NTKOG #24: The kind of girl who cruises the internet and city streets looking for a Lifetime Movie romance with a spoken-for fellow.
I am: pretty sure I don’t even remotely come across as a home-wrecker, so don’t act all non-surprised.
I am not: an adulteress. I am not even adulteresque.
The Scene: Online a few weeks ago, after archive-binging on the amazing Ashley and Me blog (upon whose author, RiffDog, I’ve got to admit I have a technically-according-to-Biblical-fineprint-adulterish blog crush), I checked out AshleyMadison.com. If you haven’t heard of the site, the basic concept is thus: a discreet dating site for married men and women to find partners for long- or short-term affairs, based on a rigorous matching algorithm comparing their preferences for things like “personal hygiene,” “oral sex,” and “omg morrrr pix plz.”
Yes, totally classy.
So for a lark I created a profile and added a pic, and was appalled by how quickly my inbox filled up. (Virtual inbox, you dirty birds.) Every time I signed on, I was smacked with an avalanche of instant messages from guys with handles like “Big Papa Bear,” and would immediately not only click out of the screen, but physically push the computer away in disgust. Finally a few weeks ago I weeded through all the applicants, and settled on a fairly suitable candidate.
We chatted for a bit on ashleymadison, before I agreed to grant him my totally anonymous easy-to-block-skeezy-jerks-from-contacting-me Google Voice number. I agreed to meet him for coffee, and laid down the law: he was allowed to buy me one coffee, to be consumed over the course of not more than twenty minutes in a brightly-lit public place, during which time I would reveal no personal information and there would be absolutely — Arrested Development fans, say it with me now — NO TOUCHING.
Un/fortunately, between both of our shifting schedules, we kept scheduling and rescheduling, until finally it arrived: Today I would finally make my debut as an adulteress. I agreed to meet him at the bagel place across from my work, and was anxious all morning. On my commute over, people on the T kept staring at me. Like, come on, my skirt isn’t that cute — apparently it’s written plainly on my face: I AM ABOUT TO BECOME A FRIGGIN’ ADULTERY DUDE!
I settled down at my desk, and the inevitable barrage of texts came a-floodin’. I did mention that he said he was on-board with the whole we-are-absolutely-not-going-to-hook-up thing, right?
Creepy Ashley Madison Guy: we still on? what u wanna do?
TKOG: I thought we were getting coffee.
CAMG: in ur bedroom?
Ugh! But whatever, it’s only a twenty-minute coffee. Best-case scenario: we actually have an enjoyable chat about, among other things, why he’s such a dang adulterer. Worst-case scenario: he buys me a muffin and I get to jab him in the eye with my keys. Win-win!
TKOG: Comments like that make me really uncomfortable.
CAMG: waiting 4 a call. call u in an hour
TKOG: Okay.
CAMG: got anymore pics?
And thus, one brief and fiery text message later, ended my career as an adulteress.
The Verdict: Apparently the fast-paced and tech-savvy pace of the modern adulterer just isn’t for me. And sure, you’re saying, you got a bottom-feeder, but what about all the smart, thoughtful, eloquent married men out there? (Guys like RiffDog, natch!) Well, if you want ‘em, you can have ‘em. Just make sure to send them back to their wives when you’re done.
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Ew…what a creep. That is really all the words I have.
What are you talking about??? This guy sounds like a real find!
“in ur bedroom?” – He’s so witty! I’ll bet he’s good at “That’s what she said” responses too! I trust your response to Got anymore pics?” was to send him lots more revealing pictures, right? You wouldn’t want to lose this guy!!!
And apparently the other guys were even worse??? Yikes!
I’d put this one in the same category as “Uses Her Cell Phone While Doing Her Business” – in other words, feel free to skip it. Although if you find yourself in Los Angeles, maybe this “Riff Dog” guy might be fun to meet. ;-)
Yuck. It freaks me out bigtime.
Plus would never trust a dude on ANY type of dating site. Mainly cos I know my ex was on one before we even split up. Twat.
it’s quite brave to go meet a guy like that!
Impressive!
ps: thanks 4 sharing your story.
We’ll see what we do about TAT’s.
Might come up with something new, for another day, hopefully Tova will come back one of these days…
Firstly, kudos for actually going through on this.
Secondly, unless you were doing some heavy e-flirting, what a scuzball!!
Thirdly, if we weren’t separated by 3_000 miles of ocean, I’d take you out for coffee, no strings other than that the meeting can be extended from “one coffee” by mutual agreement.
Well, that’s further evidence for a long-term theory of mine. It is possible to find love on the Internet, but not on dating sites! It’s better to go to sites where you get to meet and chat with people who have similar hobbies, and see who you meet.
To answer your question about the tags for our favors, we just bought them. We could order the tags and tell them what we wanted on it and it was pretty inexpensive. If I had tried to handwrite them all I am pretty sure I would have gone insane.
Ok and now to comment on your post.
OMG gross. What a total loser. You are one brave girl to do this! You know what would have been awesome? If you had a window in your office building that faced the coffee shop, you could totally tell him to meet you there and then just laugh at him while he sat there waiting for you. Any guy that seeks out partners to cheat on his wife with totally deserves to be laughed at.
That is crazy! All these online sites are out of control. Maybe you should try craigslist next time, I hear it’s pretty reputable.
Omg this is insane. I have heard about this. Crazy!
Dude, guys, thanks for the solidarity! I realize that I was kind of also being inappropriate, meeting someone from a website when I had zero intention of doing anything (in no small part because I absolutely don’t condone infidelity and would certainly not facilitate it), solely in order to see how creepy he was. But in my defense, I told him there was a zero-percent chance of us hooking up!
@Ken O: He was just a plain ol’ scuzzball. I didn’t e-flirt at all — I kind of did the opposite, making it really, really, really clear that I only wanted to talk. In general, I totally agree about meeting potential dates through hobby-specific groups (in real life and, I guess, online, though I’ve never done it): if the only thing you have in common is that you’re both single, um, conversation can get awkward pretty darn quickly.
@Becs: Dude, I so wish I’d thought of a way to watch and mock him, instead of just breaking our coffee date! I could have surreptitiously snapped a picture for the blog! Man, I’m totally kicking myself now. (Also, I’m so with you on the mockability factor: the idea of cheating on a spouse is so horrible!)
@Dara: haha, I’m hopefully going to stick with finding guys in real life for the first stage of my single voyage. Although, I’m thinking craigslist could give ashleymadison a run for its money in the creepy factor! (Hmmm, TKOG Who hires a private exotic dancer off of craigslist…? Although that might segue into TKOG Who subsequently gets murdered in a hotel by a craigslist dude…)
I know you will probably not understand me for saying this, but I really didn’t like this blog post. This surprises me, because you are the wittiest writer I know and I have adored each and every other post of yours, frequently bursting into laughter at the things you’ve written.
However, this one seems to smack of profiteering off of other people’s misery. Yes, the guy is wrong to try and use the Internet to go behind his wife’s back and sleep with another woman. But the simple fact that he is on this site at all must indicate that he is deeply unhappy with his home life, so much so that he feels the need to reach out to random strangers online. And yet you are agreeing to meet up with him (without the intention of doing anything, as you yourself admitted) just so you can write about it for a BLOG? So that all of your friends can have a good laugh?
It reminds me of that awful TV show “To Catch a Predator,” where policemen chat online with pedophiles while posing as young girls or boys and then arrest the guy (there’s never been a woman, apparently) when he tries to meet up with them. Again, it is strange and a bit sick that certain men have sexual fantasies about preteens, but who are we to make public their private life and ashame them in front of millions, thereby destroying the rest of their lives?
Because (I’m assuming) most of your readers are relatively young, we all like to think we will marry the perfect person and never feel the need to find affection and understanding outside of the marriage. But few of us have ever been married, nor do many realize how difficult marriage is to sustain. Marriages often crumble. Partners lie to each other. I am willing to bet you that one of us will eventually cheat on our husband or wife down the line. Does that make us skeezy and creepy? Would we really want a picture posted of us online about it?
Plus, we are all kinds of hypocrites. We want pedophiles behind bars, but then swoon over Humbert Humbert’s love for Lolita. We wrinkle our nose at adulterers, then are overjoyed when “Mad Men” wins an Emmy for the second year in a row. (Keep in mind that about 65% of the characters in that show are cheating on their wives or husbands.)
I am all for shaming murderers and people that hurt others. But even aspects of that bother me–when Ted Bundy was put to death, there were supposedly crowds of people around the prison celebrating and cheering. Aren’t we being as sadistic as Ted if we are relishing the death of another human being?
Anyway, I have gotten sidetracked–the point is that I am sad that you considered doing this, especially because you seem to be doing it against your morals. The guy is a sad, lonely, pathetic loser. I don’t think he needs bloggers to remind him of this.
Please keep writing; just don’t post about mean things. Because this WAS mean. And I know for a fact that you are really nice and most definitely NOT “That Kind of Girl”–neither the kind that helps married men to cheat NOR the kind that embarrasses and shames others just for laughs.
I see what you’re saying, dude, but respectfully disagree. I didn’t set out to do this with the express intent of finding some miserable guy with a shitty marriage and mocking him. I was interested in trying this both because it is so extravagantly un-me, and because lately I’ve read a lot of another blog (Ashley & Me) that forced me to question my ideas about why people committed adultery. I’d never thought much about it before and have a knee-jerk reaction against it, but as I read about various people who have committed adultery and their reasons for doing so, the idea opened up that a lot of people in that position are thoughtful, kind people and in some cases, to some definitions, even very loving spouses. The humanity of it intrigued me. And that’s all I was really going after.
I didn’t try to track down the guy I thought I could be meanest about or would give me the best story. I found someone with an intelligent profile that said he was looking for friendship (although obviously I’m reading between the lines — or texts, as it were — and guessing that’s not all he wanted), and I told him the truth: that I am not interested in any sexual relationship, but I am new in town, and would be interested in meeting up to talk. I wasn’t baiting him. I wasn’t making any promises I wasn’t prepared to keep.
The fact that I make fun of him now is completely agnostic to the fact that he is married. I mean, look, dude, I quoted the man verbatim. He was creepy and sleazy and disrespectful to me. That has nothing to do with his wife or any situation outside of our text exchange. All that other outside context is his story, and even if I did hear it, it would be out of bounds. I’m just reporting my disdain for one person’s behavior in one situation. And why not? I was there. I have every right to this story.
The point of this whole project — of this whole year in my life, period — isn’t to be as mean as I can or tell as many funny stories as I can, not caring who I trample in the way. I’m just putting myself out of my comfort zone, in ways both big and small, and reflecting on both what I find and how this knowledge can alter my life in the future.
Also: dude, man, who swoons over Humbert’s love for Lo? She’s unkempt and dirty and he’s like mega-rapey. I for one am swooning for the man in the back of the room, deftly weaving our attentions. Oh Nabokov. Sigh.
Also also: honest mistake, I’m sure, but be careful about using my IRL name in my blog, yo!
I think you went juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust far enough.
heya, found your blog through Ning.com //
I have BTDT with the whole scarlet letter deal, with and without the cheesy sleezy ‘more pics plz’ comments.
I understand men are all ‘visual’ and stuff, but really do they need more than 1-2 pics to make a commitment on meeting someone? They implicate themselves to be ready and willing to meet new people, by joining that site. So why can’t they just commit?
whatev’s…
i kinda feel all dirty thinking about the past and guys who used to ‘chat’ like that. eck…
however, i am finding your blog a h00t… so i will be back :)
Since courting TKOG was one of the great achievements of my life, let me offer some pro bono advice for would-be e-flirts: you need to be more unique, clever, funny, and, um, grammatical than this chump to have a shot with this kind of girl.
The sweet, thoughtful, affectionate married men are the ones who are not cruising the internet looking for a hookup…