And my friends wonder why I have a growing disdain and general malaise directed at the male species. Allow me to regale my most recent experience (read: trainwreck).

I find myself often shaking my fists at the heavens and muttering under my breath a vague little wish that someone would just at least step on the scene to cause some intellectual entertainment.

Clearly there’s a genie living upstairs with a wicked sense of humour (more like comedy noir with masochistic tendencies). Upon my doorstep, a most entertaining subject arrived.

I need to emphasise that I did in fact have some common sense instilled in me at a young age, pass Grade 7 and not grow up under a rock, before I share my story.

Facebook is the devil. It is how Oliver Bombles* (not real name, although I am seriously tempted) made his appearance. We have approximately a trillion mutual friends, he grew up in the same town as me, our parents know each other, he has a kind face, from his profile pictures I can deduce he likes sea sand, he can’t be all that bad, right?

I have always been vigilant about ‘friend collectors’ on Facebook. I have customised privacy settings, and only add people I know and would speak to in public (except for that one guy I have had a crush on forever, and only won’t speak to him because I forget what my name is every time I see him).

So, he writes on my wall. Something funny, cute, and harkening back to our childhood city. Harmless. I take a quick squizz at his profile. Snore. I write on my wall for all of 10 minutes my Blackberry Instant Messenger PIN for one of my girlfriends. Then I get a request from Mr Bombles. Ok. Nice. No probs.

We chat for a little. He’s obviously had way too much caffeine late at night and must have a degree in Typing on a Blackberry Very Fast with Manly Hands. Ok. He’s excitable. I can live with that. We talk about stupid crap and its all very banterish.

I go to sleep to wake up to an absolute assault of IM’s. Ok. Mr Bombles must be on holiday or something because no adult can really have that much time on their hands, right?

He ends his IM binge telling me that he lives in a commune, has a criminal record, had his laptop stolen on the Wynberg train and that he licked my profile picture before he went to bed and he could swear it tasted like sherbert.

*insert sound of screeching record here*

I don’t quite know what to do or where to look. Although, my first instinct is to tell him he’s the funniest man I’ve ever met, ha ha ha. He’s not serious, right?

Within 24 hours, Mr Bombles had escalated from licking my photo, to professing his undying devotion to me and our unborn children, to walking past my workplace and waving (all.seven.times) and calling me a rude little cow for not responding to his very caring and sensitive displays of affection.

I wish I had thought it was amusing at the time. It’s not.

Women care so much about hurting other peoples’ feelings, even when they have our arms monkey-wrenched behind our backs.

So, Genie Who Lives Upstairs, what I meant by ‘intellectual entertainment’ was actually ‘man who doesn’t need to be in a straight-jacket with a tracking device attached to his ankle’.

Glad we cleared that up.