An Open Letter to the Pillow Pics Men on Dating Apps

Dear Harold et al.,

First, you can thank me for scratching out your face, which you may assume I did to protect your identity but which I actually did to protect The Internet from the contents of your nostrils.

Secondly, I know this profile isn’t working for you, but I suspect you don’t know why, so let me explain.

You seem to be offering up this debacle of an image as some kind of thirst trap. And it’s not that we don’t get the implications of this exact vantage point — we definitely get it. We just hate it.

In addition to our concerns about how icky you are, we have additional concerns about your critical thinking skills or appalling lack thereof.

You must be under the impression that what you’re displaying here is appealing to women, and this suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of How Things Work.

Do you believe, Harold, that the dating apps are full of middle-aged women combing through Bumble in hopes of finding a lazy man who would like a blowjob?

That is actually not difficult to find, Harold. That is like finding a golden retriever who would like a steak.

We are sorry to pick on you specifically, Harold, but you chose such a horrifying picture that you deserve it. We know you’re not alone. We know you have thousands upon thousands of brothers on pillows — reclining upon the unwashed sheets of your mattresses on the floor.

We know you’re going to stumble out of that mattress and wander into your dirty bathroom to take a mirror selfie and then hop on your sweet motorcycle to go catch a fish or shoot a deer or pose with women who would clearly never date you.

And then at the end of the day you’ll fall back into this pose, take another snapshot from the perspective of your own sad penis, and curse the unfairness of it all and the women who are depriving you of what you feel you deserve.

You’ll drift off to sleep comforted only by the constancy of your own unwavering and self-referential confidence, the one true and loyal companion of mediocre white men on the dating apps.

Goodnight, Harold. We’re going to report you.