Mike drinks while driving. He lies frequently and about everything. He has almost certainly never made a girl come. He is thoroughly shameless and unabashed about all these qualities, and on top of that, clearly dumb. And for some reason girls date him anyway. For some reason Alyssa Shelasky, Cherico's Columbia-educated (if not, uh, always particularly Columbia educated-seeming) dating blogging predecessor on the Glamour website, dated him anyway, then nearly lived with him, then recommended him to write a dating blog. And it took more than six months to produce the woman who would finally put an end to his tenure, simply by blogging the truth about dating Cherico:

I thought it was just a first time thing but the morning after we slept together, we had sex again, and I went down on him and let him finish in in my mouth. I was literally sitting there with the taste of him still in my throat when he stood up to take a shower. He had now had two orgasms to my zero, so I asked if he might orally reciprocate. He, with no hesitation or hint of sarcasm, proclaimed "I don't know you that well!" and turned on the faucet.

What a Fucking Idiot. Posted in Uncategorized on March 7, 2008 by laspinner

NOTE: Today's post is brutally honest and has strictly adult content. If you wanted an unflitered account of what it's like to date Mike Cherico, here goes.....

Yesterday I received the following email from Mike:

RE: I'madorkus

quick heads up... I LIKE YOU... A LOT! so please please please don't be mad about tomorrows [sic] post!

(Having just read his post, what he should have emailed me was something more along the lines of "I'm going to humiliate you on my blog tomorrow, hope that's ok!!!")

Earlier: Don't Date This Man
But here's what happened yesterday. I called him a couple hours after receiving the email and he immediately backtracked, saying "I was probably drunk when I wrote that." (Keep in mind he sent it at 3:30pm.) After 10 minutes of me trying to explain why that was not acceptable and that if he likes me as much as he says he does he needs to tell me things himself, not through his blog, he finally explained that when he came over for dinner last week, I had a cut on my lip that freaked him out. He was really upset that I hadn't told him what it was and instead let him wonder if it might, in fact, be herpes. I wish I was joking. Keep in mind that, when Mike showed up at my apartment for dinner and I had just gotten home at 9pm from a long day of work carrying the groceries I'd bought for our meal, he asked me if he could watch TV while I cooked. Again, not joking. After dinner, we were being snuggly and talking about sexual issues- more on that later- when he blurted out "I already had sex twice today" implying that my affections were unnecessary. (My reaction was similar to what yours might be if an alien landed on your computer while you were reading this.) The evening ended shortly thereafter for obvious reasons but not before Mike told me that the chick he'd had sex with earlier was "really hot" (insinuating that she was irresistible, unlike me) and then, again, backtracked to say that he'd made it up.

[NOTE: Because I got so angry, apparantly Mike or his editors changed that part in today's post so that it didn't refer to me specifically. Whatever. I'm telling you it was me b/c I have nothing to hide, the whole thing is pathetic, I do NOT have herpes, and Mike is an idiot for thinking so. And then he says shame on ME for putting HIM in that position? Mike, you are VILE.]

So what was actually going on was not that Mike had fucked someone else, but that he thought I had herpes, and wanted an excuse to leave . Thank god for the old "I already had sex twice today" standby. I am going to devote exactly one sentence to an explanation of the cut because it's SO not the point, but basically I had accidentally bitten my lip the day before and had a very small scab. Perhaps not sexy, and if he'd asked me about it and said it made him feel weird about kissing me I would have completely understood. But by no means was it contagious or a symptom of any greater health problem. Mike, for a graphic pic of what oral herpes actually looks like, see here. You might need it for future reference.

I don't think i need to waste space describing how distasteful and declasse I think it is for Mike to write about that in his blog rather than discussing it with me in person. I consider that an attempt to humiliate me in public for his own benefit. If he had been honest about his concern and allowed me to explain, I probably would have been ok with him bringing it up in the blog because in any physical relationship there are issues of trust, and I certainly understand not knowing how to broach that kind of topic. But instead he defended himself that he shouldn't have to bring it up because he's "sensitive," and instead made excuses not to be intimate with me over our next two dates. (Apparantly, an alternate definition of "sensitive" is "idiotic.") He then apparantly decided that he would write about it in today's post because that was MORE courteous than saying it to my face, which even he could barely say without choking on the bullshit. When I told him I found that disrespectful and that by writing such a description of me he was basically painting me as some kind of disease-ridden whore he responded that it's not like my name is on there and anyway, "I don't owe you anything." The whole thing was so juvenile and devoid of the mutual respect and trust that adult relationships are founded on that I was completely dumbfounded. Seriously, you couldn't ask me about a cut on my lip so you stew about it for a week and then embarrass me on your blog? THANKS, SWEETIE, XOXOX Miss Smarty Shoes. I have seen David Bowie movies where the world is more realistic than the one Mike lives in. He continued to seeth that there was something wrong with me for putting him in that situation, that it was clearly my responsibility to address the cut and not doing so was obviously a premeditated decision on my part to confuse and upset him. Right. Because that makes sense. Is this the kind of guy who's going to tell you you're beautiful when you're pregnant or stressed or gain five pounds or have a stuffy nose? If I really DID get sick, would I be able to turn to him for help? If he can't bring up something minor like this, could we ever have an honest conversation about REAL issues? Those are rhetorical questions.

(Please don't misinterpret my position on being honest with a sexual partner. If I had indeed had something contagious or in any way harmful, it absolutely would have been my responsibility to disclose it to Mike before being physically intimate, whether it was visually evident or not. The fact that it WAS so obvious makes me wonder how he could possibly have thought I was trying to hide it.)

I honestly didn't bring it up because I had forgotten about it. To me it was obviously a cut, and a very small one, and if the thought had ever crossed my mind that it might appear otherwise to Mike I would have pointed it out immediately. I also had a zit on my forehead and a bruise on my knee from where Gretel jumped on me, should I have pointed those out, too? Given him a tour of my body's imperfections? Is it my fault that he is RETARDED?

What makes this incident meaningful beyond its absurdity is that even when I tried to briefly explain tonight to Mike that it was a small cut, he became angry again and yelled that he barely knows me and how can he possibly trust me. No matter what I said, he was still going to worry that I was lying and that I had a disease.

So the rest of this piece is about trust and Mike Cherico.

Mike is a recreational liar. It's possible he is in fact a compulsive or pathalogical liar but I honestly don't know him well enough and I'm not going to diagnose him. He lies so naturally that he loses track of the truth. For him, if a lie is easier to say then it becomes reality (ie; when he told me he'd had sex that day rather than bringing up what was actually bothering him.)

Below are some more anecdotes about my experiences with Mike, trust and truth:

* Let's start with the "amazing woman" Mike was apparantly holding hands with at the concert that I took him too (and paid for.) If it gives you some idea of his taste in women, she was a skanky, fake-boobed bimbo wearing a slutty outfit and Uggs from 2004 who looked like she'd just come off of ROCK OF LOVE 2. If someone in this story has herpes, it was that girl. She was giving me nasty looks the whole show and I asked Mike if he'd noticed- of course not. Bear in mind that while Mike was, I now realize, holding hands with this tramp, he was also stroking my hair, kissing the top of my head, etc. I am literally at a loss for how to articulate what a disgusting person he is. Mike, I am a beautiful woman, and how dare you try to make me feel like anything less.

* Mike called our date at the Rustic short last week because he "had to go make a drug deal."

* The brilliant thing about Mike's worrying about my having a disease is that the first night we met we had unprotected sex. It's literally the only time I have not used a condom with someone who wasn't a boyfriend (I am on birth control) and I am furious with myself for letting it happen. Suffice it to say that, given our respective lifestyles, if we took a poll of who was more likely to have an STD, me or Mike, I'd feel pretty confident about my odds. Concert Girl might screw up the race Nader-style, tho!

* The first night I went out with Mike a woman called repeatedly and he asked me to answer the phone, which I did, saying "Mike's office." I thought it was some past fling booty-calling him. Turns out it was his ex-girlfriend of a year who he had been talking to earlier and who was calling him distraught about their conversation. Had I known this was a person who he had had an actual relationship with I would NEVER have gotten involved. So that's how Mike treats people he ostensibly used to love. He also put me on mute once so I could listen to her talking to him about how much she missed him. She thought they were having a private conversation, but Mike was in fact egging her on for my benefit to show me how "crazy" she was. If she's reading this, please please do not think Mike will ever treat you the way you deserve to be treated because he is just not a good man. He once told me you're not good at your job and just get by on your looks. You deserve so much better and he doesn't have it in him.

* Most of the times I have made plans with Mike he doesn't follow through, doesn't call to explain, and then lies about it later. I didn't invite him to my birthday party for exactly that reason, but he found out about it and made a huge deal of the fact that he wasn't invited, so I invited him, then of course he didn't show up. The next morning he texted me to ask if i wanted to get lunch. I presumed he was trying to make up for the previous night and agreed. Two hours later I hadn't heard from him and called his cell. Turns out he was out to breakfast with another woman but told me to "meet him at the Rustic in a couple hours." Romantic. (I imagine most readers are wondering why I continued to make plans with him despite this shit and I promise I'm going to address that at the end of this piece so please bear with me.) While in the shower, I missed his call. An hour and multiple calls later he told me he'd come by but since I didn't pick up my phone he had fallen asleep, in his car. So I texted him to go fuck himself, that he was the stupidest man I'd ever dated, and that I was going to the rustic by myself. He immediately called me and said he was on his way to meet me at the Inn.

* It gets creepier. As he was on his way to meet me, he called me and said he'd been wanting to talk to me for awhile about how I really feel about him because he likes me a lot. I was very guarded in my response and told him we could discuss it in person. He said he really wanted to talk now and that he couldn't believe I really liked him for x, y and z reasons. When it became clear I was not going to give a substantive response he started laughing maniacally and said "I'm just kidding."

* It still gets creepier. When I later told him that was an extremely disrespectful thing to do and asked why, he told me that the woman from breakfast was still in the car with him, that she'd asked him why so many girls like him and he'd put me on speakerphone before calling so she could listen to my response. So basically he tried to lure me into an emotional confession only for the amusement of another girl. Keep in mind this was after he'd said he had fallen asleep and missed my calls, which was clearly a lie since he was still with this other woman.

Those select tales say nothing of the thousands of little lies Mike tells as part of regular conversation. It's virtually impossible to know what to believe. He also clearly uses lying/"kidding" as a way to back out of things he wishes he hadn't disclosed. He will say something and if you don't react the way he wanted he'll start laughing and exclaim "I was just kidding!" like a child.

He also got really jealous of my other dates and clearly couldn't handle being on the other side of that treatment. Pretty hilarious.

One more X-rated Mike story just because I've been dying to share it (I don't recommend reading this paragaph if you're sensitive.) He is, like he's said in the blog, truly terrible in bed. He basically just lies there and lets the girl do all the work. I thought it was just a first time thing but the morning after we slept together, we had sex again, and I went down on him and let him finish in in my mouth. I was literally sitting there with the taste of him still in my throat when he stood up to take a shower. He had now had two orgasms to my zero, so I asked if he might orally reciprocate. He, with no hesitation or hint of sarcasm, proclaimed "I don't know you that well!" and turned on the faucet. Frankly, it's a pretty obvious metaphor for his selfishness and laziness in relationships and how his pleasure is his only concern. But anyone who can say anything that rude without flinching is clearly playing his own game.

And now a little on me.

Lest you think me a vindictive harlot, I told Mike I was going to write this and he said he didn't care.... an obvious lie but one he insisted upon. I'm not trying to get back at him for his piece today, because his life is no longer my concern and I hope I'm lucky enough never to see him again, but even when I asked him if he wanted me to take it easy on him he said it didn't matter, he didn't care, nothing matters, do whatever I want. Even in something which I do believe he values, his blog, he still couldn't stop with the deceitful, "it's your problem not mine you stupid bitch" act and ask me, human to human, to keep these things private. So I thought it was time he came to terms with the fact that the things you say become the reality you live.

That said, I completely understand that all of you reading this must not think very much of me for dating someone like this, so here is my attempt to explain why I continued to see Mike.

For starters, I regret it more than I can say. As I reread what I wrote above I am viciously angry with myself for letting someone of such low moral fiber ever treat me this way. He is hands down the most bizarre, mean, selfish and delusional person I've ever met. (Not to mention that he's not very smart, and even though my post today is hardly Hemingway I think you'll agree with me that I can write circles around this guy. Frankly, he's just not a very good writer.) His behavior is so far off the charts of what is acceptable in normal relationships it needs transalation, like "Well in Mike's world this is what that meant." But that's why people like me are drawn to him, I am embarrassed to say. We think that if we can just understand him, we can help him. We believe with true love and support he will change, and if we can be the woman to do it, that will validate us somehow. It's no accident in my mind that he was in a serious relationship with a shrink.

Mike lies so often that it doesn't occur to him that other people are honest. He claims not to trust me and doesn't know if he can believe my preposterous lip-biting story because clearly I am trying to dupe him into herpes. The paranoid paradigm in which he lives is a very lonely place.

Last night I trusted Mike to drive me home. Despite my protests, he took out a bottle of liquor and chugged it while driving. On the freeway. I found out later that he was a lot drunker than I realized when we left the concert. I don't think I will ever forgive myself for being in such a dangerous situation with someone with such little respect for others.

It really pains me to have typed all this out because listed in this format I really can't justify to myself why I kept seeing him. There were definitely substantial moments where he dropped the act and what's underneath was very appealing, but it's so obvious in reading this that he's a terrible person and no other qualities, no matter how positive, could make up for the above. By comparison, I think I try really hard to see the good in people. Because I saw something special in Mike beneath the crap I thought I could bring it out. Because I have flaws and suffer from destructive impulses I thought he deserved forgiveness and understanding. I don't feel that way any more. I have too much respect for people to ever treat them the way Mike does, whether they're a boyfriend, co-worker, family member or stranger on the street.

And I will state for the record that I don't think any of this has to do with his blog. These patterns are too ingrained to be recent occurrences. He uses the writing as an excuse to be cruel and the serial dating as an excuse not to change. Like I've said before, I think the lying and destructive behavior are an elaborate defense system Mike has erected to keep himself from getting attached to anyone where he might risk getting hurt. He is inconsistent in his versions of the truth and then aggressive in blaming the other person for requesting clarification. He's so enmeshed in his own crap I don't think he could be self-aware if he tried. He changes the subject constantly to avoid being caught in his fake stories. It's so impossible for him to take responsibility for anything he has done wrong that he lies even to himself. Frankly, I think the reflection in the mirror is just too painful.

Cute that you went w/ you mom. BUT I'd never date a guy who got pedis. That's what I'd call a major ITO (Instant Turn Off). But love you anyways.

Yeah, sorry. Even the cat was all "put that shit away!"

Be A Man [Glamour]

Jennifer looks great, Vince, not so much. Am I destined to look like Vince while she gets off looking like Jen?

My current g.f. hates my button pushing, like when I listen to Howard Stern around her. And she can't stand my ooh's and aah's when Jessica Simpson or some other random hottie flashes onto my TV screen... Last night she recited some existential psychobabble and told me she would ignore those remarks from now on... I'd better buy her some Prada this weekend or no nookie.

Where's My Happy Ending? [Glamour]
Earlier: Dear Alyssa, You Could Stand To Learn A Thing Or Two About The 'Edgy' English Language

At first my boyfriend of three months was into the idea. And now, for reasons that I would love to get into but can't legally (yes, legally—ladies, use a condom), he is officially and permanently off of Team Baby.

But we bet the shower will be amazing!

Storked! [Glamour]

•When the 30-year-old broke it off with him he ate an entire chocolate peanut butter pie.
•On June 6, he texted "Artist Girl" and proceeded to drink himself into a stupor waiting for her reply. When she finally did, she incorporated an emoticon, sending him into such ecstatic paroxysms that he responded by professing his love for her on the blog.

Clearly this all means something! (What that something is, we don't know). But we're curious: Would you do him? Take our poll, below.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Marty: [You] made me feel important, smart, beautiful, sexy..... There was a lot of good. We wouldn't still know each other now if there wasn't. There were a lot of things I was wrong about, though.
Adam: What were you wrong about, you think?
Marty: To trust you. I absolutely trusted you, and you weren't trustworthy.
Adam: Something we should say, though, is that we met when I was 20 and you were 29. Do you think that had an impact on our relationship?

What's more, we realized that Adam was also the same entrant who, in the first challenge of this idiotic contest, had his love advice for Glamour dating blogger Alyssa Shelasky doctored to better offend her fragileness by the catty Glamour editors. Clearly Adam's the beaten-down-but-deserving Al Gore to Intern Neel's bright, clean Obama. Not that we actually want someone who's not a cougar-chasing 24-year-old commitment phobe (of gargantuan proportions) to be penning this column now that we actually have to read it, but seriously Adam, we endorse you from a moral perspective. You know, because we are people of MORALS.

I Wanna Be Jake! [Glamour]
Earlier: 'Glamour' Editors To Vapid Starfucking Blogger Alyssa Shelasky: One Of These Days Some Dude Is Going To Call Your Starfucking Ass Out On How Vapid It Is...Oh Fuck It Already

How many of us are killing ourselves every day? Who here has high blood pressure and is still eating salt and french fries? Who has been told that her liver is enlarged and unless she stops drinking she's gonna end up with liver disease and/or need a liver transplant and/or die? We create senseless acts of violence against ourselves daily. And we live in this amnesia that we're not. If I was a doctor sitting with a woman who says, 'Oh yes, I smoke.' You do? Really? Then I don't want you as a patient..

You know..if you want to avoid your 14-year-old child drinking, make sure you don't drink in front of your 14-year-old child. If your children see that you can celebrate something without alcohol, they will not know that the first thing you do when something good happens to you is pop a bottle of Champagne... We're sedentary, we eat salt all day long. We go to the doctor, we get a blood test. We get a heart test. We get diagnostic tools that medicine has now to tell us how we are, and what do we do? We don't do anything. Or we take a drug. And that's not what I'm talking about. Take a drug so you don't have to change. No! I'm saying change. Change it right now!

Earlier: Jamie Lee Curtis: 'Mom, It's Not Right' [Huffington Post]

Conventional wisdom holds that men's magazines are better than women's magazines. That would be correct. Below, our manly men's magazine writer Tim Wolfian offers 'Glamour' dating blogger Alyssa Shelasky some gentle advice on love, literacy, Sexy Euro and Edgy English Teacher...

And yet here you are, Alyssa, blogging for Glamour magazine about the comings and goings of your Brazilian-waxed bod; and here I am, Tim Wolfian, writing J-school memos for the blogworld equivalent of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. In my defense, I only accepted this assignment after the Jezebel gals — a terrible ferocity in their eyes, bits of Cap 'N' Crunch-and-sugar sandwiches between their teeth — fawned extravagantly over my wallet pics of Mr. Langewiesche, my dashing, headstrong black tabby. ("Weeshie" for short.)

But enough. Let's get to the heart of the Shelasky blog/life/blog/life crisis. I have now read three months' worth of your blog posts. Here is what have I learned. You are 29. You live in New York. The HBO character with whom you most identify is Brenda from Six Feet Under. You used to work for US Weekly. Your social capital allows you to have dinner at the Waverly Inn and spend summers in the Hamptons even though you don't have any steady sources of income save your blog (and maybe your parents). You do an hour of "hard cardio" every day. You once allowed yourself to be faux-tattooed by fifteen Swedish rappers called "Speech Defect" (Mr. Wolfian sends big ups to Mr Linus, Boogie B, Thage and Prao-D). You love New York, except when you're in L.A, because L.A. "feels so authentically me"; you are casual-sex-positive, and have dated a million guys on both coasts, but lately you are "obsessed with eloping, and although you think your bicoastal "gypsy" life is "cool" — your therapist called it "unsettled" — you do wonder sometimes, just like you wonder about your skanky ex-boyfriend "Edgy English Teacher," whom you abbreviate as EET, and your difficult breakup with "Greek Dentist," the great love of your life, whom you abbreviate, confusingly, as GD, which I misread the first time as the Jewish abbreviation for G*D, and which misreading really fucked me up ("GD bought me those /tearful/ Manolos!"). Most poignantly, Alyssa, you seem to realize that many of the things your friends think are important are actually — well, you put it best:

Just got back from B's "Change for Kids" event at Room Service, this new "hot spot" (and I use that term loosely) in the Flatiron district. It was like this "/make a donation, make your mother proud, have a million free martinis and save the children"/ thing. Great cause, girls in pearls, endless smalltalk, you know the drill.

The problem here is not Alyssa Shelasky, the person; unlike my Jezebel editors, whose opinion of you is, I'm afraid, not kind, I think you are well-intentioned and probably very decent. The problem is that your well-intentioned decency is obscured by layers of terrible prose. How often can you "fall in lust" and "go with the flow"? How often can those "sun-kissed afternoons" make you feel like you "had wings"? How often can you look for major life solutions in the email-forward wisdom of your dipshit friends ("If you love him, let him go")?

I don't think it's incidental that some of your romantic frustrations concern guys who believe you're not "interesting enough, exotic enough, jet-setter enough" to steadily date/fuck. Witness your romantic Paris dinner with the man you call "Sexy Euro." The two of you meet at a "charming" cafe, where you say you "lit up at the first sight of him" because he "turns me on." Over steak frites and red wine, you grill Sexy Euro about his educational background. He gets pissy with the waiter, which you don't like. He starts "blabbing about god-knows-what." At the end of the dinner, the two of you part ways with vague plans to meet up again stateside, but as much as you'd like to show him off to your friends — "he is called SEXY EURO for a reason!" — you're not sure if his charms outweigh his faults. You ask your readers for advice.

This dinner seems to have frustrated you, but I'm not sure I know why; personally, and I'm sure my four ex-wives will back me up on this, I've always believed that yelling at waiters is a sign of alpha-male virility. Clearly, Alyssa, you need something from Sexy Euro at this dinner that you don't get. But I'm guessing that the feeling is mutual. Sexy Euro needs something too. What he needs, in the absence of actual sex, is a good story. He needs a story to tell his buddies just like you need a story to share with your blog readers. He needs to fixate on some sexual/personal detail that distinguishes you, Alyssa Shelasky, from every other 29-year-old woman who grew up reading gyno-mags and whose neural net, forked through with all that bad writing and banal romantic advice, is the author of a vapid non-persona — who knows, maybe you're the kind of girl who masturbates in the shower and opens her mouth sooooooooo wide at the moment of orgasm to let the hot shower water fill her mouth like a cup, like the woman in Vox — except the problem for Sexy Euro is that he doesn't get anything close to this at your Paris dinner, anything creepy or intriguing or mysterious or soul-laid-bare honest. I bet I know what he gets instead. I bet he gets the same sun-kissed ALYSSACENTRIC sentiments that we, your blog readers, already know are as intriguing as EZ-Pass, as mysterious as Lunchables. Alyssa, I think Sexy Euro would be surprised to hear that you identify so strongly with Brenda from Six Feet Under — passionate, dark, impulsive, complex, fucks-a-guy-in-a-broom-closet Brenda. Brenda is a mess but she is also a STORY MACHINE. Sexy Euro needs a hook, but his girl Shelasky is dud velcro. No hooks. So maybe — just a guess here — he fixates on anatomy. Maybe he looks up from his frites and thinks... wow, big forehead. Cute girl, gigantic forehead. I could shave in its reflection.

Now I'm not saying, Alyssa, that Sexy Euro is some great catch. He would never share his insecurities on a blog, and that makes you a braver person than he. Still, the prose, babe, the prose, the prose.

Two suggestions. First, look to EET, your "Edgy English Teacher" ex-boyfriend to whom you turn over your blog in times — Sundance? self-purification? — of overcommitment . EET is a promising prose stylist. His guest posts are funny, breezy, and utterly transparent. He conveys exactly the kind of person he is. I know this guy without ever having met him; I know what he thinks and feels and dreams; I know, with complete certainty, that he is a sashimi-grade douchebag. Alyssa, offer EET something "edgy" in exchange for writing lessons. I have a feeling he'll respond with enthusiasm.

My second bit of advice is to raise the stakes. If there is a shared quality of mensmag writers, it's that we are tortured, and willing to share that torturedness for three dollars a word. We are constantly returning to the sites of our childhood traumas: The dead parents, the murdered classmates, the bullies that beat us up and the girls who never wanted to blow us. In the world of gyno-mags, Mariane Pearl is doing something similar, turning herself into a global avatar of suffering, a hotter, thinner Sally Struthers. You need to push yourself toward catharsis, Alyssa. Fly to Greece. Confront Greek Dentist, to whom you are always circling back in brief cryptic references, much like Yossarian circles back to the memory of Snowden. Or at least throw your readers a frickin' bone and sooooooo tart it up stateside with a few decent necking sessions already!!!!!!!!

All that said, Alyssa, I wish you luck finding a good man. And if you are interested in discussing your career in journalism further, perhaps over a glass of single-malt scotch — the very same scotch that the late Art Cooper presented to me as a hiring gift years ago, and which he and I used to sip while leaning against the sturdy rail of Art's Manhattan balcony, looking out wistfully at the East River, talking about our wives and our lost loves — and, also, Alyssa, if you are not allergic to cats — MySpace-message me, screenname SINATRAHADACOLD, and we'll talk.

— Mr. Wolfian

Alyssacentric [Glamour]
Earlier: When Writing About A Pretty Lady In Iraq, At Least Do A Decent Job Describing Her Prettiness

Their responses to Alyssa's question, "Why can't I find love when I am clearly so adorable as evidenced by the 397 pictures of myself I have posted on the Glamour website", were mostly pretty boring since as Neel pointed out, they don't actually read Alyssa's blog. But when Alyssa took umbrage-lite at Jake wannabe Adam Stein's response, Adam dug up his rough draft and found that his answer had been planted with a SUBLIMINAL (figuratively) MESSAGE by... well, he could only suspect "Glamour Editorial Sprites"!

I don't think I was hard on you at all, unless you're referring to this: "Seems to me you've been looking in all the wrong places. Celeb-infested galas, crowded book signings and publicist-heavy cocktail parties tend to be crowded with the types you know you should avoid." In which case I should tell you...I didn't write that. Sometimes I compose a draft of a blog, and then it comes out posted with mysterious additions. Glamour Editorial Sprites, no doubt, making mischief.

Mischief! That's one word! Sprites. Yet another! But wait! We think we're stating to make out a hidden message within the hidden message...

This...vapid ho gets... three thousand dollars a month....for this shit????

• The Glamour online team has laid down the law. Ostensibly a dating blogger, Alyssa has not actually blogged about a date since agreeing to see her no-name-ex, a guy who didn't want to be blogged about. To compensate, she's focused on issues like how she stays thin and other really, really boring shit we can't remember, and posted lots of photographic evidence of her giant forehead, all of which rendered Miss Lyss virtually unreadable. Furthermore, there is reason to believe Glamour is laying down the law with all their bloggers, given the curious timing of both "Suze on Style" blogger Suze Yalof Schwartz and "Slaves To Fashion" blogger Ashley Baker's joining of some fledgling social-networking site called MySpace (interestingly, only Suze has figured out how to register her own permanent, personalized MySpace URL). Perhaps Conde Nast forced Alyssa to choose between love and her unquenchable thirst for self-promotion?

• "Edgy English Teacher" edged his way back into her... ew.
  If there's been one anchor in Alyssa's online life, it's been a mysterious, sometime guest blogger she's dubbed "Edgy English Teacher," a moniker we assume she's given him because he's an English teacher given to sublime utterances like "better buy her some Prada this weekend or no nookie."

• Alyssa's dad walked in on her and her no-nickname-ex having sex.
  Alyssa lives with her parents, dontcha know? And dad was weirded out. Or aroused! And Alyssa was weirded out by that. Or aroused! Imagine the possibilities! No, seriously, don't.

  Alyssacentric: Stormy Everything [Glamour]

Her PR firm made her quit.

Right, because Melanie Boyer is a publicist, and Alyssa Shelasky, as she never lets us forget, is one of those RELENTLESS PURSUERS OF THE TRUTH (sometimes we call them "journalists"). After all, as she reminded us Monday:

"If I can find Brad Pitt in Anguilla," she said Monday, "I can find my hoodie!"

After the jump, five more reasons to hate Alyssa and mourn the loss of Mel B.

1. Both have a healthy perspective on their economic relevance in a post-Web 2.0 reality:
Melanie:

At this point, a girl can't shit around with amateurs. The threat of global warming and global conflict is all up in our grill. A girl's got to think about that shit. War of the Worlds could happen, and then where the hell would I be? No one's going to be banging down the door for a writer when bloody veins and electrical squid are fucking shit up all over the place.

Alyssa:

In my heart of hearts I want to move to Malibu for the summer...Then I'd move home in the Fall, and you guessed it, go with the flow. But here's the second part of that convo: Los Angeles is NOT reality. I go there to escape. I go there to beautify. There's other possibilities, too. I might have a chance to work in the Hamptons. I know, it's a little uptight, but beautiful and logical.

2. Both occasionally stumble precisely upon those feelings of loneliness shared by every single twenty-something serial dater:
Melanie:

Just for a minute, the phone calls had me tricked. Because the only reason you would call was if you wanted to talk to me. Right? I'm a bit embarrassed at how long it took me to figure it out. Silly girl. You call me when you're on your way to the metro. You call me when you're on the bus, or on your way home. You call me when you're on your way to somewhere else.
I wish I could say this feeling of worthlessness is all new. But I recognize it. I'm slipping into it like my blue cotton bed sheets after a couple of glasses of merlot and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Alyssa:

Remember "Mystery Man" in LA? Now that he's old news, I might as well tell you, he made me feel like the biggest waste of space. I wasn't interesting enough, exotic enough, jet-setter enough — bc he was from some cobblestone European city or whatever.

3. Sometimes the people who read the blog are even more entertaining than the bloggers themselves!
Melanie:

All you need to do is find some guy who is in to erotic asphyxiation. you (and f_in_the_a) can gather up all that hair, make a rope, and strangle the poor dude with it. See? It's a perfect solution! You get to strangle someone, all the hair is gone, you've just engaged a sex act that you can write about. And I'm even pretty sure that the act of gathering and constructing your hairniquet will provide many of the same physiological benefits of sit-ups...

Alyssa:

Of course I would LOVE to have Jessica Alba's body. WOW. Maybe I did for a while in HS... then I went off the dexatrim and got over the ex dumping me. Food was reintroduced...and I went to college. Oh well. I will have to say that I am pretty satisfied with my body. Of couse, I have complaints; what IS that pouch that won't go away no matter how skinny the rest of me gets (I call it baby leftovers- gross but true), I have always had thick legs and plenty of booty to go around. But then I think- I have awesome olive skin and tan like no other, long natural silky brown hair, beautiful green eyes and tons of personality to boot.

Don't thank us, but we had to wade through about 300,000 words of this shit.

Alyssacentric [Glamour]
About Last Night [Washington City Paper]

And that's the thing about those self-obsessed, bad-at-listening serial-dater types: if there is one thing you can count on them giving, it is too much information. We have friends like that. (Well, friends like that with better taste in music.)

But around Valentine's Day, Alyssa stopped sharing her trysts with us. Because, she later revealed, she was in a relationship with someone who didn't want to be written about. At first, we thought, those Conde Nast lawyers are pretty silly if they gave Alyssa a contract allowing her to write about, well, her inner life! (Which is to say, her lack thereof!) But today, she reveals something troubling. Starting "Alyssacentric" was part of a larger life mission.

The decision to do the blog was connected to a bigger career goal. I needed to evolve as a lifestyle writer, and expand my portfolio.

So Alyssa has her own lawyers? And her blog is part of some career ladder she's climbing? Does one really ascend the professional ranks by flitting around the Western continents in designer dresses giving coy nicknames like "Sexy Euro" to the dudes she fucks? Don't answer that!