Craigslist began as a small, mostly closed operation in San Francisco at the dawn of popular Internet use. Today, there's a page for most major cities on the planet. I've visited the craigslist sites for foreign countries, small towns and many a metropolis, so I have a pretty good feel for how this tool works. Though craigslist is designed to be as easy to use as possible, there's still something of a learning curve. Cities that haven't had craigslist for very long tend to feature posts that suggest whoever wrote them didn't really understand how the site functions, sort of like when someone born prior to 1950 tries to leave a message on an answering machine. They don't comprehend that the technology isn't conscious, that it depends entirely on user input. It would stand to reason, then, that cities hosting craigslist for a long time would be unusually canny with the site. I decided to visit the San Francisco Bay Area craigslist page to find out.

The first page I visited on the S.F. Bay craigslist site was General Community. In my experience, General is to craigslist what Jupiter is to our solar system. Whatever common detritus, some dangerous and some benign, floats through the vicinity, General swallows it up so it doesn't do any damage to the already minimal functionality of the site. General is a compilation of scams, bottom-rung Internet marketing and religious rants.

Except for in San Francisco.

To my surprise, an unusually favorable ratio of real posts to crap exists on the S.F. Bay General page. Sure, there are still snake oil salesmen and a few bits that would fit better in Rants and Raves, but for the most part this particular General page actually does what it says on the tin. People from the San Francisco Bay Area make posts related to community events and use it as a genuine platform for outreach. Fancy that.

With cautious optimism, I ventured forth into other Community pages. Groups has always delivered plenty of crazy. Except in San Francisco, apparently. I couldn't find a single ghost hunting club or The Game-style seduction class. All I found was a long list of support groups for genuine maladies and not-creepy play groups for parents with small children. At this point, I was getting a little freaked out. I mean, I depend on craigslist to be a source of stupidity and madness. If it's only a matter of time before all craigslist pages function properly, then what does that mean for The Craigslist Files?

No longer screwing around, I decided to go for broke. I went to the one place that couldn't possibly be what it was designed to be. I ventured into the single page that was practically guaranteed to provide the most ridiculous thing I had heard all week.

I went to Men Seeking Women.

And like the soothing tingle of a warm bath after a long, difficult day in the frozen wasteland that is our world, I finally found the craigslist I know and love/hate. The post titles rang out like a chorus of pathetic depravity, White executive looking for Asian- 49, the planets aligning with the hopeless sentiments of A very UNIQUE NSA Arrangement-Potential Long term .I am discreet . (My Place). My heart soared at the misspellings and grammatical nonsense of seeking someone Love Passionate and definetly fun.

So, sure, the San Francisco Bay Area craigslist site has some unusual arrangements, but deep down it's the same old fetid hovel of wrongness that exists all around the world. Some Internet truths are stronger than evolution.