I've never had sex with anyone I've met online. Almost every internet date I've had has been an intellectual experiment, trying to build something visceral and sordid from the personality bric-a-brac of an online profile.
The format encourages people to retreat to a comfortable distance and offer the least genuine portrait of themselves in the hopes of maximizing their allure. Online dating is a space for apparently evolved and mature people who are capable of finding a romantic partner through appreciation of mutual hobbies, common backgrounds, and interesting conversation. When I ask my women friends who date online about whether or not they hooked up with a date after an evening out, they are usually agog at my presumptiveness. "Of course not! I'm not that kind of girl."
A couple of years after college, my friend P spent a year traveling through Europe and Asia. I remember an email he sent me describing the fabled attitude of Scandinavian women towards sex. No one would seriously think about starting to date a man unless they had slept together already. You might get along perfectly well with someone, but if there wasn't any physical chemistry, what was the point? And how could you really know if there was any physical chemistry until you had slept with someone?
One of the most frightening things about meeting someone out at a bar is that you only have physical qualities and some vague hunches about personality to go on. It can feel reductive and carnal in the most basic form, seeing someone you're attracted to and finding a way to insinuate yourself into his or her evening. For some reason, sitting politely through dinner and talking about politics and nostalgic childhood memories is a more legitimate way of connecting with another person.
That may be a great way to make friends, but I don't think it's an appealing way to think about meeting a lover and partner. Of all the women I've ever loved in my life, my response to them has been immediate and primal. When I was fourteen I prank-called a girl and just hearing her voice say "Hello" for the first time was like sprinting into a tripwire and tumbling to the ground in a woozy pile. I didn't know what to say back to her; I was stupefied and tingling with the sudden flush of new Hooksexup endings opening in my chest.
There's an inherent risk in dating. It can be as simple as risking rejection or as terrifyingly serious as courting new disease and infection. The "good" girls are the ones that are mindful of these social traps and maintain disciplined and formal conversation until a man can prove his reliability and interest in more than a quick and sweaty good time.
Those are the ones I hope to avoid. R was my first friend who used Hooksexup for dating. She told me that she hadn't met a single person from the website and not had sex with him. One of my closest friends in San Francisco is a woman who I had sex with after six hours of being first introduced. We've never had sex again and I'm pretty happy just being friends with her, but I certainly don't regret having pushed the outer limits of our attraction.
I like women who drive fast and take chances; who don't apologize for their sex and don't feel the need to adjust their behavior based on fear of what someone else will think about their expressions of sexuality. I want a woman who trusts her instincts as much as her intellect, and has faith in her ability to manage the consequences of leading with her heart and gut.
I've never met that kind of woman online.
Previous Posts:
Date Machine: Civil War and Sex on a Toliet
Date Machine: Living Like a Bachelor
Sex Machine: Chest Hair, or the Shaved Eunuch
Date Machine: Macho Voce, or Women Who Sound Like Men
Date Machine: Sex in the Office
Sex Machine: Lying Lovers; or the Padded Bra
Sex Machine: Premature Ejaculation
Love Machine: Can You Be Friends With an Ex?
Sex Machine: How Soon, Sex Toy?
Date Night: Kissing in the Rain
Sex Education Machine: Abstinence, or Waiting is Easier Because...
Sex Machine: The Funny Thing About Handjobs
Love Machine: The Three-Year Itch
Sex Machine: Show Me Your Penis
Date Machine: The Gun Show or Is That All You Got?
Love Machine: Morning Breath Kisses
Date Machine: Making Your Online Dating Profile
Sex Machine: Sex with 19 Year-Olds
Love Machine: Making A Scene
Hooksexup Confessions: Oh Hai, You're Pregnant
Sex Machine: Don't Forget to Masturbate