“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”. –Albert Einstein
Meeting a great guy online is possible. People do it. But, based on my own experience, online fora are a terrible way to meet quality guys. (note: livejournal is not primarily about meeting guys for me, and yet, somehow, I’ve had a better signal to noise ratio from it. Anyway…).
After a spectacularly dishonest fellow I met last night, I’m inclined to recognize that my various online meeting mechanisms are unproductive, time wasting habits that I’m better off without. I’ll retain the friends I’ve made from them and find better ways of wasting time.
And just to raise the barrier to entry a bit on getting back in to bad habits, I’ll delete all the relevant accounts, including gay.com, and the various personals services (yahoo, salon, planetout, gaydar, etc). I guess this leaves real life, face to face fora. Maybe I can find one or two that will work for me. Hmmmm.
You’re the second LJ-friend of mine in the last two days who has done that. Hopefully it’s a productive change for you.
It sounds like quite an interesting story nonetheless…
Oo, think of the games you can catch up on now. 😉
I feel your pain.
Faced with moving to a new (rather large) city, a body that’s not a good condition, and general malaise still wafting through my emotions about the end of my long-term relationship, I’ve settled back into the comfortable arms of anonymous contact via the Internet. Already, I’m seeing how large of a mistake this could potentially be, for once upon a time, I completely eschewed the online forums because of the whole “signal to noise” ratio encountered.
In short, my MO has become: “I would much rather meet lots of pretty boys and find the ones with the brains, instead of meet lots of intelligent boys and find the ones with the looks.”
The only problem being, of course, that you’re not located in one of the deepest parts of the gay community pool. But at least what you do see is what you get. So less, no more; quite unlike online, where everyone is rendered in 12 point Times New Roman. Good imaginations can be quite a downfall sometimes.
Meeting guys is a pain 😛
I’ll point out that I met online…
For which I congratulate you on your skill and good fortune. =) I have systematically found myself lacking one or both. =)