Today I want to talk about FetLife.
As I mentioned a while back, I have found FetLife to be primarily a good resource, although the site occasionally regurgitates the problems of the kink macrocosm into my email, which drives me mad. I have yet to really gain personal (distinct from professional) value from any social networking site, mostly because I end up being more annoyed than amused.
So I don’t read the digests, and I don’t browse the groups, and I don’t join the discussions even when they do drive me mad. XKCD brilliantly illustrates my view of the inherent futility in this sort of argument.
But I’m still on Fetlife. Why? Because I still hold the at-this-point-very-tenuous hope that through FetLife I might manage to find someone to date.
Because FetLife is designed for social networking rather than dating, I don’t have the patience to try to find possible partners through it for more than half an hour. I can’t, for example, see everyone who lives in New South Wales, is under the age of 35, queer, and into having sadistic women beat on them. Who is funny enough to make me laugh, and smart enough to make me think, and sexy enough to make me come, and honest enough to make me comfortable, and honorable enough to make me trust.
I sort and sort, and then I give up. Half an hour is not enough, and I don’t really have the time for a full-blown campaign.
I don’t want to imply I am content with (or politically aligned with) sitting back and trusting that the presence of my sexy young dominant vagina will bring in dates. I think I should do some work in the dating process. But I don’t know if I want to do that work on FetLife. I’ve seen nothing to imply that my efforts would be rewarded.
I debated, for a long time, advertising here on this blog that I’m looking for dateable folks. Once upon a time I did mention this in my contact page, but I’ve since taken it down. I’m still not sure about that decision. I’m not sure how I feel about advertising my availability at all.
But while I figure this out, I still get messages on FetLife all the time. I am privately messaged about twice a week, and although I have made a few new friends, I don’t see dating in the cards any time soon.
Most of the messages aren’t bad, persay. But at the same time, these messages consistently betray their authors as unsuitable dating potential. For example, I won’t respond to people with empty profiles. And (sorry, anonymous man I’m about to criticize), I won’t date you if you’re trying to cheat on your wife. While it’s nice of you to put that in your messages up front, it’s just not going to happen. And I find it a little insulting, but how were you to know that?
How were you to know I won’t be the other woman? Or that I won’t reply to one-liners, or that sexual advances from strangers freak me the fuck out?
Do you see where this is going? I am debating becoming one of those people with guidelines. I am actually debating whether or not I should spell out a number of suggestions to people who are interested in speaking with me.
Look, call me crazy, but I think if you’re interested in my profile you might click through to my blog. And I think that my blog might give a pretty clear picture of who I am. And I think that once you’ve got that picture, you might be smart enough to figure out how to approach me on your own. I don’t think you need a guidebook to my brain. Although I suppose if there’s an interest, I could write one.
I have to admit that the practice of outlining dating guidelines on a website or a profile is one of my annoyances. It annoys me that people do this. It annoys me that I’m considering this, because it implies a kind of arrogance I don’t appreciate.
And most of all, it annoys me that this is even necessary. Because yes, I can see how it might be necessary. It saves time on both sides. It heads off the cycle of hope and disappointment. It would stop that little pang of sympathy and guilt when I get a polite, sweet message and all I have to say is, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Or if I have nothing to say at all.
So is it ruder to give guidelines up front, or ruder to never respond to the messages I receive? Should I head the hopefuls off at the pass? I’m wary of this idea, because honestly, how am I to know who might read those guidelines and decide not to contact me? I could accidentally end up cutting out someone who’s genuinely interesting.
Keeping the nebulous possibility of that person alive is worth dealing with a bit of stupid guilt and a lot of random messages. But I do wonder about the hopeful people on the other end of the wire, waiting for my words to appear in a little black square. I wonder who they are, and what they’re like, and what brought them here, today.
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I also have contemplated some guidelines on my fetlife profile, but I tried to write them down and they sounded INSANE. (That might just be me.)
The more generally applicable problem is that it’s a slippery slope. Because, as I’ve seen at lots of other places, first you write the guidelines. And then you write, “READ THIS FIRST:” in front of them. And then you move the guidelines to the top and write: “IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS FIRST DON’T EVEN BOTH ME YOU WORTHLESS WORM.” Although it’s sounds like you’re compassionate enough to leave out the worm part.
For what it’s worth, I would totally date you if I were on the same continent.
I’ve had the following guidelines on (some of) my profiles for a long time now:
It never actually worked.
I don’t know. I tend to feel that the problem with guidelines is that the people who need them won’t read them and the people who read them don’t need them. Also, the real ***** will read the guidelines, decide they don’t apply to them because they are too smart, cool, gorgeous, dominant, submissive, whatever… and ignore them anyway.
It’s not that I’m bitter about online dating. I’ve met a lot of lovely people online. It’s just that the sheer volume of idiocy can probably not be tamed by attempts at list induced common sense.
That having been said, I think the one exception to that is the “I will not date you if you are cheating on your spouse/partner” clause. A lot of cheaters don’t understand the difference between cheating and poly and see the fact that you have a partner and are looking for partner as a suggestion that you would be open to being with someone who is cheating.
See, I’m on Fetlife specifically for idea exchange and social networking. I specifically state on my profile that I’m not looking for anything other than friendship, and so far my wishes have been respected…
Collarme? That place I’ve gotten so many nonsensical one-liners (with a profile that’s worded exactly the same) it’s not even funny. A friend of mine actually has a ‘code word’ about half-way through her profile there: “If you decide to message me, make sure to put [this word] in the header. That way I’ll know you took the time to read my profile, and I’ll take the time to read your message.”. Two-thirds of the private messages she gets don’t have that code word.
And I third the “no-cheaters” clause. That may cut out a good deal of the crap.
I recently printed out that xkcd comic and taped it up next to my computer! I’ve wasted so much time arguing on message boards and listservs that I’m hoping it’ll serve as a good reminder..
Funny, that sounds exactly like a very well-known mainstream debate. What was it, again? Oh yeah! It was Digital Rights Management and piracy. ;)
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