Darren Sherman is cheap

July 5, 2006 2:57 PM

Attention Darren Sherman: When you go on a date with someone, and they offer to split the tab, once you've declined their offer it can be perceived as bad ettiquette to threaten to get a court summons for the money if they refuse a second date with you. Voicemails & emails of a JDate gone awry.
posted by jonson (73 comments total)

Seriously? Some people just aren't wired right. Ok, well, most people aren't wired right, but some are more damaged than others.

Spooky.
posted by kbanas at 3:06 PM on July 5, 2006

Wow. What a tool.

Advice for internet daters: don't give people your phone number or regular email address till you're sure you want to hear from them again. (Unfortunately, I'm speaking from experience.)
posted by dobbs at 3:07 PM on July 5, 2006

wow. nice find.
posted by zpousman at 3:07 PM on July 5, 2006

The highlight is when he threatens to call her boss at work & tell on her. "Don't make me go over your head for this!"
posted by jonson at 3:08 PM on July 5, 2006

As if the line between traditional dating roles and prostitution isn't thin enough already.

He should've got her to sign a pre-sup. Breadroll visitation rights are the third weekend of every month.
posted by dgaicun at 3:09 PM on July 5, 2006 [2 favorites]

Uh, isn't editorializing on FPPs considered kind of a no-no on metafilter?
posted by Flashman at 3:11 PM on July 5, 2006

One time I met this guy on the metafilter IRC and eventually we met in person and it was like wow. I mean, you would not believe this guy.

Now we're getting married.

PEOPLE, BE CAREFUL.
posted by thirteenkiller at 3:11 PM on July 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

I think she drank the wine, and that it's her call.

Just a guess.

(Seriously, what the fuck. And how does his tone remain so normal while saying such batshitinsane stuff?)
posted by birdie birdington at 3:12 PM on July 5, 2006

Flashman, you're only 277 front page posts away from being able to give me tips on how it's done. Keep up the good work.
posted by jonson at 3:12 PM on July 5, 2006

Advice for internet daters: STOP! (In the Name of LOL).
posted by rob paxon at 3:13 PM on July 5, 2006

So when do we start taking bets on how long the marriage lasts?
posted by public at 3:13 PM on July 5, 2006

These recordings are so freakish, they almost make you wonder if they are the work of nefarious nazi sympathizers, intent on propagating the stereotype of the greedy Jew.
posted by MaxVonCretin at 3:15 PM on July 5, 2006

I'd put money on it lasting forever like true love always does, but then I'd have to wait forever to collect.
posted by rob paxon at 3:16 PM on July 5, 2006

I always tell my dates upfront that if it doesn't work out, I'll send them a bill for their half of all our dates. That way there's no hard feelings.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:16 PM on July 5, 2006

(Unless they have pride)
posted by rob paxon at 3:17 PM on July 5, 2006

Brings to mind --

Pa. Man Sues over Web Site Comments
A city attorney is suing the creator of a Web site that lets women dish dirt on men they claim have wronged them, saying they made defamatory statements about him.
posted by ericb at 3:18 PM on July 5, 2006

Ericb, that site is decidedly awful for mankind, speaking as a man and emphasizing the man in mankind.
posted by rob paxon at 3:19 PM on July 5, 2006

What's even more amazing than the freaky guy is just how level-headed, articulate, and kind the girl is. And the real blow comes at the beginning when she says up front that she was actually interested in going out with him again until he started asking her for the money.

The funny thing is, in almost all the dates I've ever had (including those that led to serious relationships), the girl has not so much offered but assumed payment of her half of the meal, or movie, or whatever. I'm 35, have been out on quite a few dates with a variety of women; I certainly didn't like a lot of them much, but never did I think that one was just out for a free meal. Maybe that type just isn't attracted to me. Or maybe they figure I can't afford to take them someplace good.
posted by bingo at 3:23 PM on July 5, 2006

I read somewhere that Yahoo is buying that site, don'tdatehimgirl.com, so it must have some appeal.
posted by Flashman at 3:30 PM on July 5, 2006

In the follow-up someone posts a link to his Myspace but it says you gotta be a member to go there. Is that something new at at MS?
posted by dobbs at 3:32 PM on July 5, 2006

He should've got her to sign a pre-sup.

I guess "wins the thread" is verboten, but this one should at least make it to the semi-finals.
posted by justkevin at 3:33 PM on July 5, 2006

dobbs: They linked to his photo page, and you have to be logged in to see that. His main profile should be public.
posted by smackfu at 3:35 PM on July 5, 2006

In the follow-up someone posts a link to his Myspace but it says you gotta be a member to go there. Is that something new at at MS?

No, you need to be signed-in to view someone's pics beyond their main one, which is what the link went to. You can probably figure out his Myspace ID from the link.
posted by justkevin at 3:37 PM on July 5, 2006

And if, for some reason, you can't.
posted by kbanas at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2006

Flashman, you're only 277 front page posts away from being able to give me tips on how it's done. Keep up the good work.

JOWNED.

[this is good]

[albeit batshit insane]
posted by scrump at 3:47 PM on July 5, 2006

That dude's phone has to be ringing off the hook by now.

...and the next time you go around dating y'know, y'know be careful...

No shit, Sherlock! Running, now. Fast. Far away.

I'm going to be on top of ya.

Eww and/or ick! Dude, you're getting any with this attitude. No sack for you.

...uhm, and you can take it as you wish...

Uhm, you're a freak and a cheap-ass motherfucker?

...do the right thing...

Eat a bullet? No, seriously. Darren, are you in marketing or something?

bye...

So long, sucker.
posted by loquacious at 3:51 PM on July 5, 2006

This sounds so much like a thing George Costanza would do.
posted by Herr Fahrstuhl at 3:54 PM on July 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Maybe she should "accept" a date, only to serve him with a restraining order.
posted by clevershark at 3:56 PM on July 5, 2006

Thanks kbanas. I couldn't. That place baffles me. Everytime I go there it tells me such and such is in my extended network, whatever the fuck that means.
posted by dobbs at 3:57 PM on July 5, 2006

In the follow-up someone posts a link to his Myspace

Classic.

Darren's Friend Space - Darren has 2 friends. One of which is MySpace's founder, Tom "I'll see you emo fags later!" Anderson.

Pictures of Darren: 1 of him clutching two women, one of which looks leery as hell about the prospect, the other of which could be faking it for politeness. And 9 head shots in varying shades of trying too hard, 8 of which are shirtless and/or nude.
posted by loquacious at 4:00 PM on July 5, 2006

All the cool kids have way more than 2 myspace friends!
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:02 PM on July 5, 2006

The linked story's comments include a link to a strangely similar story at Snopes.
posted by Snerd at 4:03 PM on July 5, 2006

Doesn't the start of each sound clip sound more like a traditional answering machine rather than the voicemail that would accompany a cell phone? Supposedly he was calling both her cell phone & her office.
posted by tastybrains at 4:05 PM on July 5, 2006

[Jonson, for the record, that was merely an attempt at drollery. Your posting history is awesome and legendary.]
posted by Flashman at 4:09 PM on July 5, 2006

Thanks, Flashman. Sorry for the snide response!
posted by jonson at 4:13 PM on July 5, 2006

The linked story's comments include a link to a strangely similar story at Snopes.
posted by Snerd at 4:03 PM PST on July 5 [+fave] [!]

I'm not clear how this website got all this info. Someone forwarded it to them? Woulsnt it be only Joanna who would have that exchange plus all the voicemails?
posted by vacapinta at 4:17 PM on July 5, 2006

Wow. What a tool. According to the followup, the FBI is involved in the case.
posted by birdherder at 4:17 PM on July 5, 2006

Get a room. Christ.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:18 PM on July 5, 2006

Jesus christ that is some shit!
posted by OmieWise at 4:21 PM on July 5, 2006

It's a good thing they put "police_matter" in their yahoo.com e-mail address, otherwise I might not think they were legit.
posted by tastybrains at 4:22 PM on July 5, 2006

Hey, she drank the wine. She ate the food. She should do the right thing.






Which is ridicule this loonbag on the net.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:24 PM on July 5, 2006

I'd love to see this go viral.

What constitutes a date "working out" for him. I guess his $50 bucks entitles him to get laid.
posted by bim at 4:42 PM on July 5, 2006

Hoo boy. Well, some dates work out, some don't, and with others you change your number/move/get a restraining order and think hey, live and learn. Or not.
posted by orange swan at 4:50 PM on July 5, 2006

this sounds like a hoax to me. it's not like it's so hard to create a fake myspace page & a fake yahoo address. now WHY someone would perpetrate this hoax... that i can't say.
posted by jcruelty at 4:51 PM on July 5, 2006

I agree that it sounds like a hoax. Someone with more guts than me should call the # in the first voicemail and find out the scoop.
posted by tastybrains at 4:54 PM on July 5, 2006

I knew this sounded familiar.
posted by aberrant at 4:55 PM on July 5, 2006

Note that the status of the Snopes story is "undetermined", not "hoax".
posted by russilwvong at 4:56 PM on July 5, 2006

Awww. The SNOPES page makes it look like maybe it's a hoax. Although I can believe that there are two people out there this creepy, my gut is telling me the SNOPES one legit, and these voicemails are some improv comic's viral prank emulating it. It should be noted, however, that my gut is notoriously unreliable, except when urging me to consume delicious food.
posted by ®@ at 5:01 PM on July 5, 2006

Note also that I didn't draw a conclusion either way.
posted by aberrant at 5:01 PM on July 5, 2006

this sounds like a hoax to me. it's not like it's so hard to create a fake myspace page & a fake yahoo address. now WHY someone would perpetrate this hoax... that i can't say.

Not all that implausible. Maybe someone just wants to rile stupid people (like me) to a sanctimonious froth to make retarded comments on the internet.

That or the phone number recited in the voicemail is a plant targeting someone else for harassment, or to gather numbers for marketing or worse.

Or maybe it's a viral for China Grill. Their phone number is also recited in a voicemail.


Out of morbid curiousity, has anyone actually called the number in the voicemail? Anything there to give it away as a hoax? I'm even more tempted to, now, but will refrain.
posted by loquacious at 5:03 PM on July 5, 2006

Come on, doooo it!
posted by tastybrains at 5:05 PM on July 5, 2006

No way the FBI is involved.

I bet he's awful at cards. Two Jacks? Bullshit.
posted by yeti at 5:07 PM on July 5, 2006

On the debunking side, does anyone know if you can extract metadata - such as join date or other - from a MySpace FriendID? (Darren's is 70345008)
posted by loquacious at 5:08 PM on July 5, 2006

Or maybe it's a viral for China Grill.

He does sound a little like the litigious Jeffrey Chodorow, actually.

Although really, I'm sure this is a hoax.
posted by amro at 5:11 PM on July 5, 2006

Out of morbid curiousity, has anyone actually called the number in the voicemail

Yeah, I got a busy signal that sounded kinda weird.

Also, how can you find someone's myspace with a phone number? That seems kinda weird.
posted by dobbs at 5:23 PM on July 5, 2006

Actually, that was when I first read the post. I just recalled and it's been disco'd.
posted by dobbs at 5:25 PM on July 5, 2006

Everyone is missing the important fact in this case:

China Grill food bill: $107, Tip: $20 (18.7%)

Acceptable tip. All is forgiven.
posted by mullacc at 5:43 PM on July 5, 2006

dobbs: A fast busy signal? Same tone, but faster - equally on-off like a normal busy without intermittent patterns? Usually means the number is disconnected or overloaded.

And I believe private consumer numbers can be turned off at the service provider's discretion temporarily if they receive an abnormal number of calls, especially if they overload the exchange/office/provider.

Reverse phone lookup for the number:

(718) ***-**** is a land line based in New York, NY
The registered service provider is Verizon**.
Detailed listing information is not available.


Intelus says detailed info is available, but I'm not curious enough to drop the 15 bucks on it.

Interestingly - but probably unrelated - there are several identical numbers with different area codes registered to people with the surname "Sherman" in the NY state area.
posted by loquacious at 5:53 PM on July 5, 2006

I vote hoax as well. It can't be worth the trouble for $50, and I'm the only one who's allowed to have a MySpace profile with only 2 friends.

Also, if you look at his one other real friend, it's all spam. I think, plus all of her "friends" are full of myspace spam (unless that's not spam.)

So what up? Is this a group of viral marketers?

The whole thing seems like a very bad joke about being Jewish.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:56 PM on July 5, 2006

I just called the China Grill and the name of the GM matches that left on the final voice mail.
posted by dobbs at 6:16 PM on July 5, 2006

“You ate the food, you drank the wine… Pay your bill”

Speaking of bills, Bono would like a word with you.
posted by dw at 6:23 PM on July 5, 2006

mrgrimm: That has to be one of the most terrifying myspace pages I've ever had the displeasure of viewing. I've seen less overpriced ugly sparkly shit in Tiffany's.

dobbs: See, now the fact that the name of the China Grill GM matches combined with Darrens disco'ed phone makes it very odd that it would be a viral marketing campaign. I'd like to think that if it was a viral that they'd have some use or message for the number, and the capacity and apt willingness to deal with all the calls.

It still doesn't rule out hoax, viral or malicious third party targeting of someone's number.

(Phone harassment and related fuckery is surprisingly easy, even without the internet. For example: Way back in BBS days I knew some phone-hobbyist chaps that targeted a specific multiline BBS because its well known pederastic proclivities. Said BBS had all of its phone numbers forwarded to the local sheriffs office, including all of the outlying "call forwarding chain" lines set up to provide toll-free local access numbers to a slightly broader geographic area.)
posted by loquacious at 6:30 PM on July 5, 2006

Its a hoax. The emails are all dated from last month, and the Snopes entry is dated from some time in 2004. Are we really to believe that more then one person would engage in this sort of behavior? Of course it wouldn't happen on two seperate websites or anything. No, this particular (Jewish) lightning would only strike twice in the same place - J-Date. Because us Jews are, y'know, cheap and all.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:41 PM on July 5, 2006

If you sincerely believe that spending X amount of $$$$ on a date entitles you to get your dinky stinky, or, for that matter, to anything besides "thank you," you should not be dating women. You should not be putting profiles on online services.

You should be flipping through the brightly colored ads in the back of the Village Voice and New York Press and spending your money on the services advertised therein.

Please go off into that little social-retard ghetto and stop making life difficult for nice, normal single guys like me who have to deal with the wariness and suspicion created by this sort of behavior.

Be a mensch. Do the right thing.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:48 PM on July 5, 2006

If this is real, she should call him and tell him she spent his $50 to put out a contract on his life. And she used the change to get lunch.


Of course this is fake. I suspect it's marketing for that stupid gonzorangers site.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:53 PM on July 5, 2006

Now we're getting married.

PEOPLE, BE CAREFUL.

I suppose this is a bad time to tell you I'm already married to him?
posted by Sparx at 8:55 PM on July 5, 2006

o nose our happy home :(
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:09 PM on July 5, 2006

You drank the wine, eat the food, bought this fake shit, now do the write thing for a couple of days.
posted by zackdog at 12:37 AM on July 6, 2006

Well, the gonzorangers site appears to be dead in the water, now. So I guess their viral marketing worked.
posted by neek at 2:26 AM on July 6, 2006

Yeah, this is clearly viral, and I'm guessing its viral for gonzorangers themselves. Their sidebar links to a few "Other Rangers" who are no strangers to pulling out all the stops to gain further traffic and get rich off the internet for basically doing nothing.

Although the comments from Darren in today's follow-up post on Gonzo actually made it all worthwhile for me. Friggin hilarious.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:10 AM on July 6, 2006

"get rich off the internet for basically doing nothing."

You make that sound all bad and shit.
posted by moneyjane at 2:18 AM on July 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

mrgrimm: that myspace profile is pure evil. I am still amazed at the fact myspace has any users when half the profiles are guaranteed to crash your web browser. (firefox, opera, IE, Safari, omniweb, etc. Tried 'em all, myspace has killed every one of them.)
posted by drstein at 5:43 AM on July 7, 2006

On the debunking side, does anyone know if you can extract metadata - such as join date or other - from a MySpace FriendID? (Darren's is 70345008)
They're sequential. You can't extract data from them, but by looking at sites with a known join date you can determine when it falls in the sequence. Mine's 14million something, and I've had an account for about a year. My roommate's 250thousandish, and he's been on for three years or so.
Judging by the newest member on my list I'd guess his account is over a month old, although not more than two, three at the most.
posted by Kellydamnit at 6:01 AM on July 7, 2006