Ways to let a guy know you aren't interested

One of my co-workers is being subtly stalked over e-mail by one of our would-be authors. To make this even funnier, he is a poet. A bad one. And he is asking for her opinion of his poems as well.

Which is bad enough, but the pure CHEESE he sends with the poems is just pathetic. I'm sorry, bub, but this is the 21st century (get a clue! You are e-mailing these messages, not using telegrams or morse code.) Not the 1890s. I don't feel bad for laughing at you when you include e-mail subject lines such as, "Greetings and salutations" And then, following that one, "Greetings and Salutations!" You were emboldened that she responded, ergo, the exclamation point.

Seriously, I didn't know people still wrote things (and shared them) like, "When I caught your smile across the room..." Gag.

Not only is she not single, and not only is this unprofessional of him, but, well - if he had a web site, we agreed it should be one of the following:

www.exceptionalnerd.com

www.hideousnerd.com

He said he feels like he's a relic from another time, that the world moves too fast for him, or something like that. (Bub, we figured that out from your shoes.) Maybe he just needs more of his medication.

But seriously...we kept thinking of ways she could politely let him know she had a boyfriend, but then we degenerated (of course) and started thinking of really obnoxious ways.

Some suggestions:

1. She does what I did on a date in 2004 to make sure the guy never calls you again: Tell him you are into bondage. (I still don't know how I did this with a straight face, but it worked. And he deserved it. Ask out of the blue if I prefer a guy with a decent-sized dick or one who "knows what he's doing," and you deserve what you get. FYI, there are plenty of guys with decent-sized dicks that know what to do with them.)

2. Write him really bad poetry and ask his opinion of it, hoping he'll lose all respect for her as a writer and therefore lose interest in her personally. (Ah, wishful thinking.) Perhaps something like the following:

I thought a deer
might bring you some cheer
so I drank some beer
and shot one.

or

E-mail me again
and I'll start hating men
well maybe I'll just hate you.


3. Suggest that he reserve the domain names above and continue the dating game. (OK, this would get her fired, but it would be funny, wouldn't it?)

4. Tell him that she's just not into older men (he's at least 10 years older than she is), and actually prefer ones that are still in high school.

5. Confess that she's really from Alabama and only dates men with the same last name as she has.

6. Tell him that when he caught her smile across the room, it was because she was trying not to laugh at his shoes.

But it's pretty likely that she won't have to do any of this, because we'll burst out laughing the next time he comes into the office anyway, and he'll probably get the hint.