Steph Not Stephanie

I went out for Veggielicious with some lovely ladies last week, and the topic of conversation turned to dating. One of my horror stories made it in The Grid this week (StephNotHanna isn’t quite as catchy), and we were discussing online dating in general.

I went out with a guy two weeks ago who had disclosed some rather personal information: he enjoys wearing tights. Now, I am not about to judge someone for what floats their boat (aside from asking who the fuck thinks tights are comfortable? I would rather set myself on fire than wear them). It got me thinking about the nature of this online thing and how willing people are to disclose ‘secrets’ they wouldn’t likely open up about in person. I mentioned this gentleman’s preferences to the girls, and one of my friends brought up a guy she spoke with via the site’s IM function. He works for a lawyer, and this lawyer has a rule that all her employees have to wear stockings/lingerie. I nearly choked on my latke, because I remembered speaking to this gainfully employed fellow myself, and he said the exact same thing. A discussion on whether he was just bullshitting ensued, but my friend and I maintain that a) he probably does enjoy wearing lingerie and b) he would do it regardless. He even used the perks of the job (something about private jets) to ‘justify’ his preferences to both of us.

Here’s the thing: if you like wearing lingerie, good for you. What I don’t get is this drive to make a profile on an online dating site to tell the same story to a bunch of women, really early on in the game. Obviously he’s not interested in meeting; he’s getting his rocks off just talking about it. At least the dude I went out with didn’t lead with the tights thing. What really boggles my mind is the fact that this is the internet: there are tons of communities of likeminded people who would probably love to hear about how awesome your new corset is. Why they wouldn’t just talk about it there, I’ll never know.

Slightly unrelated: People often ask if I ever have good dates. They do happen, but I don’t usually share as they’re not as entertaining for blogging purposes. Shout out to ‘Edwin,’ who will be cooking me dinner tonight (it better be fabulous, no pressure) and has already expressed fear of showing up on here (I have broken many rules thus far, including the ‘sharing the blog’ rule. I am not good at this).