the game is up!

Well, maybe not. But a few of you have asked what, exactly, I’m doing. Yes, I’m mocking. Obviously. But is there a point to this beyond the mocking? I like to think so.

Here’s the part that isn’t particularly funny. I’m fairly recently out of a long (~5 year) relationship. We broke up, and then we were kind of trying again, but he really wasn’t. It was about a year of him being really quite awful to me. (I, of course, was a perfect angel.) I’m not over it. He was horrid, but I love him, and that’s my own special hell. Anyway, he’s uninterested in even thinking about trying again, which leaves me stuck with the moving-on bag. I’m told the way to move on is to pretend to move on, and then the emotions will follow.

Hence my looking for a date. Some of these profiles are fake because I’m curious about the sorts of people who will respond — for example, I was wondering if some guys send the same message to everyone. They do. Mission accomplished. But some of the profiles are legitimate, and some of the ads are legitimate, and I’m hoping to find someone who moves me in some way.

Have I? I’m not sure. I’ve been on a few dates. Some of them have gone well and led to other dates. Some of them have been downright ridiculous. There are more in the works. I’m still not sure if I’m going to document them, though. Maybe just the bad ones. They’re funnier, but I’d hate to give anyone the impression that my life is one horrid awkward date after another. I’d also hate for one of these people to recognize themselves in this blog one day; I’m not out to hurt anyone, mocking evidence to the contrary.

So. Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

are you now or have you ever been

A mostly complete list of all the sites where I currently have ads, have had them in the past, or have attempted to place an ad.

• alt.com. Previously mentioned. BDSM & alternative lifestyle matchmaking site.
• salon.com personals. Also previously mentioned. This is an actual, legitimate profile. My theory is I’m likely to find like-minded individuals at salon.com.
• okcupid. Free matchmaking service with lots of tests and quizzes. It’s huge, but I tend to stay away from this site, as their engine insists on telling me that my ex is my number one match. I realize that, thanks; tell HIM. In any event, this is also a legitimate profile.
• consumating. Somewhat trendy; they do everything via tags. Now, I love love LOVE tags, but haven’t had much luck with this site. You have to put a lot of time and effort into your profile — answering weekly questions and browsing around and leaving comments for other people’s answers… it’s a serious time-sink. It also insists on hooking me up with my ex, and although it’s growing, there aren’t a ton of people signed up yet.
• meetic.com. One of the typography blogs I read mentioned this site because of its nifty logo, so I went and signed up. So far, I am hugely unimpressed. You set your search options when you register, and then you can’t change them unless you pay up. Also they rejected my picture, either because it was obviously computer enhanced or because it clearly was not me. Dude, I turned on my iSight and snapped a photo. Maybe “computer enhanced” means “taken by a webcam.”
• grrl2grrl. They say this is a men-free zone, so naturally, I’m curious. We’ll see how long I can stand the twitching every time I’m forced to refer to myself as a “grrl” or “gurl.” Not long, I’m betting. I’ve only just signed up, so I have no reports on this site.
• eHarmony. I’d heard a bunch of horrified rumors about this place, and so again, I was curious. They’re all religious-rightish, and so I had to be straight, but I did not have to be religious. (One of the rumors I’d heard was that if you claimed to be an atheist, they kick you off. They do not.) So, at eHarmony, you fill out this giant questionnaire — multiple choice, mostly, with a few open-ended questions. Your profile is made up of your answers to those questions. They match you up with some people, and then you get to send them some questions. They answer them, and send you questions back. Then you exchange the top ten most important qualities you’re searching for. Then you get a bunch of essay questions to answer. There were a few guys on the site I wouldn’t have minded meeting, but I am really not into answering essay questions on a dating site. That’s as far as I got, and I canceled my membership pretty quickly.
• WomanLine / LavaLife. WomanLine is the lesbian version of LavaLife. It’s been a few years since I’ve visited either site (though I plan to do so after I post this entry), but I did have some luck there, assuming you define “luck” as random IMs from men pretending to be women and wanting to cyber.
• Eroticy. One of the responses I got to my post on Craigslist linked to this site, so I attempted to sign up. I made a profile and went through all the rigamarole, but either they haven’t actually sent me an activation e-mail, or my ISP has flagged it as spam and deleted it without my being consulted. Because my account hasn’t been activated, I’m somewhat limited in what I can do. So far, though, I have one response from a blonde model-looking type who photographs very nicely and calls herself “Brandy.” I’d call shenanigans, but she lives in New York, so I’m not even going to bother.

a somewhat promising start

Okay! Man, this project is a lot of work.

In addition to my alt.com profile, I have one up on the Salon.com personals section. That’s the actual, legitimate profile, for which I am holding out some hope. It’s all filled out and includes a picture and everything. In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Salon’s personals engine (FastCupid, I believe) is the same one alt.com uses. So I kept expecting to be asked for my thoughts on anal play, and was dreading the four-page checklist. Fortunately, Salon doesn’t seem to have enabled that particular plugin.

Sadly, my ad on Salon has elicited only one response — predictably, from a man. Their e-mail engine dumps inappropriate e-mails (i.e., responses from people who don’t match your requirements) into a filtered folder, so I almost missed this one. It’s from a guy who feels there is a lot to digest in my profile, but he wanted to say hi while he did so. I don’t get what he’s digesting — perhaps the fact that I’m looking for a WOMAN? How difficult a concept is that to grasp?

Apparently the answer is very, particularly on alt.com. My profile’s been up for three days now, and I have not received any pictures of anyone’s cock. So I guess that’s a step up from the last time I tried this. I did, however, get a message from a guy who attempted to lure me over the fence with the following line: “i know i got the wrong part you like to lick but i like your hair stile to much and the glasses too.”

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out his profile, but it seriously was not readable. Trying gave me a headache (“im looking for some one to shear pleaser with both hers and mine”). His tagline is, “will you obay or will you get spanked,” which, I don’t know — is “obay” like ebay for bdsm gear?

My plan when I started this was not necessarily to post snippets people could use to identify others, me, or themselves (you know, if my blog becomes super-famous), but my own words just couldn’t convey the horror. And I think I’m still reasonably safe.

Anyway. I have also received one soft-core porn story that involves me kneeling at someone’s feet and getting fed chocolate. The guy chickened out, though, and it fades to black. Which, man, if you’re going to do it, do it. And somehow it took him 700 words before he even got to the fading. There’s a lot of, “we kiss deeply. Then we kiss even more deeply. Then I run my hands down your arms, kissing you deeply.” I get it, okay? You’re into kissing deeply. Great.

So I added a line in my profile saying that under no circumstances should anyone send me bad porn or pictures of cock (which, I suppose, could be the same thing). I realize that defeats the purpose of the mocking, but part of this experiment is seeing if anyone will actually pay attention. I plan to put up a few more profiles on alt.com to see what happens. I expect comedy gold. One of the things I’m really curious about is — these guys who send stories? Do they send the same one to everyone who remotely matches their interests? Or do they tailor them to individual profiles? I’m not sure which option I find more terrifying.

Other stuff going on in my ULIL world includes dealing with posts on Craigslist (actual response: “I know you said you were looking for a woman, but would you consider a man? Perhaps with a double-ended dildo?”), which could easily be a full-time job in itself. I also have had a profile on okcupid for ages, but it’s gotten very little traffic; I get maybe one e-mail a month. I added a picture last night, and have got 10 e-mails in the last 24 hours. So I guess they’re not lying about the fact that profiles with pictures get more hits. None of the responses, however, have been remotely interesting (either in a legitimate-response sort of way, or a good-for-mocking sort of way).

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I will be delving into the CL stuff.

welcome to the machine

The site that started this all was alt.com, which is a huge personals site for people into kink and otherwise alternative lifestyles. While it’s true that I fit into that category, that place is a little much; it seems overrun with men who think that if they call themselves, “Master,” no one will notice that they’re really raging assholes. It’s also overrun with people who seem to think everyone needs to see pictures of their cocks, their tits, or their naked, pasty asses. Sometimes all three.

Setting up a profile at alt.com can be a long and brutal process. There are the normal questions about whether you want children and how much you drink, and then you get to the four-page fetish checklist. Everything under the sun is listed (learn some vocab: asphyxiphilia is old hat, but how about klismaphilia? dacryphilia? retifism?), and each activity has several pull-down menus: whether you’re experienced or interested in giving, receiving, or watching. Four. Pages.

And I don’t know what’s going on with the experience levels; the options are basically “none,” “beginner,” “intermediate,” and “expert.” Now. I may have had more than my share of anal sex, but at what point do I get to say I’m an expert? I’m no Alisha Klass. Other things I can be an expert in are, “receiving candle wax” (nobody lies on a table like I do!), “watching nipples” (but really, who isn’t?), and “others wearing lingerie” (I’m certainly more expert at others wearing lingerie than I am at wearing it myself).

Anyway, the first profile I put up was an actual, real profile, though it’s certainly more suited to a regular matchmaking site than it is to alt.com. It’s actually about, you know, me, and not a laundry list of my favorite sexual positions or things I like to be beaten with. And not once do I call myself a dirty name! I even posted a picture of myself, though I probably lose points for being fully clothed.

Again, the profile specified that I’m looking for a female dominant within 30 miles of me. Those are my only requirements. Now we wait and see if anyone pays any attention to them whatsoever. I’m guessing the answer is no.