Comments
by Java Mann
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Gay-O-L
I noticed something recently
that I found rather curious: most of my gay friends who are on line use
AOL. My first question to them is usually "Why?". AOL is, in my humble
opinion (effectively protecting his litigation fearing editor from the
wrath of yet another lawsuit) the Internet equivalent of
a mall trying to convince you it’s the entire world. |
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Granted they do sell french
fries in the food court, but that ain’t Paris. My initial reaction was
to assume they weren’t all that net savvy, and were taking advantage of
the simplistic AOL set up. Boy, was I wrong.
Upon further investigation
I discovered that AOL is the place to go if you want to get laid. Granted,
you can go on line using (almost) any ISP and find a chat room where you’ll
find people looking for love in all the wrong places, but AOL appears to
be the hot spot in the cyber meat market. A friend of mine went so far
as to take his laptop with him during his recent weeks vacation in P-Town
MA, a veritable gay Mecca. He spent his days on AOL hooking up with guys
he’s meet (and meat) later that night.
I’ve heard stories about
people sitting at their computer for hours chatting up "Mr. Right" only
to discover he’s Mr. right-down-the-block. And I know two guys who spent
an hour typing double entendres at each other only to discover they’ve
been friends for years. I also know a guy that I personally wouldn’t fuck
with Bea Arthur’s dick who met up with three different guys in one day.
Admittedly, part of the reason I feel so strongly about him is his reputation,
but I digress….
I just don’t get it. I will
confess to having tried my hand at on line relationships. My results were
somewhat different from those of my friends. One guy described himself
as a thirty something professional living about twenty miles from me. He
e-mailed me a picture and asked me to meet him at a bar, midway between
us. Needless to say the picture was Not of him. Luckily,
I had a cell phone and had set up a "just-in-case" call from a friend.
I bowed out gracefully.
I’d played e-mail "love letter
tag" with a guy in Texas. We never planned on meeting but I enjoyed game
none the less. I was shocked when I got a phone call from someone that
I didn’t know telling me someone else I didn’t know had died in a car accident.
The person who called had pulled my name and phone number from the second
person’s e-mail address book. It turned out the guy I’d spent six months
writing to had used a pseudonym in our correspondences. I’m still not sure
which piece of information hurt more.
I don’t hold people who do
meet on line in low esteem, though I do enjoy ridiculing my friends for
their conduct. That’s what friends are for after all. I know it’s a crazy
world and connecting in an isolating age is difficult. Computer dating
(or tricking for that matter) is not for me. I don’t care how attractive
the picture or how intriguing the biography may be, computers are at best
poor matchmakers. And even the most honest guy isn’t gonna tell you he
has an annoying laugh.
JM
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