Cupid's Closet
I've been off the online dating thing for a while now. A couple of years ago I put a little profile up on a site that was supposedly for guys who were "serious about dating". Yeah, I don't know why I did it. They wouldn't even let you post shirtless pics, much less ones of your more significant assets. Which is half the fun, right?
Look, I'm not one of those queens who pretends she doesn't want to see your junk. you can tell a lot about a guy by his junk, ladies. Trust me — everything from income to political orientation, from cat or dog person to favorite color. Lay it on the table, literally if you've got a table handy. I want to know what I'm dealing with here. I don't want troubles arising down the line because I didn't do a routine exam at the get-go. An ounce of prevention.
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Dating means: dates before sex.
Dates cost money.
Money for sex is prostitution.
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Dating means: dates before sex.
Dates cost money.
Money for sex is prostitution.
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While a master of the hook-up — it's the same basic premise as ordering a pizza, which is usually what I require my tricks pick up on their way over — online dating has never really worked for me. First of all, dating means dates. Dates cost money. Money for sex is prostitution. I don't believe in that. It cheapens it for me.
Internet dating starts off on the wrong note, see. It's like trying to order a porterhouse steak at the McDonald's drive-thru. With special sauce.
Even if you go a little upscale (Five Guys? In-N-Out Burger?) you can't order a mate from off a drive-thru menu or a department store catalog. And what happens is that people bring that retail mentality into it from the beginning, and the end is always like a scene at the Macy's returns counter. And you know how ugly those can get.
So not much came of this dating site. And a couple of years of dormancy later the site quietly turned the lights out and left the internet. But not before migrating all the profiles to another site called OK Cupid, which apparently is a mixed site — gay and straight — and hasn't figured out filters. I have never visited OK Cupid — I don't even know what it means — "OK Cupid"? OK Cupid what? Retahded.
But I do receive little entreaties and urgings from them, the latest of which I found almost comically offensive...
Now, I don't take exception to the technology. I do like the ease of "click-to-edit orientation" — only on the internet!
No, that's not what's offensive. What's offensive is the notion of "hiding" anything from anyone. Framing a filter as a courtesy for the closeted? How thoughtful.
I wonder, do straight users get a similar courtesy, the ability to "hide" from gays? (In case not everyone knows you're straight yet.)
You know, OK Cupid, you could simply say something like: you can now click to filter your searches — if you're a man who wants to date men, click on the filter to see only other men's profiles, and only other men will see yours. After all, it is just a filter. For data. Nothing more, nothing less.
Not OK, Cupid. Not OK.
I would agree with you, but you should know especially if you're more hook-up oriented, that the number of people out there who are straight by day and gay Internet hook up site by night is staggering.
Maybe it shouldn't be encouraged, but I'm pretty sure closeted people already feel like they're hiding.
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It's fine if they don't have it worked out yet or don't consider themselves Gay. It's not a social experiment for me, it's sex. All I care about is that they're themselves and they're present. So long as they don't bring their issues when they come over with the pizza (with plenty of toppings, if you catch my drift) we'll have a swell time. That's the point.
What I object to is a supposedly hip dating site using language from 1952. People get freaky in all sorts of ways online, a lot of lines get blurred. It's 2011. Most sites have figured out that simple filters work just fine without any reference to the closet.
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There seem to be a lot of 1952 minds out there on any number of subjects. For them the default is closeted. But the default, it is achanging. It just takes a a very, very long time.
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That's why we call it "Ok, Stupid."
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you should enjoy this:
http://annalsofonlinedating.tumblr.com/
wish there were filters for grammatical errors. or people who use "masc/musc"
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I agree with you that one can tell a lot about a guy by looking at his junk. So let's see it. I want to know your favorite color LOL...
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Framing a filter as a courtesy for the closeted? Freakin' cool (alliteration that is).
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