A couple of days ago, Valentine’s Day happened, and The Beak ignored it. The closest we came was when Varius wrote the following on Twitter:

“Well, Valentine’s day is over, and we didn’t write about it. We win!”

And all was well. But now I suspect this is only because we didn’t have the right sort of news item to go with the topic. The sort of news item that takes a harmless occasion and turns it into something uncomfortable, like when an old man with whom you’re discussing the weather suddenly digresses into reminiscing about his lost ability to “get it up.” Or perhaps something like, say, a dating site created exclusively for people diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Freshly launched on February 14, 2009, get ready for Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com.

On February 9, 2009, the following press release was sent to media outlets:

“Death connects us all. The quality of our lives is profoundly affected by how we choose to face it. How much time do you have left? How would you prefer to spend that time –and what kind of person would you like to spend it with? Let us help you find a singing partner for your swan song. Straight, gay or bi, find your perfect match — or matches. No guilt, no lies, no shame. Just a shared desire to go out with a ‘bang.’ Be a romantic or a horny dog till the end. Join us as we launch… if you are truly dying to connect.”

This has a lot of bizarre cultural implications, but we’ll get to that in a moment, because first I want to point out something that may be of interest to some of our more esoterically-minded readers. The T.D.D.U.P. website features an inspirational and/or humorous quote near the top of the splash, which changes upon refreshing the page. Keen-eyed Discordians who cycle through these quotes will notice that one comes from Robert Anton Wilson’s 2007 deathbed blog: “Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.” David Pescovitz of boingboing.net noted the same thing over the weekend. Whether this is a clue that the whole thing is some ghastly prank, a hint at the identities of the site’s creators, or just an indication that RAW’s influence is spreading, is not immediately clear.

Either way, the whole thing reminds me of a recent episode of House, M.D., in which Thirteen (who is diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease) briefly bonds with a patient when the team believes that she, too, is suffering from a terminal illness. (You may also remember this as the “hot lesbian sex scene” episode.) When House eventually solves the case and the patient is no longer on the verge of death, Thirteen loses all interest in her, explaining that she “feels alone,” surrounded by people who can’t relate to her condition as one who suffers from certain doom. I have no way of knowing if this new site for dying singles was inspired by the House episode, but it certainly does appear to take the idea to its logical conclusion.

So. Obviously, I’m not going to sign up for the site as an experiment to give you a more detailed insight into how it works, because even I’m not that much of a bastard. But we can take another look at that press release:

“Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com is profoundly different from other dating sites. We’re dealing with people who know they are facing imminent death. They are aware that their days are numbered and they know, more or less, how long they have to live.”

Alright, whoa. I mean, fuck, think about how groundbreaking this is. On most dating websites, the best information you get regarding somebody’s likely fidelity is knowing whether someone is looking for short-term dating, long-term dating, marriage, or meaningless sex. But on T.D.D.U.P., if I’m interpreting it correctly, you literally get profiles like, “Hi, I’m Bill, I’m 49, and I’ll be dead in six months.” Holy fucking shit. But hell, if you’ve got to die, why die single? Everybody deserves to get laid now and then. Kudos.