Aging....not so bad

At what point in life, do you suppose, is it that it begins to dawn on you that you're going to get old?  At 18, you pretty much believe that you're going to be that way forever. This is something you can be forgiven for, because let's face it, it's all you know.  Old people are "those" people -  fat, hairy and sooo not cool.  Of course, there were exceptions like your Uncle.  He never married (hmm..), traveled the world extensively and was probably taking LSD.

Then at some point - and I'm guessing it's around 30 or so - you start to realize that "hey, wait a minute here - I'm not getting any younger!".  And what was once a funny phrase you heard your parents say all of a sudden became a new fact of life.  Fuck.  Do you realize what this means, you ask yourself in front of a mirror, literally watching your body start to sag in front of your eyes?  It means:

• Hair receding from your head and then magically reappearing on your back and inside your nose and ears,
• Wrinkles developing around your eyes and forehead,
• Having overall less energy,
• Acquiring a home mortgage that will probably last longer than you will,
• Being required to endure seemingly endless dead boring dinner parties,
• Loss of sexual appeal to others,
• Increasing.......Wait!  WTF was that last one again??
• Loss of sexual appeal to others!?!?    NO F. U. C. K. I. N. G. WAY. 
• Way.

So now this growing up business has taken a nasty viscious turn.  Something you've spent the majority of your life wanting to do - grow up and be legally able to have a cocktail - is something you want to slam the brakes on!  This isn't the deal I signed up for, I'm supposed to be young, carefree and laughing forever!  Well, ummm no.  

Does this mean that I'll no longer be able to meet - without money changing hands - these cute, young 20-something boys anymore - a pursuit I have bravely dedicated the majority of my adult life to?  Thankfully, the answer to this question is a resounding "no".  Why?

Because I have found, dear readers, that in the vast world of internet dating there in fact exists a group of young men who - get ready for this revelation - like older men.  Seriously??  Seriously.  In some philosophical circles this can be interpreted as incontrovertible evidence of the existence of God.  I never knew such a group existed because I can say with 95% certainty that I have never had sex with someone who was older than me.  (Better make that 75% certainty, because in some cases the lighting was pretty bad).

It's somehow a comfort to know that the cheesy song Everybody Loves Somebody is actually true.  Ain't life grand?

Customer Service

Have you ever wondered who are the people behind the porn industry and what their daily lives look like?  No, well I have.  Imagine, just as in any corporation there is a CEO, CFO, Head of Human Resources, secretaries, etc.  If you give us a raise, we'll give you one...What does a typical "day in the office" consist of for them?  On one hand you can imagine an extreme scenario of people meeting at the coffee machine and then humping their brains out in the supplies room for a coffee break.  Flat screen TV's are found everywhere displaying the companies product.  For the guys (who incidentally are allowed to wear nothing but jock straps to work) they have little rooms to jerk off in just to relieve the pressure.  The woman are all skanky bitches who wear too much makeup and have too little clothes and self control.  Personally, I'd wonder how any work gets done in a place like that.

On the other hand (and this is probably the most likely scenario) it's just like any other work place.  People come in to the office in their corporate wear and sit down at a desk to work.  Workers have pictures of their family taped to the walls around them and the only thing that happens at a coffee break is the drinking of coffee.  But this begs the question of how to act "normal" when the place you work deals in sex.  How, for example, does the switchboard answer the phone? "Hello, thank you for calling Skanky Bitch Sluts, how may I direct your call?"  

What exactly does Human Resources look for in potential employees CV?  Does the employment application have a little check list to indicate what specific fetishes you have?  Water sports, check. Fisting, check.  "So Mr. Reynolds, I see that you are into fisting.  Are you ahem...shall we say giving or receiving and, by the way, what brand of lube do you use?"

What does Mommy tell little Timmy when he asks her where she works, let's say as a secretary.  "Well, Timmy Mommy works at Skanky Bitch Sluts as a secretary for the CEO".  "What" - then Timmy asks - "is Skanky"? (It's scary he probably already knows what Bitch Sluts are). "Hmm, maybe we'll go over that a bit later, say when you're 25."

You may, at this point, either be wondering why I'm thinking about this crap or you may in fact fear for my sanity.  No worries, I'll tell you and it's cringe worthy.  Nothing and I mean nothing has intimidated me as much as calling a porn site customer service line to dispute a billing:  

"Hello, this is customer service how can I help you today".  

"Well, ummm, I'm sort of, you know (cough) calling about a weird.....um...charge on, you know, my credit card recently"

"Oh I'm so sorry about that.  Let's get that taken care of right away!  Which website are you having trouble with?"

PANIC - how do I tell a complete stranger that I've been browsing hornygayteenboys without crawling under the carpet?  I'm mean after all, they even know where I live!!  "Um, you know what, I've just recalled what the charge is for.  " CLICK

So in the end, I'm $12.95 worse off, but screw it - at least I've still got my dignity. 

Reality check

There is something that just doesn't add up for me in the world of internet dating.  Now I'm your average guy, living an average life in a pretty average place.  And pretty much everything I see around me is....you get the idea.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a mega-hot guy, with a smoking body just browsing through the various selection of cold cuts at the supermarket.  And I can't count at all the number of times I've seen such a guy who also happened to be gay and was looking for sex.  Well, ok that's not totally true - but it was a long time ago!

So then, can someone explain to me why it seems that 75% of the guys on the internet have the slimmest waists, biggest muscled chests and arms?  What do these people do during a normal day, because they most certainly are not at my supermarket.  Do they hide somewhere in real life and then only reveal themselves on the internet.  Sounds rather unlikely to me.  Then maybe there is a hidden colony somewhere, populated only by gorgeous men - a place that obviously has its own supermarket.

Or.....is it possible that there are hundreds of guys out there all of whom are sharing - oh I don't know - the same 15 pictures??  I confirm that I have yet to physically see in person any of these stunning guys, so perhaps I'll never know.  But in the interests of scientific reasearch - in case any of the hidden colony members are by chance are reading this - I'll be more than happy to meet you to find out for myself.

Statistics: expectations management

Don't panic, this isn't going to be a math lesson.  As always it will be a life lesson and a guide to avoiding disappointment in your internet searches.  Let's start with a nice round number like 1,000.  That is precisely how many profiles you'll have to open to find one person that you're attracted to and that is attracted to you. ( * - see smithster11's rule of life number 8, below)  Of course, there may be exceptions to this rule - but not many.  If you look like Josh Hartnett or Hunter Parrish AND you're willing to advertise yourself fully, then chances are the number of profiles falls to something in the double digits - say 17.

But unfortunately, the average public is......well, average.  This is the lot we have all been dealt in life and the secret to success in life is.....well, dealing with it.  So let's break down that rather daunting 1,000 a bit so you don't go home today and just start to frantically open profiles, waiting to hit 1,000.  Oh no, you're going to have to work for it.

So, of the 1,000:

450 - the number of times either you'll write something mundane like "hi, what's up" to someone you think you are moderately attracted to or someone will message you with the same.

200 - the number of times someone will answer with something equally as mundane as "nothing, how about you"  (I told you this was going to be work, but for God's sake can't we come up with something a little more interesting to talk about off the bat?)

50 - is the number of people you may begin to carry out a meaningful and long lasting chat with (say 3-5 messages)

10 - the number of people you will get as far with as to exchange phone numbers with.  Things are beginning to look up now.

4 - is the number of people you will actually continue conversing with AND setup a concrete meeting with.  Getting closer.

3 - is the number of guys who show up.

2 - is the number of people who look like their internet profile.

1 - is the number of people you'll click with and have some fun with.

So that's all there is to it.  Think of the heartache I've saved you from.   

* smithster11's rule of life #8:  there are exactly two types of people in the world.  1) those people you like more than they like you, and 2) those people that like you more than you like them.

Proper Internet Pictures

I've seen a lot of profiles of guys on the internet lately, I thought it may be useful to provide our less experienced users a little bit of guidance on how to post proper profile pictures of themselves on the internet, for the maximum effect.

This for example, would be a fine picture and the perfect start to your search for sex a date: 

Note) Just a random guy off the internet, if I've screwed up a copyright somewhere let me know.However, some people are little bit concerned about privacy to show this much of themselves (translation: either your boyfriend will find out that you've been cruising the internet for dates or everyone at work will find out that you're gay). So in that case, a picture that looks like this may potentially be more appropriate:

However, it is possible to take the privacy concern thing a little bit too far - something I have personally seen several times.  Here is an example of that and I think we can officially call it an "internet dating profile picture fail".  I think it's pretty safe to say that this picture isn't going to get you very much attention: