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Freddy Krueger, Leonard Cohen, and other dating mismatches

7:07 am Tuesday, 18th October, 2016

Newcomers to a site such as this may initially think they've stumbled on an Aladdin's cave of willing flesh, and begin typing “applications” with feverish little fingers, anticipating an avalanche of ardent replies and a full dance card for several months ahead. After all, who could possibly resist what you have to offer? However, it soon becomes obvious that people (or at least the vast majority) have a variety of selection criteria, and there’s a sinking realization that you are not young (or old) enough, inked enough, tall enough, black enough, ripped enough or pierced enough to cut it out there.

I’ve always been one of those who believes a little homework is essential before arranging to meet anyone, because with a few mail/pic exchanges, two people can tell pretty quickly whether they’d get on, and it helps to avoid one of those situations where you wish you hadn’t shown up for a date because obviously it’s not going to work. I’m pretty honest, and if I suspect through mail chat that I’m not on the same wavelength, then I’ll say so. Conversely, if my correspondent realizes I’m not for her, then I’ll accept it gracefully. I must admit that I’m at an age now where it’s becoming less unusual to suffer abrupt unilateral termination of correspondence as soon as I’ve sent a face pic. Imagination is a wonderful thing, and the media you choose to put up on your profile form the basis of the mental image people construct. Sending a face photo after a few rounds of promising chat requires a deep breath, even for people who may feel confident about their looks. It’s the internet equivalent of a wolf rolling on its back to expose its belly. It shows your true colours and once you’ve hit the “send” button, the Rubicon has been crossed. Women may get excited about disembodied Abs, tats and dicks individually or collectively, but for them the face is the acid test that brings together the whole man. For example, you never hear women say something like “Yeah I wouldn’t mind shagging him if he put a bag over his head” (except in the context of BDSM perhaps……… :-)) Lately I’ve had a few experiences of the “face-pic suicide bomb” phenomenon that has blown to smithereens previously enthusiastic mail threads. It’s been almost as effective as sending, say, a photo of Freddy Krueger or John Kramer (why do these guys always begin with “K”??): you can almost hear a muffled “Awww………Jeezus!!” coming from somewhere down the pipe, as if they’ve put their hand on something slimy in the dark 

Rejection and being rejected is a delicate business. No matter how brave a face you put on, and no matter what kind of self-image you possess, it still stings, even a little. On the other hand, it is a test of character and your response can say a lot about you.
So … I’m sort of curious to hear about people’s experiences of this. If you receive an off-putting face photo from an otherwise promising correspondent, what do you do? Suddenly go quiet and hope they’ll go away? Send them a polite reply and try not to hurt their feelings too much? Accuse them of having totally misleading profile media and wasting your time?
And if you are on the receiving end of rejection? Do you regard it as an intolerable insult to your pride? Do you resort to name-calling and abuse, or rant away with terms such as “your loss” (in sharp contrast to the almost sonnet-like qualities of your previous love-mails)?? Or do you just slink away to a dark corner, suck your thumb, and listen to Leonard Cohen?
I’m also intrigued about what kind of response (if any) you’d rather have from a “rejectee”. For example, if you’re a woman and have just blown out a guy, would absence of any response merely serve to justify your rejection of him (“yeah…I knew he was a wimp…”), or would you rather he come back at you with all that macho posturing? Enough material there for a psychological symposium .... :-)



Comments
12:53 am Wednesday, 19th October, 2016

Sounds like what happened to my original post. However, this gave me the chance to rework it, and I think the second attempt was an improvement. It's so bloody annoying when that happens, though. This time I worked on it using Word and saved it before posting. A lesson there, perhaps ? xx

4:38 am Saturday, 22nd October, 2016

Very thoughtful post,Skebbie and it's nice also to read the words of other people whose opinions I value. There is a saying in the theatre " If you can't take rejection,don't audition ! "....... I'm still waiting to be invited to play Hamlet ! LOL

2:11 pm Sunday, 23rd October, 2016

Actually this blog coincided with the arrival of a family member to Japan, so I haven't been able to give this as much attention as I would have liked, but I must say it's gratifying to see the emergence of a few of the "Golden Age Bloggers" in response. It's great to know you guys are still out there, and I guess it's at times like this you discover who your real friends are in this particular ecosystem. Unless you have food for the Muse, inspiration doesn't come easily......

I've realized in the past few years that most women who claim to be "sapiosexual" are nothing of the sort. Perhaps they put it on their profiles to make themselves feel better about really wanting just wanton physical abandon with a big butch bloke. Usually I take them at their word initially, but after several rounds of sputtering mail correspondence the moment comes for us to exchange face photos (and it's always me who goes first :-) and............strangely.......the shutters come down. I did a blog a while back about the fictitious male hero on here who seems to fit the norm as "Mr Most Desirable" for UK women, and I still say I wasn't far off the mark. It's true that in real life you can meet people "across a crowded room", have a drink together, and after a while it becomes immediately obvious whether there's mutual attraction. I much prefer that way of meeting people, but I'm of a certain age where clubbing and bar-hopping as a means of meeting women is no longer an option, and we're in an era where compatibility is built up in superimposed layers of mail correspondence, like a 3-D printer. It's fairly laborious and time-consuming, and during the course of chat one has to divulge quite a lot. Being the male correspondent I find I have to reveal far more than the average female, and so if I get blown out after I've finally dispatched the Portrait of Dorian Gray, I do feel a greater sense of "violation". Since time immemorial women have been the ones who are "approached" and it has become a convention that men have to be the ones to jump through hoops. Of course there are exceptions, but I honestly can't remember the last time I received an unsolicited mail from a woman, which started a chain of correspondence leading to sex. It was always me who sent the first mail. This I find a little disappointing....and baffling. Especially in this age of "sexual equality". True, I have received many unsolicited mails from women, but they tend to be of an "impulsive" nature and nothing much happens thereafter :-) (site-generated mesages notwithstanding) ....even though I do follow through with conscientious correspondence.

Of course, as is the case with everything, exceptions do exist, and I *have* had a few memorable liaisons with fellow lady bloggers. So perhaps the blogs are really a sort of "cocktail bar" for people with at least half a brain where men and women can exchange views, show their intelligence, and demonstrate to the world they are not psychos or axe-murderers (although, as in Mr Kit-Kat's case, this seems to have been a turn-on :-) This is why I think the site really ought to preserve and value this ecosytem, because it provides an environment for people who have an alternative way of expressing their sexuality. However, I fear that we are an endangered species :-)

2:57 pm Sunday, 23rd October, 2016

Chrissy: I fully concur with your observations re. blog "improvements". I remain to be convinced. I have to admit that the beta version was preferable (at least to me), the main appealing feature being the ability to switch the order of posts. The current system where the latest post appears on top sucks: any logical person arriving at the thread would expect to see the earliest posts first and then follow them down. A continuous thread (without "episodes") would also be better. Of course this is how the "old blogs" were constructed. I just can't fathom why they changed the format.

11:06 pm Sunday, 23rd October, 2016

Kryptoni: Excellent response. Thanks a lot. I'm entertaining a visitor for the next 36 hours here, but looking forward to returning to the blog later.

5:53 am Monday, 24th October, 2016

Chrissy. I would put you on a pedestal as you'd be quite safe from me up there.Despite having served with the Airborne Forces for several years,I have a dislike or heights and therefore would not dare to climb up to get you ! LOL xxxx

4:54 am Wednesday, 26th October, 2016

Oh Chrissie, the view looking up at you from the base of the pedestal is so enticing,I'm going to take my courage in both hands and climb up and get you ! Look out ! Here I come !to do my good deed and rescue a pussy from a high place ! LOL xxxx

1:16 pm Thursday, 27th October, 2016

Guest dispatched back to UK this morning, so I’m back in the fray.

I’ve already posted on Mr Crisp’s latest blog, some of which is relevant to this one, but one or two points raised on this thread while I’ve been “away” are worth commenting on:
Chrissy mentioned about adult dating being a numbers game, and this is perfectly correct. It’s just that in the course of my adult dating “career”, the numbers have become a bit skewed :-). The other site that I’m on (which has served me well for dates in Japan since about 2001) has also been on the skids recently (at least as far as the Tokyo section is concerned). The number of women genuinely seeking hook-ups and dates has plummeted while the number of earnest male “hunters” remains high. So I’m tempted to speculate that those women who might have been tempted to try these sites at some time or another have now done so, and finally bowed out, having either been “fixed up” or “cock-picced to death” :-).

The other point about timing being everything is also an astute observation. Among the many dates I’ve had, a large majority of women (many of whom were married) were those who were at a stage in their lives when they felt something was missing, and so had “signed up”. However, people’s circumstances and mindset are constantly changing, and so any interaction via an adult site may be either ephemeral or medium-term before heshe returns to “normality” or finds a more long-term solution that may or may not involve sex. For example, among women I met in Japan, some had to leave the country because of their partners’ careers, some had a “fling” but decided to return to normality thereafter, some got pregnant (by their partners (!)), and others found more preferable sex partners. So any meeting of minds and bodies here is very much at the mercy of the ebb and flow of universal tidal forces. Fate and luck are big determinants, and if you feel you’re down on your luck it’s often not your fault – it’s just in the lap of the gods.

Finally, I found this quotation recently and thought it was appropriate in this context. I fully concede the words are not mine, but they are very relevant and I think many people engaged in this hobby would do well to be mindful of them when things don’t seem to be going well:

Note to self:
You can’t control how other people receive your energy.
Anything you do or say gets filtered through the lens of whatever personal shit they are going through at the moment.
Which is not about you.
Just keep doing your thing with as much integrity and love as possible.

12:30 pm Friday, 28th October, 2016

Back to Kryptoni:
Your thesis holds some water, but I think it's already a well-recognized fact that women seek "nice guys" for family-building and relationships (i.e. stability) while fantasizing about being ravaged by King Kong. Whether or not they take that leap (via a site such as this) and end up like Faye Wray on the top of the Empire State (i.e. exposed and vulnerable) says a lot about the diversity of human psychology. However, the thing I find intriguing is that many women on "sex sites" never seem to consider the possibility that some men who look physically ordinary or innocuous might actually be better in bed than stereotyped "hunks", and be more attuned to their needs. It's as if they are pursuing some sort of Holy Grail that never seems within their grasp. For example, penis size (which seems a fairly important criterion for at least a proportion of the ladies here) is not correlated with race or muscle bulk, and yet many women seem to cling to the same old porn-star memes
and urban myths.

I think few would dispute that sites such as this are a sort of sweetie shop for women. They can freely browse what's on offer among the males who vastly outnumber them, and poke, goad, tease, leer, engage and reject to their hearts' content. True, they have to endure all sorts of unwelcome attention too, but generally speaking life here is more "interesting and varied" for them than is the case for men.

9:05 pm Friday, 28th October, 2016

Just for the record (if you excuse the pun) I can think of no circumstances or situation that would encourage or even mildly temp me to listen to Leonard Cohen. I will probably be howled down by many at this point as even I grudgingly admit that there must have been something about its art that appeals (at least to others if not me) but I suspect that is exactly the point that Skebbie is making, but his question, how do we respond to "rejection" (or perhaps better for this site, non-selection) is an interesting one.

My experiences here are relatively wide ranging. I have plenty of examples of Rigger not making the cut right from the outset. And by the same token I have found myself explaining that a meet on a particular day is out of the question as I will be washing my hair that night.

Slightly trickier is the brush-off after a bit of cyber badonage. I suspect I have a more laissez-faire approach to this stage in the ritual, so again a shrug and a brisk walk on a nearby fell usually sorts that out.

The eyeball to eyeball stuff is trickier though. At stage 2 I always try and say that even at a very late stage the other party or parties have the right to call a halt to proceedings, just as I might (and, on one occasion, did, hot-footing it from a situation definitely not of my liking with the speed and panache of a tabloid investigative journalist - I made my excuses and left as fast as the riggerlegs would carry me)

I suspect that my piece de resistance however was being invited to participate in a tryst with a couple with whom I had taken great care to cultivate. On the day and date in question I headed forth into the night with a daft grin and wicked thoughts. I pulled up at the address and was just a little taken aback t be faces with a huge pair of gates, and a text message to himself later and I was trundling up the enormous drive in the Range Rigger. An excited himself met me a the door and proffed me a glass of wine before issuing a "follow me" and bounding upstairs...

I kicked shoes off and followed up the huge staircase. I am cool as owt as they say in these parts but even sans footwear I still went up two steps at a time (I had after all seen many pics of the prize that was, apparently, waiting on the upper floor)

Like something out of a Whitehall farce the pair of us burst into the master bedroom where a breathless himself announced the arrival of Rigger. At which point there was a "who the fucks Rigger?" moment. Not good and it kind of went downhill after that. I slunk back down whilst raised voices could be heard from above. I left and even managed to let myself out of the gate. But here's the thing. I still rate it as memorable.

My motto therefore is LUDO - an acronym pulled out from a former life and some convoy drills - Look Up and Drive On. Life is too short otherwise.

Although if you are listening to Leonard Cohen it might feel that it is dragging a bit.

5:46 am Saturday, 29th October, 2016

"remove the dead wood"

Yeah, my wood is indeed feeling a bit dead at the moment :-)

Sassy: Frankly I'm a bit surprised to hear what you say. I've found that when push comes to shove, most women who claim to be "sapiosexual" here will end up jumping on the hunky bus as soon as one comes round the corner :-) Or maybe you're right - they actually come from Essex and think that "sapiosexual" means something like "size queen" or "nympho".

Rigger's little tale was a giggle, but I agree that even glorious failures can be regarded as "memorable" with the benefit of hindsight. I have a few similar experiences, one of which was a long-distance date involving car hire and rural hotel booking for a married woman whose hubby was in the know. I'd foolishly never asked for a face pic, and when I showed up I realized immediately that I didn't fancy her. However, she was all packed with a little suitcase on castors, and her hubby was propped up against the Aga with his arms folded giving me a baleful stare, so what could I do? Do a Rigger-style quick exit ??
The upshot was that I felt obliged to go ahead with it, gritting my teeth and thinking of England. The most hilarious part was sitting with my companion at opposite ends of a hot tub in the wilds of the Peak District while gales and sheets of rain lashed the decking. Although Dixon has "Llandudno" tattooed down his sensitive side, it read "LUDO" that night :-)

To be honest, I think that if I found myself in Rigger's situation I'd be a bit worried that I was walking into something unsavoury. Phrases such as "rendition" and "Guantanamo Bay" come to mind. Or "Freddy Kreuger" :-)

4:44 pm Saturday, 29th October, 2016

Llandudno Skebbie?

I would have thought that on your that fine specimen of yours there would be room for "Welcome to Llandudno - Jewel of Wales. Please drive carefully"

4:46 pm Saturday, 29th October, 2016

Oh and once upon a time,, again on a far off land in different times, Rigger's compadres lived by the credo "faint heart never fucked a steamroller..."

4:58 am Sunday, 30th October, 2016

"faint heart never fucked a steamroller..."

Were you billeted next to a knocking shop in Western Samoa (or for that matter, Catterick :-) ??

Sassy: Actually, one of the reasons I thought I'd write this blog was that I was recently blown out by someone I'd chosen to "pester" on the basis of what she'd put in her profile about liking intelligent blokes. As I believe my IQ may exceed 75 or so, naturally I thought I might be in with half a chance, especially as she didn't seem particularly "tarty" and in fact was quite modest. However, after 2-3 rounds of mail exchange, things ended abruptly with unilateral provision of the face photo (several in fact, from a variety of angles). However, after some circumspection, it dawned on me that perhaps in this particular case, I might actually have come over as "too hunky". My own self image is that of a weedy geek, but I suppose everything is relative. Maybe if I limit all of my future "applications" to shy, buttoned-down librarian types, I might come over as looking like Robert Downey Jr to at least some of them :-) Perhaps the same applies to "intelligence": I enjoy a bit of decent mail chat as a prelude, but I'd probably feel a bit intimidated or out of my depth if my correspondent launched into an analysis of 15th century Venetian politics. I get the impresion that for a bloke on here, the military card is always a good one to have up your sleeve, but as inventive as I am, I don't think I could keep up that pretence for long :-)

10:52 am Sunday, 30th October, 2016

Sennelager as it happens.

Interesting perspective on the military card ... my own experience is that it is as much of a two edged sword as any other attribute, some like it, others loath it and probably the vast majority couldn't give a monkeys either way, being interested (quite rightly) in personality, looks and that all elusive chemistry.

That said the occasional regimental pause has much to commend it, but then the converse of that is best summed up by the inimitable Ronnie Barker in "Fletcher" mode when he is imagining Officer MacKay giving orders to his wife when having sex. "Stand by your bed. Ready, wait for it, wait for it. Knickers down, two, three".

What we need is an app that connects those who are on top of 15th century venetian culture to our intrepid adventurer in the bedroom. I am sure a conversation can be maintained with a few snippets fired in across the ether sufficient to achieve the objective of something a little more physical.

I seem to recall reading Doulas Bader's story of how he got to be a pilot. At one stage in the interview he was asked about his knowledge of I.C.E which was, at the time apparently an acronym for the Internal Combustion Engine. Bader did not know this but blagged his way through that part of the interview with just enough gravitas to seal the deal. The rest of course, is history.

Which brings me on to the thorny subject of "intelligent" people. In this regard I think there is a stand-out difference between those who are and those who think they are. The latter category are a bit like pilots. As the old banter goes - "how do you know there's a pilot in the room?" "He (or she these days) will tell you...."

11:19 am Sunday, 30th October, 2016

Rigger: Maybe we could set up shop as a sort of AH double-act?

I think I once wrote a blog about "male angles", one of which was posing in military fatigues brandishing some sort of weapon. (Being ignorant of firearms, I shan't digress) But it has to be said that a current or ex-military connection definitely carries some gravitas - charm, personality and intelliegnce notwithstanding. Remember the return from the Falklands, and all those bare-chested women at Portsmouth ?? :-) In fact the other site that I'm on carries a fair proportion of women who state categorically that they will not shag anyone other than currently serving military personnel (although I suspect most of them are of the Sarah Palin school of philosophy). In any event, your military card seems as double-edged as my "intelligent" card - at least as far as this site is concerned. Oddly, Japanese women seem drawn to blokes who know a bit about the culture, and also "arty types" in general. Discourse about woodblock prints seems to induce a sort of semi-orgasmic swooning reaction. I suppose it's all a question of "horses for courses" :-)




3:06 pm Sunday, 30th October, 2016

Re: Captain Cook. I went to where his journey started (Whitby) and finished (Big Island), so it was a kind of pilgrimage for me, as an Englishman. But yes I agree, timing is everything. If the idiot hadn't come back and blown his cover, he'd have been OK. I suppose similar lessons can be learned in relation to activity on this site: Never take people for granted and never assume things will always remain the same :-)

5:27 am Monday, 31st October, 2016

I like to think that I possess a degree of intelligence, Some people are of the opinion that I know damn nothing but let me tell you that I know damn all !
As for military uniforms ,I am pleased to say that I can still get into the Mess uniform which was tailored for me over 40 years ago.The problem is, I can't wear it and breathe at the same time !

7:57 am Monday, 31st October, 2016

That's because the buggers shrink in the dark of the wardrobe fetch......

7:02 pm Monday, 31st October, 2016

Insightful and humorous ~ should be mandatory @ P1 DateSite school, esp. for "God's Gifted"... Cheers, PaulJo $img src="imagesadultemoticons017.gif"

12:04 pm Tuesday, 8th November, 2016

Angelici: In that case I'd better get my thinking cap on for my next "creation", as I've got writer's block at the moment (a bit like those guys employed to write bogus profiles 🙂

4:50 am Tuesday, 15th November, 2016

psmith: In response to your request, I've mentioned Trump on another blog about coffee. I supose we can only hope.....   🙂

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