We've gotten literally hundreds of replies, and all but two of them were from men, and I'm not sure that those two were actually women, and not just some dude getting off pretending to be one, as those exchanges never got past an exchange of a few emails.

Unless you've done this sort of thing before, you'd be amazed at how boring, crass, and stoopid most of the men that reply to these ads are. After the first dozen or so responses we received after posting an ad for the first time, she delegated the screening process to me.

All of our ads specifically ask for a pic - it's the very rare ad that we'll answer without one. (We learned early.) About half of the males send a picture of their erection, or somebody's erection, anyway. No face, no nothing, just a big overexposed jpg of their woody. At first, We used to reply with a comment like, "Nice dick - you gotta face?" but after a dozen times or so, that wore thin, so now they just get deleted without further comment.

Other guys send some of the most poorly spelled and composed crapass messages I've ever seen. Now, while I admit to being a bit pickier than most on this issue, I'll forgive a typo or two. But some of this stuff is so bad I gotta wonder how they ever got out of elementary school. If they can't even buy enough of a clue to find the spellchecker, off to the reject pile with them.

Worse are the guys that write long, graphic, messages about exactly, in painstaking detail, what they'd like to do in the event they ever got their hands on her. Hint, fellas - unless you're sure that you're writing professional quality erotica, (and this is a lot harder than most realize, I've tried) this probably ain't gonna work.

I considered posting a few short samples for y'all here, but I didn't want to torture you poor people so. Let me tell you, it's bad. They typically read like the script to the most hackneyed, wooden XXX movie you've ever been so unlucky to have been forced to watch. Only worse.

On the other end of the spectrum are the fellows of few words, who often overlap with the dunces that can't write. Their responses are something like, "Yur purty. I wood lahk to suck them big titties. Call me quick." That bit I just composed there is actually a bit longer than a few we've gotten.

Closely related are what I call the Hard Dick Spammers, who can't be bothered to write a personal reply, or even look at every ad, evidently. They just broadcast the same generic message to every female or couple they can find. I know this because I've posted our ad under different names on the same site, and gotten identical messages from the same guy within the same day, often only minutes apart. A hot tip for picking those guys out - they never use your name in their reply, much less mention anything unique about you, such as what about you atttracted them in the first place. They get killfiled, too.

After reading a few batches of junk like this, you start to understand why these guys are having such a tough time finding a steady sex partner. The replies that we get from couples, a much smaller fraction, by the way, are almost always at least interesting enough to get a reply. I think there is some degree of natural selection operating here.

The whole experience has truly made me feel sorry for all the single women out there. It seems that all the good ones are taken, if our experience is representative.

To take all this How Not To Do It advice, and turn it around to something positive, here are your tips:

1. Include a clear pic, with your freakin' face showing. Smile. If you can't find the courage to put your face in an ad on a site catering to people that are into kinky stuff, then go find yourself some vanilla folk at one of the zillion vanilla matchmaking sites.
2. Tell us something about yourself. We already know that you wanna join our little circle of FuckBuddies, so you can leave that out. Hopefully it will be something interesting. If you can't find something interesting about yourself, you can damn sure bet we won't.
3. It never hurts to include something about the person/people you're writing that attracted you. A canned reply smells like the dumpster behind a seafood market. Flattery is OK, but sincere, enthusiastic, appreciation will go a lot farther. In our particular case, Cookoff already knows she has big tits, so you can leave that out. You get a lot farther talking about her pretty smile or her eyes, or something like that. I would wager Big Moolah most other women are the same.
4. Pretend like it's a resume. Spell and grammar check it as if your life depended on it. This applies to your ad, too, along with any responses you'd like to send. Get a friend to help you write it, if you don't have the knack. Or pay somebody to do it. For a reasonable fee, I'll write one for you. If you don't have a friend, and don't want to pay somebody, you're a loser anyway, so give it up and get used to whacking off as a hobby. There's lots of free porn in the newsgroups to help inspire you. Ask nice and I might even send you one of CG. :-)
5. Finally, the best passport into the world of multiple sex partners, the poly lifestyle, whatever you want to call it, is to be a couple. It's much tougher for a single person, especially a single man, to break in. It's a buyer's market out there. I know that's a chicken or the egg thing, but I can't help that - I don't make the rules, I just report on them.

So, there you have it. My best advice on how to find True Love, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, in the world of personal ads. All for free. And worth every nickel you paid for it. :-)

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While this certainly cannot be a surprise to a student of the Middle East, it still confounds my sense of reality that the Arab world can be so blatant in their hypocrisy.

The very same people that so vociferously decried the minimal civilian casualties in the liberation of Afghanistan, that denounced a few instances of mislabeled targets and errant bombs, have put their stamp of approval upon a plan of intentional killing of Israeli civilians.

Where, I wonder, is the outcry from the American contingent that joined the Arab leaders in the criticism of the civilian casualties?

Meanwhile, it seems that Sharon is all but ignoring Bush's call to immediately cease operations in the West Bank, preferring to do so when he's good and ready.

The plot thickens...

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I suppose after all my mention of her, I should explain. "Cookoff Girl," or CG for short, is the pseudonym I use online for my lover. We live together, and have been lovers, off and on, (we went through a rough spot two years ago) for almost five years now.

How can I describe her? She's 5'9", mumbledy-something pounds, (she'd have my cojones if I told you) and absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful blue-green eyes, sandy dark-blonde, bottom of the shoulder blade length hair, and a ten thousand watt smile.

She's a big girl, voluptuous, with an hour and a half glass figure, which is about right for me. She is full of, almost larger than, life - she loves to eat, drink, talk, laugh and fuck enough for two people. (Actually, as respecting the latter, a lot more than two, but I'd have a hard time putting a number on it, so we'll leave it at that.)

She's my people magnet. Folks love her. Once, she went to a "How To Find Your True Love" type seminar for singles, (this was before she met me) and the lady running the show called her up in front of the group and described her as a "Genetic Celebrity." :-) Virtually all of our friends are friends primarily of hers, that I think put up with my grumpy self to be around her.

We live together in a relationship that is difficult to define. It's not monogamous, but the most common antonym of monogamous is polyamorous, and we don't quite qualify as that, at least for the moment.

My friend Spring Dew, who does qualify as polyamorous, and I had a discussion about that a while back, and I decided that I'd have to invent a term for us, so I came up with the term, "polyfilarkos," from two Greek root words meaning "many" and "friends." I translate it, though, as to mean "many fuckbuddies." :-)

We have a small group of intimate friends in our love life, and go to, or host, a party for larger groups every once in a while. I suppose you could say we "date" other people. We almost always are together. I have to say "almost always," because there was one exception to that rule for each of us. Both cases reinforced our decision to only date other folks as a couple.

We meet most of these people through personal ads placed at adult-oriented sites such as alt.com and adultfriendfinder.com. We've even gone to a few of the local "swinger's" clubs and had a wild night or two. It seems the most enjoyable times were those when we've recruited (seduced, maybe) people from "real life." Those relationships seem to be the most fun - I couldn't tell you why that is. Most of the habitual "swingers" we've ever met seem just, I dunno, "off" somehow, like a piece of meat that's starting to go bad.

Having said all that, we're always open to the idea of new intimate friends and lovers in our lives, so if you're a special person, too, and find us attractive and interesting, don't be afraid to drop us a line. We don't bite. Well, maybe just a little, and only in all the best places. :-)

Update 8/01/2003: As of a few months ago, the nature of our relationship has changed. See this entry for the details.

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