Having been single for almost two years now, I have found myself "trawling" these hideous sites and apps. Being an educated man and having studied human behaviour, I couldn't help but start to look at the world of online dating from more of an analytical and experimental point of view as opposed to using it to meet "true love," and I use that term loosely. Having said that, I did meet my ex on gaymatchmaker.com.au (oh god another one), which I am not even sure exists anymore and we were together for 6 wonderful years.
I've chatted to guys day in day out, and some are ok, some are a bit full on, sometimes I wake up to a d**k pic, sometimes a butt, you never can tell what kind of day it's going to be until it arrives. But I've noticed a theme though this time around (having been a former user during a relationship break) that there are a lot of lonely guys out there who are needing some form of interaction/companionship from other random guys whether it be 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days I'm not quite sure. I get that "boys will be boys" and we do have these raging sexual appetites but I feel like there is a lot more to it, there are a lot of lonely guys out there and their social skills are lacking and will continue to do so with the assistance of the creation of online Avatar's, which I'll get to later.
So the story begins where I had an encounter with a guy in his late 30's where we began chatting on the infamous Grindr and this man, I shall call him, became what I would define as a bit pushy and demanding. He insisted on having my number, something which I hold close to my chest and the whole time I was thinking to myself "well if you are this annoying on this app then how are you going to be when you have access to me 24/7???" I decided to leave the world of Grindr behind at this point and delete it for a while and "live clean" and get back to reality, get back to nature and just start participating in real actual physical life again, see my friends and family etc., you know, "normal stuff." At this point I forgot I still had an active account on Manhunt until this "man" from Grindr tracked me down and took it upon himself to send me a private message and give me a pretty good piece of his mind and accuse me of all sorts of things including blocking him on Grindr (shocking right?). I responded and told him the brief situation and left it at that. He responded demanding my number again, to which I replied and said no, I told him that I had had a bad experience in the past with a stalker type issue and that I am very cautious in giving out my number and besides the point, it's a business number also and changing it all the time because of online dating is a pain! He didn't quite see to reason and challenged me on this and at this point I put him back in his place, said my piece and left it at that.
I never heard from him again, which was the desired effect but it got me thinking. This guy from what I gathered lives his life in two parts; he goes to work during the day and presumably interacts with living humans, but at night has this online existence which is also a reality. This makes me think that perhaps there are other people out there who have almost given birth to themselves again online, they can be who they want, upload the "best" pictures of themselves from a few years earlier when they were in their "prime." They can also leave this life behind at any point, they can be so strong and confident behind a computer and in actual fact, they never have to leave the house thanks to the invention of web cams and Skype!
I'm not sure if I am thinking old school that this type of lifestyle is somewhat concerning or are these online Casanova's just all futurists and pioneering the world of dating, sex and relationships for the future? If this is the case then I need to not be a part of this because I do not like where this type of "dating" is heading.
I am genuinely concerned that I have maybe only spoken to 0.000001 percent of men who are living these types of lives and I feel like there needs to be some kind of support mechanism in place for them. I suppose though when I put it into context, this online dating world is really no different to the rest of the online and social media world where people can portray false and more exciting versions of themselves to the world. The difference being I actually know the people I have on my Facebook page and they don't present me with confronting conversations or situations making me feel like I need to delete my profile and just not participate at all.
I just hope that people are being safe and have established boundaries with the online world which we are living in more and more everyday and within themselves also and that keeping safe and sane is the number one priority over having another human in their presence for any period of time for whatever the reason.