UR GUIDE 2 IT ALL. LOL!
What I Learned On My First Gay Internet Hook-Up Site
By Joel Perry
Everybody I knew was on this hook-up site. We’ll call it BearsLair.com. It’s like bunches of other gay hook-up sites, but this one targets the niche market that’s hot for furry men shaped like I am. I started off by setting up my online account to suck money out of my bank account every month to pay for premium access. Premium access, it turns out, means I can make the microscopic thumbnails on people’s profiles pop up into something you can actually see. (More on those photos a little later.) Then it was time to fill out my profile. Hmm. What do other people put in their profiles? I went exploring.
Bad edukashun: Jesus, Mary, and misspelled Joseph! What the fuck has happened to our educational system? “Hi their. 6’0”, 250, 8x6 blonnde, blue, like 2 blowjobs, u be sam.” Horrified (and not being Sam), I moved on. Guys are writing these profiles with such careless haste that they have no idea what they’re saying. One read “I lik OJ.” Well, so did I before that whole Nichole Brown thing, but I’m pretty sure he means “JO.” Apparently a man in South Dakota who claims to be an investment professional believes “im any wanna get to know mehit meup” is something close to a complete sentence. But not close enough. I’m not even sure it’s English. But I am sure I will not be “mehit-meuping” him for any investment advice. Or anything else for that matter.
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and that makes me an insufferable English snob, but seeing a total hottie, then clicking on his profile to read that he doesn’t know the difference between virile and viral is an utter turn-off. It’s like walking over to chat up that big beefy guy at the end of the bar only to discover that when he talks he sounds like Jessica Simpson. Only stupid.
I pounded out a short profile -- proofing it thoroughly -- posted some tasteful photos and was up and on BearsLair.com in no time.
Show me the love! On this site you can display your intent, if you like, by giving your photo one of the labels they offer such as “Bear 4 Love,” “Bear 4 Chat,” or “Bear 4 Sex.” Since they didn’t have “Bear 4 Free Chocolate” I decided to go with “Bear 4 Friends.” But as I clicked on other “Bear 4 Friends” guys, I got picture galleries full of raunchy, hardcore sex. Here’s a guy sucking another guy’s cock. Here’s a guy fucking. Oh, look, here’s a guy with no pics of his face, just his johnson shooting jets of jism -- not that I’m complaining, or anything. But it does seem they’re either in denial about what they’re really there for, or they have a vastly more encompassing definition of “friend” than I do. Whatever.
This site also had a guestbook feature. If you like the way a person looks and you don’t have the balls to leave them a message or the intelligence to write something of your own, you can click on “Sign My Guestbook” and choose from a menu of about six phrases. They’re brilliantly witty -- if you’re still in high-school -- and say things like, “You’re cute,” or “I like you.” And if combining subject with verb is too tiresomely complex, they also offer the classic “Woof!”, not to be confused with the vowel-free “Grrrr!” just below it.
And now that I’ve made myself insufferable with that guestbook description, I can report that I became a complete and total slave to it. Other people would have six guys a day leaving a guestbook entry of “Hugs!” or “You’re cute!” I went days between getting them and it made me crazy with wounded egocentric jealousy. And when someone did sign my guestbook it was never a “Woof!” or “You’re hot!” which is what everyone wants to get, right? No, I got “Great profile!” I wanted to message back “Fuck you!” But I didn’t because I was desperate for other people to see that guys wrote to me, even if it was shitty little “Great profile!” And even then, I didn’t get enough of those. I’d be all “It’s been five days since anyone signed my guestbook -- nobody likes me!” Yeah. Who’s the one still in high-school now, huh? Despite knowing better, I’d be logging on 10 times a day to see if anyone had given me a guestbook- signing pat on the head, clicking in the pathetic hope of finding a little electronic dollop of imagined self-worth.
And give me the visuals! Then I figured it out. I wasn’t showing skin. I put up different photos -- not giving away the store, but coyly naked with much flesh exposed. I made my primary pic the one that cunningly cut me off at mid-pubes.
Helloooooo, traffic!
The simple secret to any hook-up site is this: It’s all about the photos. Fuck the profiles. We men are visual beasts. If you want response, put the goods out on display. But can we talk about what we’re displaying? You’d think after all these years of gays posting photos, the quality of the shots would have improved, but it hasn’t! Since I want to improve cyberspace as well as your chances of getting laid, I will end by presenting:
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