17,462.7 hours

...or roughly a bit over 727 days.  That, my friends, was how much time I had spent on www.planetromeo.com since joining.  By accident, I discovered an "accumulated time online log" and discovered to my horror that I was online for this many hours.  Is that even freaking possible?  The time could have been sooo much better spent....like writing this blog for example, which I have just noticed as not had an entry since December 13 (2011 for any smart asses out there).

 In my short tender years on this planet, I've spent upwards of 2 years of my life logged into a "dating" site?  Fair enough, probably a good proportion of those two years have been spent since October when yours truly had a nasty incident with his knee....(an update will be coming shortly, entitled "They said I DON"T have to go to Rehab...) but,...

But even so, it was a sobering discovery - on a whole bunch of different levels.  First of all, it's just a shitload of a lot of time down the toilet.  Now those of you who know me, know that I'm not by nature THAT ambitious, I don't have to fill every waking minute of my day doing something useful (unless you count having cocktails aroud the fireplace worthwhile activity), but still.

Secondly and this may be a bit discouraging to those of you who are seeking their life long partner on the internet...the time, in retrospect wasn't well spent.  I'll be honest and tell you that in all that time, I can say that I really only met one decent guy.  That's it:  O N E.  By anyone's financial calculation that's a pretty shitty cost/benefit ratio.

Always, as I am, attempting to look on the bright side of things, I can say that the time spent hasn't been a complete waste. I'm pretty sure that with all the characters I've interacted with over those two solid years online, I can now easily qualify for an MBA in psychology/sociology at best or work as an attendant in an insane asylum at worst.

So here in convenient list order, I present to you my nominees for the first annual least favorite human beings online award.  If you decide to continue your quest online, then I can suggest a fun filled game for the whole family, where you print out the list below and cross off the type when you run into them.  And trust me, you will:

1. Fakers: these are people who, after hours (or minutes) of chatting with, finally spring the: "oh, btw, these aren't my real pictures" line.  Well, what the fuck is that all about then??  Either they suffer from enormous self confidence issues (and this would be my bet) or they are as ugly as quasimodo and couldn't find a wide angle lens large enough to get the whole hump in view.  Either way, it's not pretty.

2.  People with over 1 million view of their profile who have a grand total of 1 "known personally" footprint.  Depending on the picture these people have posted (and keep in mind it may well be a faker) these guys need to power down the laptop for a bit, take breath of fresh air and actually meet some people.

3. Guys whose second or third question is:  how big is your dick?  Man I hated that.  Not because I have undersized "equipment" or anything (God forbid in the world of online dating, it's almost as bad as being a hunchback), but because it seemed so...well, shallow.  Maybe that's just the state of the modern world, but I ain't buying.

4. People with whom you've had a pretty decent chat with over the past hours, days or weeks and with whom you decide it's time to meet.  A time and date is duly selected and when the hour approaches you get an sms with something roughly equivalent to: "sorry, but I have to cancel our date as" (and here is where it gets creative) "I spilled mayonaise on my laptop and have to get it repaired".  Or:  I overslept.  Or: My boss called me to an unexpected meeting or...you get the idea.  

5. The guy who thinks he is God's gift to homosexuality.  Typically, these profile names will be something like: tight_hottie, gorgeous-stud or HotStuff.  Yeah your ass may be pretty, but your oversized ego isn't.

I guess I could go on, but I suppose I'll leave you all to find out some of this for yourselves.  In case you haven't yet figured it out, smithster11 is closing his gayromeo.com shop down (perhaps only till I get horny again, stay tuned).  I'm going to put more energy into doing real life things (does that include writing here?) and get a breath of fresh air.  I hope that we can still stay in touch here.  Later.