Thursday, April 29, 2004
The Red Flags Of An Online Relationship
Everyone knows the internet is for porn and perverts. The most important thing about internet dating is that you shouldn’t do it. Go out to a bar, get drunk and make out with strangers like a normal person. You might end up in a motel room in the meatpacking district beneath that guy who used to be your doorman before he went to jail but...oh, fuck it. How much worse can it be than real life? Might as well give it a go.
There are, however, a few things you should be prepared to look out for. While each and every psychopath, pervert and loser you meet on the internet—and let’s be honest, that’s who you were meeting in real life and the internet is not going to make things better—is unique, and it is important that you not develop any hope whatsoever that this is going to work out, the following list should help you spot any red flags you might encounter.
[Loving You: The Red Flags Of An Online Relationship]
[This blog post was made possible by a grant from a comedy professional.]
Everyone knows the internet is for porn and perverts. The most important thing about internet dating is that you shouldn’t do it. Go out to a bar, get drunk and make out with strangers like a normal person. You might end up in a motel room in the meatpacking district beneath that guy who used to be your doorman before he went to jail but...oh, fuck it. How much worse can it be than real life? Might as well give it a go.
There are, however, a few things you should be prepared to look out for. While each and every psychopath, pervert and loser you meet on the internet—and let’s be honest, that’s who you were meeting in real life and the internet is not going to make things better—is unique, and it is important that you not develop any hope whatsoever that this is going to work out, the following list should help you spot any red flags you might encounter.
RED FLAG #1: Offers to show you current “full body photos.” What sort of maniac sends naked pictures to total strangers? The sort who is sending naked pictures of other strangers to strangers. That’s right. It’s not him. It’s his neighbor, son, mechanic or something he downloaded from the internet. And, to be perfucktly clear, it is certainly not her. There are no “hers” sending you pictures, my friend. It. Is. Always. A. Man. At any given moment there are thousands of online lesbian relationships being conducted between pairs of hairy little men with damp palms and salvia stained beards. If looks are very important to you—and unless you are a recent parolee, they better fucking be important—I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to meeting people in reality.Remember, any relationship will have its red flags. But if you pay attention to these red flags, you might not end up in a mason jar in a basement in Astoria. When it all ends horribly, just remember the most important thing. Drink to forget. Drink. To. Forget.
Bonus tip: If a girl ever sends you a disposable camera with a self-addressed, postage ready envelope with instructions to take pictures and send the camera back to her, call the police immediately. This is my ex-girlfriend and she will slaughter you like a pig.
RED FLAG #2: Their email address is a bit off. You've progressed to exchanging personal emails, but the problem is you can't quite make sense of their email address. It’s on AOL or Compuserve and it looks like this: 696969anal@aol.com. Congrats. At least you haven’t wound up with an internet virgin. This person is built for meeting people on the internet, getting to know them over time, developing a romance and then contaminating them with nine types of venereal diseases. The other possibility is that the person you are talking to is a teenager. This means you are going to jail. Where you will get a nice bed, three squares a day, and be able to use the internet to write dirty things to more children
RED FLAG #3:They ask you for money. Actually, this is okay because it’s me. Send me $25 now. Thanks.
RED FLAG #4: Reality VS. Fantasy Let’s say you meet a nice guy online. It’s possible he will tell you that he has a job or isn’t ugly. Now you know he is lying. No one on the internet has a job. Everyone is ugly. But since you are also ugly and unemployable, you might make a nice pair if the two of you can stop lying for each other.
RED FLAG #5: One night on instant messenger, he says "I can't wait to slice your tits off. JK.” This is a telltale sign of things to come if you develop an off-line romance. No relationship should be solely one person giving and the other taking. If you find this happening to you, talk about it to your partner and ask them to meet you half way in your efforts.
RED FLAG #6: Their venue suggestion for your first real-life meeting is a public park restroom at 2 a.m. Despite news accounts to the contrary, this is not actually a good way to meet celebrities. Trust me on this okay. Public restrooms, however, are preferable to invitations to the following places: Avalon, the Village Idiot, Iranian folk dances done on horseback in tents outside of Lincoln Center, anywhere Donald Trump knows about, the bar at the Soho grand and pretty much any place in the meat-packing district.
[Loving You: The Red Flags Of An Online Relationship]
[This blog post was made possible by a grant from a comedy professional.]
