Kansas? Where the fuck is Kansas?

Oh my. This isn't the first site I signed up to and I'm sure it won't be the last. It has been a very interesting first week, though, I'll definitely say that. So I thought I'd begin documenting some observations, in a way that is hopefully not sounding like a bunch of pissing and moaning but rather more like stepping back and simply commenting on what's in front of me.

So two things leapt out at me this first week.

One: people seem quite friendly! The little intro essays come across to me as very genuine, for the most part, and I feel that people are looking to actually meet other people. I've been on sites where I have come to wonder if anyone actually meets anyone - they can seem like a fashion parade, or advertising for the latest fashionable gym: often the people in the adverts can be a little... intimidating? no... unsympathetic? close but not quite... hard to identify with? Maybe that's closest.

We all know we're not all porn stars and to have to say it seems a bit twee sometimes, a bit of a cliche. The idea popularised in the 70s of swingers parties and bowls of keys and finding out the next day at school that "your dad was fucking my mother and I know because I could see it through the back window when we were meant to be sleeping in the pool house!" Those parents were anything but porn stars. (Except perhaps for some of those moustaches, no?)

The irony now, of course, being that porn is trying to capture a certain, everyday, made-at-home frisson that those of us who like to get out and play can enjoy for ourselves, theoretically whenever we like! Some porn does it better than others but anecdotally, those tube sites see much higher activity on genuinely homemade stuff than anything else. (If you have stats, and/or if I'm completely wrong, let me know!)

People on here seem genuinely to want to meet. And if you're not their cup of tea, well, people are straightforward and polite in their "thanks but no thanks" responses. And I think that's great. When you message somebody and they don't reply in any way, well, that kind of silence is only golden insofar as it's a bit like being pissed on from a great height.

Two: the flip side to all the conversation was that it took me a dog's age to work out the difference between a genuine message and these "automagic" introduction messages - especially the ones I didn't even realise I was sending too! I finally worked out, I think, how to stop sending them (if you do still get one from me, please let me know) because while I appreciate the... leg-up in starting conversations, I don't want to waste people's time, nor mine.

As a site feature, I love them. I think they're a great idea. But as a straight single guy I already feel enough like a seagull at a beach BBQ - the interactions I start with people, or that they start with me, I always want to be genuine and definitely not an artifact of the system. I didn't find them intuitive to understand and once I could get a glimpse of how they were playing out, I did my best to drop myself using them.

Perhaps some slightly clearer instruction on how they work under the hood (I think the drop-down box with such a huge variety of intro messages is awesome!), so to speak, and how they're triggered at the profile level would be nice. (Again, if I've left my eyeballs on the sink in the bathroom last time I showered, please let me know, and I'll read up on it - once I get the eyeballs back in, of course!)

I hope that wasn't too rant-y. SSC has been a thoroughly pleasant and always encouraging surprise. (Always encouraging, especially about meeting safely. Wow, that's *really* a priority, isn't it? I mean, of course it is but it's nice to see the site trumpeting it so loudly.) I'm having a ball exploring this place. Say hi anytime!

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