Open Forum Friday: Itchy Finger on the Block Button

Earlier this week I wrote one of those hippie-dippy, new-agey posts that occasionally come bursting out of me. I absolutely stand by what I said; I totally meant every word.

But opening oneself up like that is essentially a way of making oneself vulnerable. In a way, it’s like slapping a big KICK ME sign on one’s back and hoping that the universe doesn’t take notice.

It does. And that’s why I’m following up that last post with one that’s totally crabby-pants. Namely, I’m going to list:

The Top 5 Latest Reasons I’m Likely To Ignore A Guy.


The issue came up because I had a couple of people totally incensed that I would take the extreme and (in their minds) anti-social step to block them this week—one on an instant messenger, another on an online site. Both immediately logged into other accounts and proceeded to protest how very dare I do such a thing!

But the truth is, If someone is bugging me, and I’m in a tetchy mood, or if they push me just an inch to far, I’m never going to deal with that person ever again, if I can help it. Instant messenger sites, and online cruising sites, mostly offer the option to block or ignore people so that I no longer show up as visible or contactable on their lists, nor they on mine. When it comes to irritating people, my trigger finger is awfully itchy when it comes to that ignore or block function. And my reasons are:

1. Because we’ve had this conversation more than once.

Him: wassup?? 

Me: Hello. 

Him: can you cam? 

Me: No. 

Him: why not?? 

Me: I’m not in a position to cam at the moment. 

Him: why not???

Does it really matter why? Do you really want to know that I have my entire extended family playing bridge in the next room, or that I’m in a public library, or that I just got out of bed and look like Hugh Laurie had a very very rough night drinking and brawling? Or are you just going to take whatever I say and ask, oh come on just for a minute?

Basically, unless you’re a close friend, the whys of my life aren’t your business, son.

2. Because we’ve never met and you’re asking me if my ‘top buddies’ can join in.


I’ve been over this one several times before. That one line, faster than anything else a man can do, signals me that the guy isn’t very serious about meeting; he just wants the fantasy that a bunch of alpha males find him desirable.

If you want your ego bolstered, show up and have sex with me. I’ll tell you how beautiful you are (if you are), or how good you make me feel (if you make me feel it). The only other time I want to see the words top and buddy is if your sentence is Don’t you want to come over and top my buddy’s ass?


3. Because you chew me out for no good reason.


Only online sites, I’m always casting a disparaging eye over the profiles that rant against winks, nudges, pokes, and other low-investment forms of communication. Sure, I like an actual email better than anything, but a lot of these sites limit the number of actual messages a non-paying member can send; a wink is a quick and dirty way of letting someone know you’re interested, and allowing them the leeway to get back to you if they care to.

And the ‘if they care to’ is the operative point, there. I’m usually polite to the men who wink at me, but I tend simply not to reply to men who either have no photo or information in their profile, who have extremely little information and a murky photo of the top quarter of their dick, or to men I find deeply and unredeemably unattractive. It happens.

One of the guys who chewed me out this week irritated me by winking at me every four or five minutes over the course of a half-hour. I looked at his profile the first time and saw a creepy guy with a photo that looked as if he’d had it taken as a mug shot following incarceration over a sexual offense. Really, it was bad enough to make me shudder and click off immediately. I trashed the following winks without opening them, and then finally blocked the asshole when he wouldn’t stop winking.

Whereupon he logged into a second account with an even creepier photograph and chewed me out for blocking him because he was ugly and just because I was hot didn’t give me the right to have such a god-damned attitude. Of course, he was right. Not just about me being hot, but about the reason why I didn’t respond to him. But it’s awfully presumptuous to rant at me about it, since I didn’t say a word.
So I blocked his second profile, too.

Online cruising can be rough. I get rejected too. I don’t yell at guys about it. (I just whinge in my blog. So basically I guess I’m suggesting that you get a blog and complain in it, too?)

4. Because your appetite is not what you claim it is.


I’m a dirty whore, said the guy online. He was semi-local, and seemed eager to hook up. I’ll take any cock you want.

Already we were perilously close to him asking about my top buddies, but I decided to play along. Any cock? I asked.


Yes, ANY COCK. Because I’m a dirty whore.


How about cock from a four-legged animal? I typed.


Fuck no! he said. That’s sick, man.


I have a top buddy who’s sixty-three, I wrote. I think he’d like to join in.


I like older than me but they gotta be under forty, he replied, apparently ignoring the fact that I’m well over that age myself.


Okay, I could bring my black buddies with me then.


I don’t do black guys, he wrote. A minute later, he added, Or porto-ricans [sic] or chinks.


How about my poz buddies? I pecked out.


NO, he wrote. Then added, They gotta be CLEAN.

I’m pretty sure the poz guys I know shower regularly, but whatever. So basically when you say you’ll do ANY cock, you mean HIV-negative middle-class white humans over 28 and under 40.


Yeah, you know any of those?

Click! Ignore.

If you want to be a dirty whore, be a dirty whore. If you want to be a nice boy who only submits to dicks your mama might approve, fine. Do that. Just know who you are and don't let your mouth make promises the rest of you isn't prepared to carry out.


5. Because I don’t want to buy what you’re selling.

Ask my father, or my brother, or my loved ones, and they’ll tell you that the surest way not to get me to do what you want is to push hard at me to do it. I am one of the stubbornest mules around.

I get a lot of people, because of my blog, who want me to do things for them. They want me to read their porn stories, or they want me to swap blog links with them, or they want me to promote their fledgling blog in my pages. Some people want me to promote their products here. I’m not averse to any of those things in principle, certainly, and I don’t mind people asking.

But what I do mind is when someone asks, and asks, and asks, and badgers me repeatedly to get what he wants. Sending me multiple emails asking for a link exchange or a product mention, then sending me follow-ups asking if I got the emails about the link exchange or product mention, is just going to make me dig in my heels and growl in your general direction. Throw in an admonitory email expressing your exasperation that I’m not leaping at the chance to promote you? Oh, that is when I put your email address in my block filter, my friend.

No, I don’t respond well to the hard sale. (Fawning and flattery will get me, though. Every damned time.)


Your turn. What are your top reasons for blocking other guys?