By Matthew MacIntosh

OkCupid once offered its users a blogging feature, giving aspiring writers instant access to a sea of volatile nutjobs from around the world. I posted a single blog entry on their platform titled, “God is a Black Woman,” where I waxed poetic about Mitochondrial Eve and humanity’s shared origins in the Kalahari Desert.

Within a few minutes, I received the following message from redneck in a Fort Wayne, Indiana. He had a week’s worth of stubble on his face and a cold, lifeless stare that made Timothy McVeigh look cuddly.

He simply wrote: “Drink bleach!”

I was intrigued. I love a man who speaks in metaphor, and nobody had ever accused me of not being white enough. I may have lived in Oakland for the better part of a decade, but my roots are entirely suburban. In fact, my parents are so white they had to turn the subtitles on for all five seasons of The Wire.

An hour later, I received an angry note from a Gender Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa—an Asian-American M2F transgender woman who thought my post was culturally insensitive for some very complex, academic reasons. Her profile gave the impression that she woke up every morning looking for reasons to be offended and, once she found them, worked backwards to justify her rage.

What are the odds? Two pissed-off midwesterners in the same afternoon? I felt the hand of fate at work!

I sent them each links to one another’s profiles along with the following note:

“Maybe you two could meet up for drinks in Chicago? I know it’s a long shot, but we never know where Cupid’s whimsical arrow may land. Good luck, you crazy kids!”

Sadly, I never heard back.