Open Forum Friday: Online Hookup Turn-Offs

Online is how men find each other for sex these days. Sure, it’s still possible to cruise public parks or restrooms to find some occasional dick. One can still head to the bar and pick someone up. Okay, I suppose it’s still possible to meet people at places like the job or while doing things like volunteer work or attending church, but let’s face it. Going online, whether on one of the many sex cruising websites, or Craigslist, or a phone app like Grindr, is these days the fastest and most expedient way for most horny guys looking for man-on-man action to get laid.

That’s one of the reasons I do it. But it’s also so ripe for the mocking that I can’t resist going at it, on occasion.

Which is basically my set-up for saying, I was going to write today about a fuck I had this week that was less than stellar, but then I decided to be an old curmudgeon instead, as if I were starring as a sexed-up Mr. Wilson in a reboot of the Hank Ketcham comic strip called ‘Dennis the Leather Menace.’

So. Without further ado, I present:

4 Things I Wish You Wouldn’t Write Me in Your Hookup Notes


1. UNLOCK

It’s usually a one-word note. Not even that. Just a subject line in an online email, on a site like Manhunt or Adam4Adam. UNLOCK.

What it means is that the guy wants you to flip the switch that permits him to see any private photos you might have that aren’t on view to the general public. Simple enough, right? Sure, there might be more polite ways to ask such a thing. Hey, I find you attractive. May I see your locked pics? comes to mind.


Unlock strikes me as abrupt and imperative, but hey. At least it’s not coy, right?

The thing is that I don’t lock my photos. They’re all out there in the open, X-rated and G-rated alike, shots of my goofy face rubbing up next to photos of my nuts and dick on proud display. (Not in the same single photo. I don't do that any more.)

I know that most guys, particularly in my area, don’t do such a thing. They have either their faces and torsos on display and their gonads behind the lock, or the reverse. Not me. I’ve received email lectures about doing it from local guys who are shocked that I’d be so trashy. Screw ‘em.

Don’t ask me to unlock. I don’t have anything to unlock. You look like a dumbass, saying it. It’s like walking up to a naked man and yelling at him, Take it off!

Note: I do have locked pics on my BBRT profile—but only because the site asks that users lock penetration shots. It’s also the one site where I don’t have people sending me UNLOCK emails.


2. Picture Inequity

I suppose I shouldn’t really complain about notes with twice the number of words as UNLOCK. But I’m gonna complain about this one: MORE PICS?

I do have more pics. I have a lot more pics. I have a decade’s worth of digital shots, dating back to the days when I had a Sony Mavica that recorded photos on floppy disks.

But see, sir, the thing is that while I have—oh, I don’t know—eight or ten photos on my profile, you’ve got exactly zero. Or maybe one. And if you do have one, that one is a particularly small and grainy shot of what could be your chest, or might be your elbow. Again, I don’t know. It’s tough to tell when it’s so blurry and out of focus that it seems to have been shot through a field of dirty beer mugs.

With my old Mavica.

So here’s the thing, guys. If you really want someone to send you more pics, why not make the first and more generous move? Say, I really like your pics. What’s your email so I can send you a few more? Do you have any others to trade, too? Not only does it make you sound as if you’re trying to do the right thing, but it tells the guy that you’re willing to give a little to get a little.

That’s a good thing, because MORE PICS? always gives me the impression that you don’t think my existing pics are good enough for your blurry ass.


3. Are you still interested?

There’s a certain type of personality online that needs constant reassurance. I find that type of personal fucking exhausting.

There’s always a good initial fit, it seems. Mutual interest on both sides. But there’s something that keeps us from getting together right away. That something is usually distance—I’m where I am, and they’re in Pennsylvania, or Boston. Or it could be scheduling—he’s in Manhattan, but he’s only available weekends, and I usually only go into the city on weekdays.

So then will come the barrage of emails. Hi, I thought we were a good match the other day but I need to know if you’re interested in getting together sometime. There still aren’t any concrete suggestions of what to do, on his end. Just a general need to know if I’m interested.

Nothing wrong with that. Once.

But the more extreme types of this personality require constant reassurance. Usually within about ten seconds of me logging on. Are you still interested in meeting sometime? I need to know. Or, I really need to know if you still want to meet.

Dude, listen. I’ve told you I’m interested. I’ve given you ways to contact me. I’ve given you my schedule and probable best days to hook up. The ball’s in your court. We’re not a Victorian relationship with a decade-long engagement; it’s not my responsibility daily to assure you that my intentions have not changed, or that I don’t have my eye on that saucy minx who shows a bit of ankle from under her bustle.

If propping up your fragile ego is becoming a bit of a full-time job, chances are that you’re going to be put on my block list real soon.


4. Lookin

Another one-word note. LOOKING. Or sometimes, LOOKIN. Sometimes with a question mark, often without.

Yeah, I might be lookin’. I might even have found you attractive under other circumstances. But for some reason, those one-word notes, usually no more than a subject line, I find really off-putting.

Or off-puttin’.

If you can’t be bothered to write even a simple note like, I can host and I’m horny, want to come over?, chances are that I really don’t want to meet you. You’re just telling me you’re a lazy fuck, basically. And who wants to labor over a lazy fuck?


Man, apparently I am Mr. Wilson.

So readers, tell me. What’re the notes you dread getting online? Is it the ‘sups, or the UNLOCKS? Is it the constant requests for you to top when you’ve plainly stated you’re a bottom? I declare this Open Forum Friday. Gentlemen, start your engines. And may the best griper win!