Author Richard Cahill's Website--Living By Our Motto:"There Are No Stupid Questions, Just Stupid People Asking Questions Everybody else already knows the answer to."

Kevin Gaylor, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is being nominated here for a Life Achievement Award in the field of being a louse. No matter where the 24 year-old's life path takes him in the future, he is doubtful to ever surpass last week's performance in the area of being a hiney-hole, when, after meeting a woman online, he invited her over to meet him in person at the house he shared with his girlfriend. At the coincidence of his girlfriend coming home unexpectedly early and the arrival of his new cyber-acquaintance, he reported his spur of the moment date to the police as a burglar.

The police, after interviewing all involved, arrested the Kevster for making a false report.

Being a louse is a capacity that comes naturally to many men, but Kevin is starring at it while yet a relative rookie in the arena of relationships. Some of you fans of lousedom may interpret the Kev-man's early breakout success as a portent of many successful seasons of spectacular infidelities. Others may see him as a mere flash in the pan, preferring the long-term body of work turned in by public louses like Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich and Charlie Sheen.

The fact is, the Kevinator's glory is almost doomed to be ephemeral. He's going to get better at being a world-class creep, which means his fans are never going to find out about it. The next time he's living with a woman (probably not this one) and he invites another female over (probably not that one) and his live-in arrives unexpectedly, Kevarooni is going to have a better story, or a better plan of action. I have a few suggestions. Kevin can thank me later.

Pretend to be your own, previously undisclosed twin, Kenney. Reveal that Kevin has been drafted for a secret mission by the CIA, and you're here so that that Pakistanis don't suspect anything. And you're horny.

Fake a sudden illness. A heart attack works best when you're older. Testicular cancer happens to younger men, so try that. You may receive offers to amputate. Decline.

Reveal that you've slipped a Rohypnol into your own drink.

Tell your girlfriend you heard her talking in her sleep about having a threesome. Surprise!

Tell your new love interest you have an open relationship. Then open the door and run away.

Break down and confess to both women that you're craving the sensation of action because you don't have long to live. The second part of this may very well be true.

Above all, don't call the cops. They come in pairs and many police officers are men on the make like yourself, Killer Kev. What do you think happens when they come upon two women who are guaranteed single?

Probably dating them right now, Kevin. But keep that chin up. Just think of it as another way to clear your browser history.

Don't just look at the picture, even this one.


This particular chapter begs to be disclaimed, so the disclaimer is back.
Disclaimer: This blog may often not contain any information about computer dating. When it does, perfectly good advice is often mixed in with sarcasm and humor. If you cannot tell the difference between good advice and blistering sarcasm, consult a humor professional before using any of this advice. Also, in spite of the name, it is not complete.

This section of the CGTCD is devoted to reading other people's profiles online, so it is primarily for men. Women already read the profiles carefully. They search them for clues that the males they are considering dating in any way resemble the men that have wreaked physical, emotional or financial havoc on their lives already. They can be overcautious in this way. I have had women reject me because I am the same astrological sign as the last guy who prompted them to get a restraining order.


We males are the opposite. We rummage along the Internet at a perfectly good dating site and all of a sudden HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THOSE and we fire off an email to a lady who specifically states she only wishes to hear from retired clergymen.

So read a few words. Some of you need the practice anyway. I was zeroing in on an attractive prospect last week myself when I noticed her headline read "Nice to meet a good guy to hang."


Maybe she just forgot to type in "with," but I'm not taking that kind of chance.

So see what she has to say. It saves time. If you're only truly happy sitting in some freezing duck blind at five AM, waiting to blast a few of God's feathered creations out of the sky and she lists PETA as one of her interests, you two aren't made for each other, no matter how great she looks in a halter top.

 If you don't have much to say, pick a girl who obviously doesn't like to listen; if she lists motorcycling, dune-buggy riding, jet skiing or ATV racing among her interests, you can bet she wouldn't appreciate anything wry or allegorical anyway. She'll be happy with the occasional tap on the helmet.

           

Some of what the girls write is not to be believed, like some of what you write. Particularly suspect are women who claim to love watching televised sports. They are just trying to stand out from the competition. There are a few that do, but most of them just put up with it. I'm not a sports fanatic, but there a few must-watch pro football games every year for me. My girlfriend of some years ago (a find on Yahoo Personals, which has since merged with Match), having determined that one of those games was coming up, and that there was no way I could be persuaded to spend the afternoon antiquing or taking rumba lessons instead, insisted that we watch it together.

The game quickly turned into a nail-biter, as my team was obviously trying to play down to the level of their pathetic opponents. My boys were nursing a fragile three-point lead midway through the third quarter, courtesy of a combination of boneheaded coaching and gratuitous fumbling, when I noticed my girlfriend was placing lighted scented candles all around my chair.

"What are you DOING?" I demanded, in a tense, panicky way, as if she was setting bear traps instead.

"Lighting candles," she said. "They make the room smell nice."


"THERE ARE NO CANDLES IN FOOTBALL!" I yelled. Tom Hanks would have been proud.

And there aren't. There's lot's of stuff that's essential to football—cheerleaders, backup quarterbacks, announcers who call people who weigh nearly as much as a standing freezer "kids," but there are no candles. You can't high-five or fist-bump holding a candle, because then you wouldn't have a hand free for your beer or your air horn.

So nix on the candles. They're just out of place. It's like taking a giant foam finger to a wedding. 


Obviously, you can't avoid all similar situations by reading the girls' profiles, but it helps. A fellow veteran of the dating wars is a sociology professor at a local university. You can read between the lines there and figure she's a liberal Democrat, concerned with issues of feminism, justice, and the environment, among others. She's not actually a cliché left-winger, but she's no Mama Grizzly. One of her recent dates showed up at her door in a full-size Hummer.

The Professor is not a tall woman, so she had to climb a ladder in a short skirt to get into the vehicle, making her moody from the get. When the guy started aggressively tailgating a woman in an economy car in front of them, the Professor, who is not averse to raising her voice, started counseling him:

"FIRST OF ALL, WE'RE DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT. SECOND, WE'RE NINE FEET OFF THE GROUND. I FEEL LIKE I'M IN A HELICOPTER! THIRD, YOU'RE A EFFING TERRORIST! THAT'S ME IN THAT CAR IN FRONT OF US, AND YOU'RE SCARING ME TO DEATH! SLOW THE F-WORD DOWN OR TAKE ME HOME RIGHT NOW!


Odds of a second date are slim. Justin Bieber has a better chance of walking down a high school hallway unrecognized. Again, read the profile. Carefully. If it seems necessary, borrow a Prius.


More stuff by me under Books and Stories, upper right

This is not the picture I used when I transgendered online. That would have been real trouble.



Both my readers have pointed out that I write from a guy's point of view in The Complete Guide to Computer Dating. One insists that I just write like a guy, period. Like all guys, I respond very sensitively to criticism, so I decided to experience computer dating from a woman's point of view.

I should make it clear (and I usually do, to my dates) that I feel sorry for hetero women for having to date men. We're short-sighted, bad-tempered, self-indulgent, self-important braggarts driven entirely by our sex urges. Those of us who are mature, that is. Men between twenty-five and forty are mere raging cages of poorly controlled hormonal impulses.

Males between puberty and twenty-five are just support systems for an erection.

This was just my personal opinion before I proved it beyond any reasonable doubt by becoming a woman. No surgery or psychotherapy was involved; I simply borrowed a fifteen-year old picture of a woman I once knew, cut and pasted a few of the most boring female dating  profiles I have ever read together, put together a short but vapid list of interests, made my girl thirty-two (for nostalgia's sake) and posted the fake profile on one of the free sites, which shall remain nameless because I'm pretty sure it was a violation of their Terms of Service.

My girl specified that she was looking for a long-term monogamous relationship, as she  wished to discourage merely getting hit on. Might as well have wished for a year's worth of winning lottery numbers. I meant to leave her profile up a whole day, but I had to take it down after twenty-two hours, as I didn't have the time to sort through the responses.

During that time period she received twenty-eight emails plus sixteen other notices that people wanted to meet her or had added her as a favorite. When I would go online, just to read her  messages, the guys who had already emailed her  would IM her, sometimes plaintively, asking why my girl hadn't got back to their message of fifteen minutes previous yet.

Some of the things I discovered about my fellow men:

1.      We can't spell.

2.      We can't use spell check, either.

3.      We aren't in touch with our shortcomings. A thirty-year old correspondent admitted he "doesn't understand women." On his "Interests" section, he lists "whiskey." I see cause and effect here. Another 27-year old applicant for my girl's attentions listed one of his interests as "drinking."

4.      We don't really observe the limits people set for us. My girl was looking for men between the ages of thirty and forty; the vast majority of her messages were from guys under twenty-five.

5.      Guys under twenty-five think the highest complement they can give a woman is to tell her she "seems pretty chill."

Some emails stood out from the others, and so did some of the profiles. One twenty-one year old offered to take my girl out to "a bad-ass dinner." I supposed he could have meant a bad-ass diner, considering the way the rest of his email was spelled, but the offer is still incomprehensible.

Some older guys applied for my girl's affections. One 57-year old politician (his username was northcountymayor) wanted me to be "honest about my feelings and thoughts." Okay, I think you're an idiot for trying to date a 32-year old. Another gentleman in his early sixties wanted my girl to visit him on his "berry farm in Canada" this summer. Come and watch my berries grow What woman's heart wouldn't beat faster?

Other charmers included a guy who claimed to possess a graduate degree but worked as a "bodyguard—truck driver" (who knows—maybe he went to school on a Mexican drug cartel scholarship) and another claimed "I've got so much love to give--want in on any of it?"

Even a woman with the deepest possible longings for male companionship might consider these offers resistible. My favorite was a twenty-one year old who promised on his profile "ill be your best friend but i will b ur worst enemy if u decide to use me," apparently thinking that most women are eager to fly into the arms of their future stalkers.

Any woman that posts an attractive picture on a dating site is going to get slammed with offers like those above. My girl received less outrageous emails, but none of them stood out as particularly irresistible. A middle-aged woman that I know  likes the variety of online dating. "It's like a supermarket," is what she says, but she is seeking only non-committed relationships.

No, you can't have her email, guys.

She's not unique on the girls' side, but she's definitely in the minority. This is the bad news, fellow dudes. You way outnumber the girls that are looking for short-term sex. Your supermarket is more like a grocery store in Cuba, where you take a number and wait in a long line to get your hands on a couple of turnips.

Another attractive woman I know had the opposite reaction. She hated being online so much she canceled her account after only a few days. She couldn't stand the bombardment of emails, to which she felt compelled to respond. She was certain all the men who contacted her only wanted sex. This impression was reinforced by a guy who not only contacted her but also two of her friends who were also online and offered all three a lifetime of monogamous love. All in identically worded emails. It's not often that the girls get together to compare notes in virtual reality, but when they do it's just as bad as when it happens in real reality.  They all live in a small community, so this guy might as well have tattooed "Do Not Sleep with Me" on his forehead. Word is he's thinking about moving to El Centro.

A flagged photo on OkCupid


Disclaimer: My reader noted I'd quit posting the disclaimer. Just got tired of pasting it here. If you need a disclaimer, read below.


Miraculously, about a month ago, the free dating site OKCupid asked me to be a "moderator" for them. Let me emphasize that I did not ask for this position. It just came to me on the wings of serendipity right after I decided to write the Complete Guide to Computer Dating.

I favor computer dating, as I have made plain. It is not however, for the thin-skinned or easily disturbed.  The free sites have a significant number of users who are not taking the opportunity to find love here entirely seriously. If you cannot abide by the assortment of trolls, exhibitionists, spammers, cam girls. flim-flam artists and plain bonk-ass loonies who may contact you on the Cupe or POF, go to one of the pay sites, where they are less common. Being a moderator on the Cupe means you get to examine questionable profiles, pictures or messages and then, along with your fellow moderators, or "mods" as we refer to ourselves rakishly, vote to delete the questionable item or decide that it doesn't offend sufficiently to merit deletion.

In order to come to our attention, an item on the site has to be "flagged." The people who do this are known as "flaggers." There is a  button next to every picture, profile and message on the site that says "Report This." There is a little icon of a red flag next to it. If a user hits that button, I get to see the item.

Remember, any user can block any other user in the computer dating world, if they are being unpleasant, and never have to deal with them again. Flagging is for offenses that the flagger regards as so egregious, the offender should be removed from the site. Except for some flaggers, who seem to think by clicking the flag button, they are sending a message to the flaggee. We get messages like "You're hot" or "Nice butt" all the time. This is true of me, of course, but obviously not meant for me.

Individuals who make this mistake are referred to by the moderator community as "flagtards."

OKCupid has guidelines for we mods. Some of them are precise. "Full nudity" is prohibited in pictures, for example. I follow this rule, even though the Internet abounds with full nudity and outright porn. It is a little known fact that Al Gore, after inventing the Internet, waited only fifteen minutes to post a nude picture of himself on it. For further documentation of the Net's sex drive, you may review this video from the musical "Avenue Q."

The definition of "full nudity" seems simple to me, but it is not to the flaggers, or even some of the other mods. See the flagged pic here. The flagger says of it that "It belongs on a lesbian site."

Well, so do I, but I'm not qualified. Regardless of her orientation, the lady in the photo is not fully nude. There are far more revealing pictures on the Sports Illustrated web site. Am I the only one looking at them who is not a lesbian?  People also flag pics of women in g-string underwear or see-through bras. You may not like g-string underwear or see-through bras, but if you find yourself wearing one or both anyway, you are not fully nude. Amazingly, some of my fellow mods will vote to delete them nonetheless. Repressing sexuality is still a spectator sport here in the US.

There are people who do put nude pictures of themselves on the site. Most of these include an erection. I vote to delete them. Some of them are just an erection. I delete those as well, even though a picture of just your schlong may not be "full" nudity. Very occasionally women will post nude pictures of themselves. I'll delete them, too. I don't let my appreciation for naked women interfere with my personal integrity. At least, not any more. At the very least, not that often.

The Cupe has a rule that pictures must be of the user. Users put pictures of their cats, dogs and kids up and they are against the rules of the Cupe. I always vote to leave them alone, as long as the user has actual pictures of themselves as well. I'm not big on following inane rules, but many of my fellow mods are, and they don't mind making up their own, either. They vote to delete anything anyone complains about. Denied the opportunity to become true oppressors like concentration camp guards or vile small-town cops by history or circumstance, they seize the tidbit of authority that moderating at the Cupe gives them and wield it like the hammer of Thor, crushing the bits of free expression the lovelorn post like milkweed in sidewalk cracks.

Others are cool like me. We call the right wingers "modtards."

At left, a BBW

Answering the Questions

All dating sites want you to answer standard questions about yourself. Height, body type, hair and eye color, astrological sign, ethnicity age, location and religious preference are the basics. It's pointless to lie about most of these, but some of them begged to be fudged. On the POF drop down menu, you can be slim, athletic, average, a few extra pounds, Big and Tall (BBW) or you can prefer not to say.

I picked "athletic" although I would go with "muscular" if it was available. Actually, I would go with "irresistibly sexy" if I could. If you have to select "average" or "a few extra pounds" go ahead, but these categories can mean anything.  In Southern California, where I live, a few extra pounds means your anorexia has become less obvious. In Louisiana, it means you can sit on the sofa without a leg busting off of it.

The Big and Tall (BBW) category is for the unashamedly fluffy, but it contains its hidden traps nonetheless. There is no opportunity to be Big and Short, for example. A BBW is a Big Beautiful Woman. You can't just be a BW, even though we know they're out there. Likewise, you can't be a Big Beautiful Man. You're just a fat guy.

POF also wants to know your vices. You can drink or do drugs not at all, socially, or frequently. If you do indulge, check "socially," even if you have not spent a day completely sober since Jimmy Carter was President or you can roll a joint while driving a stick shift and talking on your cell phone. Seriously. If you weren't so stoned I wouldn't even have to tell you this.

People want to know if you like dogs or cats, or have same. Religion is also important. I am not religious, except for occasional attendance at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and a sometime flirtation with Dudeism, and it is bad for me to be involved with people who are, because whenever they express a religious belief to me, I treat it as a lazy slow curve that needs to be knocked out of the park. People don't like having their cherished beliefs treated this way, so if they say on their profile that one of the most important things in their life is their relationship with Jesus, you'd better have a relationship with Him, too, otherwise it's not going to work out. Plus it means you're both willing to wait forever to have sex, which I am not. I was once emailed by a woman whose religious beliefs meant that not only did she expect to have but one husband in this world, but when they were reunited in the next they would continue to be married FOR ALL ETERNITY.

I was married for two years. It seemed like an eternity. I did not answer that email.

"Nobody wants to ride on the back of your Kawasaki, so don't mention it."

Disclaimer: This blog may often not contain any information about computer dating. When it does, perfectly good advice is often mixed in with sarcasm and humor. If you cannot tell the difference between good advice and blistering sarcasm, consult a humor professional before using any of this advice. Also, in spite of the name, it is not complete.


Completing Your Profile, Part 1—The Picture

Your picture is the most important part of your profile on whatever site you select. Most of the relationships we eventually forge are based on the shallows of physical attraction; the decision to click a mouse is exclusively driven by the picture the cursor is hovering over.

You can use as old a picture as you like, if you never plan to actually meet anyone. Other than that, stick within the last few years. You look almost as good as you did two years ago. You don't look as good as you did ten years ago.

You can go blurry—many people do. Again, unless your first date will be the two of you talking through the porthole on a diving bell, blurry can backfire.

Posting a picture with more than one person in it. This happens, too. Most of the time people will be able to figure out which one is you, but it's distracting, especially if the other person in the picture, by dint of good genes or just lack of aging, looks far better than you do. Never post a picture of yourself in an embrace with an attractive person of the sex you are trying to attract. If it's a great picture of you, crop them out. Many of the profile pictures you'll see are being held by disembodied arms or rest their heads on parts of shoulders. If you feel guilty about cropping them out of your life forever, you probably shouldn't have broken up with them.

If you’re the viewer, don't complain about the disembodied arm, or ask whom it belongs to. This just exposes your jealous, insecure nature.

All the sites allow you to post other pictures besides your main one. This is where people post pics of their children, pets, cars, boats, Harleys, skydiving instructors etc. If you have other flattering pictures of yourself, post them here. Nobody cares about any of those other things, except maybe the Harley. There is an entire subcategory of women that "want to ride on the back of your Harley." Nobody wants to ride on the back of your Kawasaki, so don't bother mentioning it.

Her lovely lady lumps

Black Eyed Peas to play halftime show at Super Bowl...is Fergie a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen?  We hope so. The turmoil that swept across America moments after Justin Timberlake ripped off Janet Jackson's bra during halftime of Super Bowl XXVII was too amusing not to bear repeating. Apparently based on the premise that most people watching the show had never seen a breast before,  the wave of national revulsion that followed the inadvertent exposure of the Jackson mammary was stirred by America's still strong anti-breast demographic. The downside, if Fergie follows JJ's lead and pops her top, is we'll be subject to a variety of geriatric rockers in following years as we were following Justin's bra-ripping episode...Paul McCartney followed Janet, and the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen have been seen since then at Super Bowl shows, and if Fergie lets a boobie slip, more of the musical near-dead will undoubtedly be scheduled for the SB stage, acts more likely to rip off a feeding tube than a bra. 

The  Peas will no doubt play many of their lyrically profound songs such as Booty Call, Fergalicious and My Humps, accompanied by the music-like 
sounds they make and that many people enjoy.

In the meantime, Fergie will not be answering your emails, and Justin's not looking to rip off your bra, so here's The Complete Guide to Computer Dating, Part II:


Disclaimer: This blog may often not contain any information about computer dating. When it does, perfectly good advice is often mixed in with sarcasm and humor. If you cannot tell the difference between good advice and blistering sarcasm, consult a humor professional before using any of this advice. Also, in spite of the name, it is not complete.



Choosing a Site 

The best dating sites are free, like the best things in life and my advice. Plentyoffish boasts that it has more users than any other dating site. I've gotten tons of dates from it and two relationships. Not at the same time. Sure, having multiple affairs sounds like fun, but it's time consuming and if you're the guy paying for everything, expensive. Plus you have to learn to lie shamelessly, like a politician. (Possibly why those guys are so good at having affairs).

POF allows you to check out people, find out who's checking you out, send messages and even instant message fellow users. It offers matches for you based on location and a personality profile you fill out. You can be a man looking for women or men, or a woman looking for the same. POF offers sex personals. I don't go there, not because I'm against hooking up, but because there's probably a thousand men for every four women on that area of the site, and those women charge by the hour.  Guys, you're better off going to a bar. Really. Log off now and get out of the house.

Also in the free category and somewhat racier is OKCupid. Besides the features that POF offers, it has much more extensive matching questions and offers percentages of how close your answers come to the answers of members you are looking at.  It also offers much more than standard straight, bi or gay matching. If you are, for example, a polyamorous individual who's a secondary in your current relationship and want to find a primary of your own, OKCupid will accommodate you.

If you don't understand the previous sentence, you want to skip this and go to the next step.

Cupid has fewer members than POF, and will often suggest you meet people that are several hundred miles away. I live seventy miles from downtown Los Angeles and Cupid is constantly thinking I ought to meet people who live in Greater LA, on the far side of exhausting daily traffic jams. Not doing it. I've gotten dates from OKCupid, but nothing even semi-permanent.

There are a few other sites that offer free dating. You can find them by running a Google search. Go ahead, you do it. Exhaustive research isn't my specialty. You can sign up for all of them if you want. They're free.

Pay sites, like Match.com, E-Harmony and American Singles are very similar, except you pay for them. They've never worked any better for me than the free sites, so I don't. E-Harmony only matches up straight people. They claim not to hate gays because they run a separate site for them. This is like claiming you don't hate blacks or Hispanics because you built them a separate neighborhood. What, they're worried that the bytes of gay desire will contaminate the pixels of the straight? I don't believe them, and neither should you.

Next, Your Profile Picture, and my pick for the Super Bowl!

Disclaimer: This blog may often not contain any information about computer dating. When it does, perfectly good advice is often mixed in with sarcasm and humor. If you cannot tell the difference between good advice and blistering sarcasm, consult a humor professional before using any of this advice. Also, in spite of the name, it is not complete.

The New Year has come and gone and you in your typical procrastinating fashion have yet to follow up on your resolution to acquire some sort of love life. It's time to put yourself out there, but you still hesitate. Nebulous fears still keep you from posting a profile on one of the many web sites that promise you a lifetime of contentment with your soul mate. What if my friends find out, or my co-workers? What if I meet a pervert, or a stalker? What if someone I already know finds me online?

The answer to all these questions is, don't worry about it. What if your friends find out? How are they doing at finding you love? If they're like my friends, the answer is lousy. They're all too busy having sex with each other to bother helping you out of the mire of unwanted celibacy. If all your friends are married, all the people they know are married as well. If your friends are single, there's usually a good reason. 

Co-workers are even less of a concern. They already know you're not getting laid. If they wanted to volunteer their services to ameliorate your longings, you'd know it by now. If you are frightened by the prospect of one of them making fun of you if they find you searching for a relationship on the Internet, ask them what they were doing looking there anyway? Maybe the same thing?

Perverts exist everywhere, from gorgeous, sternly feminist intellectuals who nonetheless like to be handcuffed and spanked to football coaches who live to lick your toes. You might enjoy meeting these people. If you don't, they won't enjoy you, and will conveniently disappear from your life forever. 

Stalkers never want to disappear, but all dating sites have options to block them. You're not likely to invite someone home for a first date. If you're like me, it's because you don't want to invest the energy cleaning up the squalid bachelor mess you inhabit before finding out if you want to bother with a second date. If you're an average cautious person, it's because you care about who knows where you live.

What if somebody you already know finds you online? Ideally, they'll realize they were a fool for ignoring you so far, and your secret desire to unite with them will be fulfilled. However, this is unlikely to happen. If you are not already aware that there are seven and a half billion people you don't know on this planet, online dating will help you realize it. Not all of the billions have an Internet connection, but most of the English-speaking ones do.  I'm always looking for people I know, or whom I've dated non-cyberly. Haven't seen one yet.