Observations: Readers, I confess, my first pass with Ashley Madison was pretty much a failure. I wrote to eight or ten women who had attractive photographs up, got a few responses but ultimately no dates, suspected that the young one who wrote me with the revealing "Private Showcase" was in fact a little too good to be true, and called it a week. The moral fabric of America: safe for the time being.
Then I made two important changes: I switched my status to "attached male seeking females" (I like how it's plural), and I started to contact women without pictures. If you're a man, it's always a good idea on personals sites to be the one willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but especially so here, where simple self-preservation — not homeliness — might keep someone from posting their mug.
Ah, how things can change. Now my inbox started to hang a little heavier. There was still a lot of sifting, rejection and flaking (incredible amounts of flaking, but that's the nature of internet dating), and one especially direct offer: "Hi. I am leaving the city in two days and would like to have some stress-free fun time with a nice guy. Let me know if you are interested." Tragically, I didn't see the note till a day had passed, and by then the job was filled.
Ultimately, though, I did meet up with four women, two whom I'd contacted and two who contacted me. Each was in her thirties or had just turned forty; there was a slender fashionista who looked like a cross between Gina Gershon and the daughter in The Incredibles; an affable giantess who looked like a larger and older Jennifer Capriati; a bright-eyed, full-bodied, mid-thirties version of Loretta Lynn; and a frisky, confident, Russian-born not-quite Michelle Pfeiffer. All of them had sent me photos before we met, and each was more attractive in person. As I'm far from photogenic, I was hoping I was as well.
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It might sound mercenary, but it was actually quite warm.
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The dynamics were quite varied. "Michelle" had teenaged kids, lived upstate but traveled for work, and wanted a longterm lover in the city. We met for a drink in a bar near Penn Station (before her train home), and she told me that while her husband was the greatest man in the world, he just was never very physical, and she married him too young to realize what a problem that was. She was super-smart and accomplished, and it was fun — and even a little daunting — being on a blind date with someone so self-realized. At the end we had a passionate make-out in the bar, but she wanted someone who would be completely devoted to her — an affair, yes, but one of the heart. The fact that I was happy in my relationship meant she wouldn't be my #1. I respected that: she didn't want anyone to leave his wife for her, but she still wanted to be loved. That made sense to me.
Loretta, meanwhile, had a husband who was always on tour, and she was planning on leaving him when he finally finished the gig and wouldn't be devastated. We spent a few afternoons together, first sitting on a bench in Central Park, talking about music and books and the fact that she, too, hadn't foreseen how early marital troubles would continue to grow. She and her husband had dated briefly in their early twenties before he had to move away; she kept a candle in the window, and a decade later, they got together again, but her idea of him was still the idealization from their first time around. Reality, of course, proved to be another thing. For our second date, I invited her over, and we spent the afternoon lounging on my bed. But based on the ratio of talking to smooching, I suspected she was looking for more than just a sustained fling. I felt I had to nip it in the bud.
Jennifer was extremely game; we met for an afternoon glass of wine, took a walk around the block, and then went up to my place. From then on, she'd meet me at my apartment with the enthusiasm of a woman let out of prison. She too was in the process of leaving her husband, who had cheated on her (she agreed that they'd both grown apart), and we'd share a dozen playful emails a day. She called herself WWW (wet wild woman) and, with her boundless energy and appetite, would have made a perfect second girlfriend. But knowing I can't have serious feelings for more than one person at a time obliged me to end things, which sucked for both of us. Still, I know she's going to make someone very happy.
Gina, however, was the ideal mistress. We met for sangria, again in the afternoon to keep things either innocent or like an affair — in any case not like a date. We drank quite a lot; I think we each were enduring the other's stories more than enjoying them, biding our time till we could touch. She wanted to leave her husband too, but neither of them was working, and they couldn't afford to move out. He slept on the couch, and they tried to avoid each other during the day. (I proposed starting a website for people in her condition so they could swap spouses.) She said she had met up with a lot of guys through Ashley Madison, but that I was going to be her last. I had to go back to work (sloshed) after the first time, so the second she came straight over. From then on, neither of us was too worried about conversation (she surveyed my home library and concluded we had no overlap), but we did laugh and smile and have genuine affection. She'd come in; I'd hand her a drink that she wouldn't have time to sip, and we'd be horizontal. An hour and a half later, she'd fix her hair, complain about her scraped face, and dress to go home. It might sound mercenary, but it was actually quite warm. Maybe oxytocin and whatever the male version is just hormonally made us feel close, or maybe sex with a splash of dialogue can create real intimacy, but I genuinely believe there was closeness. We didn't look or sound like we'd be a match, and it's hard to imagine that I could have met her in regular, day-to-day circles. But that just goes to show you that the world is much bigger than we tend to realize, and has many more people who can move us.
Conclusion: Ashley Madison works. Like most — if not all — internet dating sites, it's probably much easier if you're a woman, and it helps if you're not too picky. But there are definitely a lot of people out there looking for affairs. And, yes, some of the women clearly want something more serious, but others are simply looking to get the one thing that's missing from their relationship at home. As one woman told me, "I'd never leave my husband; I love him to death. We just stopped having sex three years ago, and I'm not ready to never have sex again."
Read more I Did It For Science here.
©2009 Jack Harrison and hooksexup.com
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