A.J. Jacobs shows why he’s the best writer working for Esquire named A.J. today in this creepy but hilarious article about his misadventures playing one of the oldest tricks on the internet: pretending he’s a hot woman.

In this case his goal is more than just cheap thrills (and a per-word paycheck). His apparently dripping hot nanny is too shy to get a date, so A.J. poses as her online (with her permission) to screen out the trainwrecks, leaving her with just the 50-ton engines of fun. It’s outsourcing a dating life—not such a bad idea, actually.

I know she’ll find it with someone. Not just because the e-mails from interested men keep flooding in, unabated. But because of the men themselves. The only thing more surprising than the quantity and deviousness of the creeps was the emotional honesty and fragility of the noncreeps. It’s a side of men that other men just don’t get to see.

Reading how A.J. deals with the feeling of power that comes from being a beautiful woman (even online) reminds me why every man that’s ever been scorned by a woman has a tiny little cross-dressing misogynist loving and hating—respectively—inside of him. Or maybe that’s just me.

My Life as a Hot Woman [Esquire]