Karma Cleanser - March 20 2002

Dear Karma Cleanser:


I had a brief (several week) e-mail relationship with a guy, thinking that if we hit it off online, we would eventually meet in person. He told me that he hadn’t dated in many years, and once he sent me his picture, I could understand why. Still, he seemed nice enough so we continued to write, but after I realized that he was so desperate to meet that no matter what I said to him he would keep writing, I’m ashamed to say I sort of turned it into a game. I would deliberately write mean things to see just how much he would take, but when it became obvious that he would tolerate pretty much anything just to get a date, I ‘fessed up and apologized for what I had done. I feel very bad for playing with his feelings, and have sent several messages of apology — both through e-mail and through a close friend of his — but he hasn’t responded. Is there anything I can do to make amends?

-- SORRY FE-MALE

Cruelty comes so easily online. Send your Cyber Spaz one final olive branch, then delete his entry from your address book. Whether online or in the flesh, potential mates deserve to be treated with respect. Until you learn that, you’ll be spending a lot of alone time with your hard drive.

Dear Karma Cleanser:
I worked at a grocery store that just recently opened, but soon went out of business. I bagged groceries for a pitiful wage for about six months before I became involved in a different task: A co-worker and I began to steal as much beer as we possibly could before we got caught and fired. We got away with about $4,000 worth of beer, several fine cuts of meat and three grocery carts over a two-month period. Very soon after that, I quit the grocery store and went to work at the pizza place in the same shopping center. About a month later, my partner-in-crime at the grocery store got big-time busted for all the thievery we’d pulled off when I worked there. Many other employees got busted as well. Since I didn’t work there when the bust went down, am I as guilty now as my friend, who is spending a five-year sentence in prison?

-- FEELING A LITTLE GUILTY

With employees like that, no wonder the grocery store tanked! Yes you’re guilty, and also damn lucky that you went into the pizza business before the beer hit the fan (or something like that). Send your prison buddy a lavish care package and steer clear of co-workers with sticky fingers.

Been bad? Get right with the universe at

karma@creativeloafing.com.??