyhow, it's a living, and I can't
> complain too much -- I have great connectivity. They tell me it's a good
> place to start. "Start what?" comes stampeding to mind, but here I am,
> and here I'll likely be for a good while, although I'd really love to
> move to the West Coast, perhaps Sitka, Alaska, Seattle, or San
> Francisco. Hrm. They all start with "s." Anyhow. That's a couple of
> years down the road, at least. My favorite aunt is up in Sitka, my aunt
> Marti -- she's been a role model for me all my life, and she's just
> amazingly cool. Wish I could see her more often. Marti, you need to get
> a computer so we can email each other!! I have only seen her a few times
> in the past ten or so years, but I always feel really close to her. She
> may be moving away from Sitka, though, perhaps back to Portland, Oregon;
> if she leaves, I probably won't venture all the way up to Sitka. Seattle
> and San Francisco become more and more appealing as time goes by, let me
> tell you.
Seattle and San Francisco are like in different worlds, compared with
Michigan.
And so it goes. Rohit FoRKs bits, Adam FoRKs people. Until one day,
when I find a person who, like Rohit, is pure bits...
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
Should I wait for you? No substitute for love, no substitute for love.
-- Madonna, "Drowned World"