E-cupid for e-stupid?

Looking for love is an exercise in futility. I don’t know ANYbody who went out looking for love and actually found it. It hides in the shadows, lurking and stalks you until it sees that you’ve completely given up trying to find it. Love, so personified, then gets ready to attack, poised like a cat with its eyes held steadfastly on some feathery prey. It’s while you’re out there one day picking daisies, minding your own goddam business that love collides into you, knocking you down, somehow having gained full running speed while you sat there completely oblivious to it. At this point, forlorn and totally disbelieving in love, you wonder: who the fizzy-de-FUCK just knocked my ass down?!?!?

And you know what? E-love is no different. Yes, people … I said it. E-love. Fine, the e-harmonies of the world would have you believe that all you have to do is answer 348 questions and, VOILA! Some other numb-fuck in the aboriginal Australian outback happened to answer 347 of those questions EXACTLY the way you did!

But no.

Let me give you the highlights

The first one
Back in 2005, after my divorce was finalized, I met a man … let’s call him Kiko. (Cuz that’s his name). We seemed to hit it off – he was ghetto and trashy as hell, not unlike me. Except he almost had half my IQ. But it didn’t matter – who the hell wants a man to actually THINK, I thought. Anyway, I found that phone sex wasn’t half bad … and I totally felt safe doing it. It’s like, wow – there’s no real pressure to decide who stays over, did the condom break. None of it.

And then it got weird. He became sort of elusive and began to speak in code. And for the record – if you haven’t figured it out – JACK is a straight shooter (shut up!). I mean, just say what you mean and mean what you say. This code was getting on my nerves – but I figured it all out pretty fast.

I tried to make it easy for him by asking him if he had been tested recently. He said no. I asked why not. He said there was no reason to. I asked why … and yup. He’s positive.

At this point, incensed, I told him about himself. Told him that it doesn’t make any goddam sense to establish a connection with someone only to spring this on them and cross your damn fingers that I’d just sort of be ok with it. I accused him of emotional abuse, an accusation he didn’t like, and eventually told him that I didn’t care if he left angry, so long as he left.

c
This one was TOUGH. I fell totally and completely head over heels for this dude. It was all about what we talked about, and didn’t talk about. It was the forming of a friendship, that wasn’t sexual much at all .. and I really just liked what he had to say. Of course, like with Kiko, I was still looking for love when c came into the picture.

Long story short – more than a year later he was still dodging any opportunity to meet me in person, I was frustrated with it and eventually just let him go completely. Jaded helped me out so much with that one and I still can’t explain why it was so hard to break up with someone I never met. But it was a SON of a bitch. c and I still talk off and on nowadays, and all of my feelings for him have washed away … but I still get a kick out of saying that the reason he didn’t want to meet me in person was because he didn’t want me to know that he has an arm growing out of his back.

El Poeta
I call him this because it’s part of his screen name. This brutha, although Midwestern and full of Midwestern nuances, totally e-put it on me. Hands down, the absolute best phone sex ever known to man. And I started to really feel him.

And then he became elusive … and spoke in code.

Right, positive. DAMN!

By this point, I softened up to the notion of it being emotionally abusive (at least in the finger pointing kind of way ... because, I still maintain that it's emotionally abusive) and was able to be a friend to him and let him know there was no way I was going to sleep with him.

THAT mother fucker
I was *not* looking for love at this point. In fact, I scheduled two dates with two different dudes within a week and THAT mother fucker was first. And the first night that we met … well, we did the do. How’s that? Anyway, to this day he doesn’t know that less than a week later I went out with Mr. B(ankroll). But anyway, I was in a relationship with THAT mother fucker for over a year. And if you don’t know about him, search my blog for THAT mother fucker, and catch up. He’s a complete waste.

But I wasn’t looking for it and there I was – in a relationship. The reality is that I was a late bloomer (lost the big V at 21) and the prospect of having sex regularly was kind of attractive – even if THAT mother fucker was so only just a little. Crazy, I know. But we all learn our lessons, right?

Mr. B
I’m not in love, I’m not really all that interested in a relationship with him … but he likes to pay for stuff. So, I keep him around.

This list isn’t really exhaustive. But it’s a pretty fair image of what e-love has been about for me. If it’s not distance, it’s the lack of desire to transcend it. If it’s not some communicable disease, it’s a lifestyle that attracts them. If it’s not childish bitches, it’s a mommas boy. I’m telling you, I left a whole lot out.

In conclusion

I’m not saying that you can’t find love on the internet. Just be careful – and totally and completely accept that the person you get to know on the computer screen and on the phone is the person you conjure up in your head. It’s not the real him. It’s the him that’s woo-ing you. It’s the him that you comprehend through the way you interpret what you read – and what you read and how you read it isn’t always what he wrote and how he meant it. What you know of someone you’ve spent a lot of time with but never met in person is what you’ve formulated – and we typically mold him into our image of what is perfect, much like a potter at his wheel with his clay.

Carry on.