In April 2019, I had tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and was scraping by in New York, working as an editor at a major media outlet making $58,000 per year and living with multiple roommates.
Then I did my 2018 taxes and discovered I owed the U.S. government $2,798 and New York state $345 from the full-time freelance work I’d done the year before.
I made a long-term plan to pay it off but apparently clicked the wrong button and woke up the following day to discover an alarming new bank account balance: negative $1,243. Like most Americans, I did not have $1,243.
I was lucky. A family member was able to lend me $1,243 at no interest, as well as an extra $50 so I wouldn’t starve till my next pay day. But I did need to pay back the money as soon as I could.
I started looking for work outside of my day job to help cover the bill. Among the various side hustle sites I perused was internet jungle Craigslist. That’s when I saw an ad I couldn’t really believe.
“Help me find love online,” it read.
‘You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth’
“Looking for a funny, smart writer, actor or creative to online date for me,” it began.
“I will give you access to my accounts. You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth, a job and some other criteria I’ll tell you about later. You can do it while waiting for the bus, from your couch, from the toilet.” She was a local creative, she wrote, and was tired of the online dating grind. She wanted someone to handle the apps so she could just show up on the dates.
Qualifications for the gig included the following:
- “Must writing goodly — seriously, though, I’m trying to match with intelligent, well-educated men”
- “Must be confident and a damn good flirt”
- “I don’t care about your gender as long as you’re into men — otherwise I think this will all be too abstract”
- “Must have at least one long term relationship (over a year) under your belt, so that you have a sense of what an emotionally…
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