In the past year, I’ve met 6 men.
I say met, since I didn’t date them all, but it could have gone that way. Maybe. Maybe not.
And now that I look back, I find myself facing an interesting – and frankly disturbing – contrast between the men I met on Tinder, and the men I met through friends.
Three of men I met were from Tinder.
I dated two of them for several months, and one sort of fizzled out after a few dates.
I’ll say one thing for these guys – none of them was interested in a relationship, but boy were they absolutely fantastic in other respects.
I mean, I was getting the whole deal. Respect, companionship, and here’s the kicker – total and complete trustworthiness in the bedroom.
All of these men, with the exception of none, understood that no means no, and that an invitation to my house did not mean an invitation to have sex.
Hell, they understood that no means no, even if that word was spoken in the middle of sex for whatever reason.
Now contrast that with the men I met through friends.
One of them was the most unexpected affair I’ve had in my life; that chemistry smacked into me out of nowhere.
But what stands out to me, from the two months we spent together, was that the one evening I said I wasn’t in the mood to have sex, was also the last evening we met.
Two days later, this guy was out of my life. His reason? We just weren’t in sync anymore.
I’ll let you all draw your own conclusions about whatever happened there.
But now let’s look at the other two men I met through friends.
Mister One-Night-Stand that turned into two nights, because the guy just would not leave my house until I borderline kicked him out!
And who did not seem to understand that no, I did not want to do the nasty with him every waking minute of the night and day.
And who actually had the gall to tell me that he wouldn’t have sex with me again unless I agreed to do something I had explicitly said was a no-go earlier on.
Yeeeaaaah. I don’t know what he was thinking. I would have asked, but I was too busy wracking my brains for a way to get him to leave peacefully.
And Mister What-Was-Even-Happening-Here who came back to my house after being told he was welcome to come hang out, but to not expect sex.
He proceeded to make his moves, and was told repeatedly that sex was off the menu, especially since neither of us had protection of any kind.
He then proceeded to hang over me buck-naked, trying to persuade me to change my mind until I yelled at him to get off and get out.
I have never been more aware in my life that things could have gone very badly wrong if he hadn’t – finally – listened to me and slammed out of my house.
But here’s the question I want to ask, because I refuse to believe that 3 men going belly-up because they were denied sexual privileges is a coincidence, when all three had friends in common with me.
I wonder what was going through their heads – because to me, their desperation for some action just didn’t seem warranted. They weren’t ugly, they weren’t stupid, and as far as I knew, they weren’t lacking for popularity.
So why the refusal to respect boundaries?
Surely the danger of all our connections finding out about their misbehavior should be enough of a deterrent?
Since when did the people you know become the ones who behave badly? And since when did total strangers you met online become the ones who can be trusted to hold their horses because that’s what decent people do?
It’s a weird world all right, when stranger danger is less of a concern than the guy (figuratively) next door.
And so I’m still left with the question – why? Why is it that men you meet online are increasingly better-behaved than the ones you meet the old-fashioned way, through mutual connections?
And I wonder if this is just a weird thing that happened to me, or if any of you have similar stories to share.
One thing’s certain – the next time someone introduces me to a single-and-ready-to-mingle friend? I’m walking in the opposite direction as fast as my Oxfords can take me.
After all, there’s always Tinder.
— Image credit: New Internationalist
