A smorgasbord of disappointing online men

I preface this by saying that insomnia and constipation make for disturbing bedfellows.

I have a theory, I would say ‘tried and tested’ but that, in fact, says more about me than anyone.

• the majority of men are on dating sites because they have fetishes which are unpopular, unsavoury even, with women

I was what one might refer to as an early adopter of online dating, in fact pre-online, starting a relationship with a guy three thousand miles away over phone calls and fax. I know - fax, ffs. But in 1995, it was romantic to run to the other office to retrieve a scroll of handwritten declarations of love from Chicago before anyone else saw it. His handwriting was large enough that it could be read from fifteen feet, and my colleagues were nosey as fuck. Also, it wasn’t always “romantic”. My early forays into erotica were via ancient curled up thermal fax paper. Sidenote: remember that thermal paper does not stand up to being used as a coaster. You’ll lose half the paragraph and you’ll have to exclude that whole story from the wank bank.

Once I had dial-up and an old desktop pc, the world of online chat opened up. It started with MSN chat rooms. If you remember those, you’re old af. I still remember, and cringe about, my old MSN nic. In early 2000, I would sit at my kitchen table into the night chatting to randoms all over the world, usually in chat rooms targeted to your sexual preference (don’t ask, as I will not reveal more details of the rooms I hung out in).

The UK rooms were all: “asl” then a slew of replies “23 f uk” etc. Once you had dropped the “f” you opened yourself up (metaphorically for now) to message upon message from blokes whose opening gambit was “18 m uk wanna meet up?”

Babe, I don’t even know your name, the fuck?! I learned even then that British men waste no time in asking to come round and blow your back out… though the percentages of those who could blow backs out was disappointingly low, but that’s another story.

In an attempt to dodge teenage dirtbags, I would hang out in the US rooms. At least then there was zero expectation of meeting up, and consequently none of the unattractive begging. My last relationship had been with an American. The fax guy from Chicago. I still to this day, have a thing for most American accents. I say most, because I’m not sure even I could handle being shagged by a guy from Boston if he spoke mid-stroke.

I can still recall, twenty-four years later, some of the guys I used to chat to regularly. I don’t remember their actual ‘government’ names, but I do remember voices and kinks. The deeper the voice, the more women would flock to flirt with the guy - it would have made for the perfect sample for my study into another theory of mine¹. Occasionally, a British guy would join the room, and the American women would send flurries of messages, attracted by the opposite trans-Atlantic accent thing.

Yes, back then there was a voice option, and it was so bad. It was the larger audience version of a CB radio, without the “breaker breaker” bit. Being, for the most part, the lone Brit, I would get asked all the time to “get on the mic” mainly so they could laugh at the idiosyncrasies of a messed up Scottish-English hybrid accent, which more recently everyone mistakes for the West Country, even without mention of tractors.

I realise this has all taken a detour away from the promised content, so if you only joined for shit talk, I’ll soon be back with you. Apologies for setting the scene.

I met my next boyfriend via a MSN chat room (without having seen photos of each other… the horror), but once we split in 2002, the online dating scene had developed and I was confident in diving straight in. Less chat rooms, more individualised preferences stated in bios, and a lot of pics.

Drawn, once again, to the American sites - I theorise, in an attempt to minimise the chance of having to actually meet up with anyone - I found a site called Midnight Booty Call (MBC to those in the know). If you remember this site, you know exactly what was going on here. For those who don’t, it was the first no nonsense dicks-in-bio hook up site I had encountered. It featured chat threads, and hugely popular pic rating contests with titles such as “phattest² ass”, “biggest dick”, “prettiest p*ssy”… etc. The weirdest thing about this site wasn’t the explicit content, or the unbelievable array of huge knobs, but that you very rarely knew what the person attached to the body part looked like. Face pics were sometimes flashed up then deleted, but very, very rarely left up. You know, for reasons.

I actually befriended a few really nice guys, and women, on there until it shut down, and had a lot of… fun.

OK, it’s 2.30am and I am going to re-attempt this elusive sleep thing so many of you talk about… I’ll be back… though I realise that by the time I send you this there will be no need for mention of this break… but meantime, here’s what AI generated with the prompt “midnight bootycall”. I have no idea what is going on with her arms or legs, but have at it.

midnight bootycall

A couple of broken hours sleep and I’m back, but even after turning the light out earlier, my mind was spitting out memories it was adamant I should include. From experience, I know that I rarely remember these, so I added some bits in the notes app, but have woken up to a brain itch about the ingenious change of title that I now can’t remember… by then I had given up on opening my phone, again. *facepalm*

When online dating turned into dating apps, I was by then reluctant to join in. Tired of the lazy Susan of mediocre hook ups, below par sex, misogyny, and the reek of desperation. But I’m no quitter, at least my libido and ridiculous need to connect with someone, if even only linked by our genitals, wasn’t. It is worth noting that in reality I am a quitter - I’m a joiner (not the woodworky type) but I don’t stick with things. My relationships usually never got past the six month mark as I’d get bored. I like men, have loved some even, but they can be boring and tiring. But these dating app hook ups were a quick fire round of meeting guys then shagging or running for the hills. I couldn’t get bored of them, I just got bored of the sameness of the ritual.

It was during this time of perhaps my making up for lost time in my early shagging days (I got into my first relationship at sixteen and was with him for seven long years, we even got engaged in Vienna - he’s a whole other story on its own, with extracurricular shagging, different countries, then murder… dun dun dun - I promise to write this one soon), that I started to notice that dating app men have many more kinks than the men I met IRL. And one that kept repeating was anything shit-related. I had heard of people being into ‘scat play’ (which still makes me think of jazz riffs, and wondering if anyone made that mistake then was very dirtily disappointed), but never met any men who were into anything more risqué than the occasional attempt at anal. But these guys were fully committed to the bit - I won’t go into details for fear of seeing my subscribers leave in droves, but there are some very inventive people out there not too scared to get messy. It was not for me, not to kink shame, but I have spent the last half century trying fervently not to get even a molecule of poo near my vagina, that the idea of eschewing that for fun? Noooooooo siree. It leads, therefore, into my other theory of why its much less popular with women - primarily because we are acutely aware of the dangers of ‘double-dipping’ and the pain and discomfort of thrush.

Anyhoo, dating app men like a lot of things, which is perhaps why they’re single (or pretending to be) and on apps. Swiping right on anyone in case they happen upon a fellow scatologist. Of course, it’s not just that kink, but maybe men are just more open about them now, or via apps, because of the immediacy, the impermanence of online dating. Well, you did sign up for the random shit that pops into my brain, and this was literally it.

If you stayed til the end, bravo dear friend, you filthy freak!

1. the deeper a man’s voice, the bigger his testicles. In my, not so extensive, study of this, I have been 100% right.

2. not a typo