OK Cupid: Round IVXXXIX

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That said, nice pics. I really like your pics.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

oh also, i had an honest question for the thread. I have had this profile on OKC for years now, with minimal success (few real dates, and even fewer message responses) I haven't really updated it in a while and i was wondering if i should just tweak the stuff thats changed in the meantime(for instance, I've now got my BA and am no longer a student) or start over from scratch. I've got a rough draft for a new profile, but first i'd like to know what you guys think. here it is:

https://www.okcupid.com/profile/Chelagoras

In addition to everything Nigel said, get rid of the income, add a couple more things on "you should message me if," switch out your profile pic for one with better lighting and focus, and answer another couple hundred questions. Oh, and your media section needs some newer entries, too.

I don't know if this is universal, but every time I see "kissing" "cuddling" or similar smarmy shit in the good at section I barf a little in my mouth. This may be a personal problem.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Ugh.

I can conceive of scenarios in which this dude is not wrong. Very rare and very extreme. But it's that extreme part that would make the line "I'm not here to help you cheat on your wife" burn a hole through what would already be a pretty imperiled heart.

I would really love to hear a version of reality where people are wrong for calling cheating cheating.

Spend enough time on Tumblr and i guarantee you'll find one.

Or the most popular advice column in the country for 30 seconds:

Dan Savage:

"If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?" he said. "I look at that and I say 'You know, do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. And maybe that involves cheating, but as the lesser of two evils. Divorce is an evil, cheating is an evil, there are circumstances in which cheating is the lesser evil."

When pressed on it, he's painstaking about going into the extremely rare circumstances where he feels that could be the case...ie spouse is somehow sick. Like bad sick. You're still in love. The relationship is otherwise healthy. There is a lot more relying on the marriage than just the two people in it.

In that situation is it best to end the marriage? Is it best to discuss the possibility of opening the marriage with an already sick and insecure partner? Is it best to just suck it up for...maybe years...and be celibate in solidarity with your partner (even at the expense of fighting resentment that threatens to turn you into a raving asshole)? Or is it best to have an affair?

I don't know. I'm not in that situation. And I'd readily accuse anyone else who wasn't in that situation and said that they do, of talking out their ass.

Or say the sick partner has told the other to have an affair and never let them know about it. Is that even cheating at that point? I don't know. I'm not there. Same, same others and the talking out their ass.

One thing that's not hard for me to imagine about all this, though, is how shitty the whole situation would feel. None of the options are good options. Every option comes with the weight of external and internal judgement? And reading "I won't date someone who's spouse doesn't know...I'm not here to help you cheat," would be a big fat punch in the gut. You said it yourself, "truth hurts." I can readily conjure a million and one scenarios where I'd happily punch some fucker (or myself) in the gut with words like that. But I can also conjure scenarios like the one above where I think it would be extremely dickish to do so.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hate to say this, but Dan Savage is wrong.

Not because I believe in 100% monogamy or absolutes or that there are no gray areas, but because 1. the scenarios he describes are fucking ridiculous (you expect me to believe that the marriage is healthy even though one person is totally done with sex and yet not ok with talking about the other person seeking it elsewhere? Yeah right) and 2. an outside observer deciding when cheating is OK is ridiculous bullshit. Only the people IN the marriage can decide that, and if one person is unaware then there is something non-consensual going on.

Lastly, it doesn't even matter, because speaking of consent, if anyone is uncomfortable with sleeping with a married person, there's no reason they should ever feel pressured to because "it's OK". I don't care if this guy is in one of those exceedingly rare situations where his wife simply doesn't want sex ever again (and it's not that she has young children and she's harried and he no longer bothers to take her out or woo her) and yet somehow the marriage is perfect and healthy and they're both miraculously happy and great communicators in every way, except absolutely not in the sex department. Nobody has to want to get involved with that. And frankly it sounds like a hot mess of self-deception and eventual drama.

And if his wife has terminal cancer and he's madly in love with her and is just desperate to nut off in a real live human, you know what? NOBODY IN THEIR FUCKING RIGHT MIND WOULD WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN A MESS LIKE THAT. Fuck that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For that matter, anyone, absolutely anyone, is also completely within their rights to not be interested in sleeping with someone who's married even if it IS a 100% consensual and informed open marriage. Even poly people. Before I met my old man on the side, I was dead set against being anyone's "second".

Partly because of having dated several men in "poly" relationships who turned out to actually be in the process of divorces brought on by their adventures in open-marriage land, ie. their wives found someone they liked better. Dating people who are in the midst of marital turmoil sucks ass. But that's an aside.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Lastly, if it's cheating (ie. spouse is uninformed) there is still nothing wrong with calling it what it is.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

For that matter, anyone, absolutely anyone, is also completely within their rights to not be interested in sleeping with someone who's married even if it IS a 100% consensual and informed open marriage. Even poly people. Before I met my old man on the side, I was dead set against being anyone's "second".

Partly because of having dated several men in "poly" relationships who turned out to actually be in the process of divorces brought on by their adventures in open-marriage land, ie. their wives found someone they liked better. Dating people who are in the midst of marital turmoil sucks ass. But that's an aside.

Oh, I wouldn't touch the situation with a ten foot pole. But "I'm not interested in dating someone who's spouse doesn't know," is a fully adequate statement of that. Throwing in "I'm not here to help you cheat," doesn't accomplish anything but saying "and this is how I judge that behavior."

I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that it is judgmental, assumes something that may or may not be true, and there's a possibility that it's being read by somebody who it's unduly dickish towards.

If I threw up a profile that said, "I'm not interested in being a part of a poly/open situation. I'm not here to accommodate deviance." I would imagine I'd get a message or two like the one this dude sent.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Ugh.

I can conceive of scenarios in which this dude is not wrong. Very rare and very extreme. But it's that extreme part that would make the line "I'm not here to help you cheat on your wife" burn a hole through what would already be a pretty imperiled heart.

I would really love to hear a version of reality where people are wrong for calling cheating cheating.

Spend enough time on Tumblr and i guarantee you'll find one.

Or the most popular advice column in the country for 30 seconds:

Dan Savage:

"If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?" he said. "I look at that and I say 'You know, do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. And maybe that involves cheating, but as the lesser of two evils. Divorce is an evil, cheating is an evil, there are circumstances in which cheating is the lesser evil."

When pressed on it, he's painstaking about going into the extremely rare circumstances where he feels that could be the case...ie spouse is somehow sick. Like bad sick. You're still in love. The relationship is otherwise healthy. There is a lot more relying on the marriage than just the two people in it.

In that situation is it best to end the marriage? Is it best to discuss the possibility of opening the marriage with an already sick and insecure partner? Is it best to just suck it up for...maybe years...and be celibate in solidarity with your partner (even at the expense of fighting resentment that threatens to turn you into a raving asshole)? Or is it best to have an affair?

I don't know. I'm not in that situation. And I'd readily accuse anyone else who wasn't in that situation and said that they do, of talking out their ass.

Or say the sick partner has told the other to have an affair and never let them know about it. Is that even cheating at that point? I don't know. I'm not there. Same, same others and the talking out their ass.

One thing that's not hard for me to imagine about all this, though, is how shitty the whole situation would feel. None of the options are good options. Every option comes with the weight of external and internal judgement? And reading "I won't date someone who's spouse doesn't know...I'm not here to help you cheat," would be a big fat punch in the gut. You said it yourself, "truth hurts." I can readily conjure a million and one scenarios where I'd happily punch some fucker (or myself) in the gut with words like that. But I can also conjure scenarios like the one above where I think it would be extremely dickish to do so.

Okay, first off, Dan Savage is not saying it's not cheating, he's just saying in that one crazy hypothetical scenario that cheating would still be okay. It's still a spade, I'm still well within my rights to call it a spade.

Second, the thing our friend up there is bitching about is the first sentence of the profile, which reads "I AM NOT HERE TO HELP YOU CHEAT ON YOUR WIFE." Because I got five of those in a week and they were all weasely bastards that tried to a) avoid mentioning the cheating cheaters thing and b) accuse me of being a bad person for not being willing to participate in their unethical extracuriculars. And yes, cheating on your spouse is unethical. It may be the most ethical option out of several unethical ones, but that does not change the fact that it is wrong. The extra sentence there is his suggestion for an alternative, because I should be respectful of his fee-fees.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For that matter, anyone, absolutely anyone, is also completely within their rights to not be interested in sleeping with someone who's married even if it IS a 100% consensual and informed open marriage. Even poly people. Before I met my old man on the side, I was dead set against being anyone's "second".

Partly because of having dated several men in "poly" relationships who turned out to actually be in the process of divorces brought on by their adventures in open-marriage land, ie. their wives found someone they liked better. Dating people who are in the midst of marital turmoil sucks ass. But that's an aside.

Oh, I wouldn't touch the situation with a ten foot pole. But "I'm not interested in dating someone who's spouse doesn't know," is a fully adequate statement of that. Throwing in "I'm not here to help you cheat," doesn't accomplish anything but saying "and this is how I judge that behavior."

I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that it is judgmental, assumes something that may or may not be true, and there's a possibility that it's being read by somebody who it's unduly dickish towards.

If I threw up a profile that said, "I'm not interested in being a part of a poly/open situation. I'm not here to accommodate deviance." I would imagine I'd get a message or two like the one this dude sent.

Oh, fuck that. "I'm not here to help you cheat" is direct and to the point. The cheater knows he's cheating, and anyone who isn't cheating knows it's not directed at them. Judgmental? Sure. It's meant to send a loud and clear message to THAT PERSON, WHO IS IN FACT CHEATING ON  THEIR SPOUSE, that she's not fucking interested. Who gives a fuck if it gives them a pang of guilt because their conscience isn't clear?

It doesn't say "I'm not interested in helping you cheat, you lying scumsack". Should she use a friendly euphemism for cheating? It is what it is.

Are you saying that merely CALLING it cheating, when it is in fact cheating, is somehow harsh? I think the argument could be made for A. No fucks given, and B. If someone is on OK Cupid and looking to cheat, if they are so fragile that seeing it called "cheating" is going to injure their ego, they need to get the fuck off OK Cupid because they are in no way up for the emotional rigors of dating anyone. Period.

Basically, fuck that guy, he can go fuck himself. If he doesn't have the emotional fortitude and intellectual honesty to simply SEE the word for what he's doing on the profile of someone who isn't even interested, he can't handle doing it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's like asking a tax accountant to understate your income and getting all butthurt when the accountant says "I'm not willing to help you cheat on your taxes".

"BUT YOU'RE BEING SO JUDGMENTAL, YOU DON'T HAVE TO CALL IT CHEATING, PLUS I HAVE TOTALLY VALID REASONS TO TRY TO FUDGE MY INCOME, YOU'RE BEING UNNECESSARILY HARSH"

Ummmm...

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I remember talking to one guy who had permission to fuck around but the arrangement with the missus was that they not tell each other anything about it, and while I did decline I did not hateshit all over the guy for it. Because even though that's a weird kind of permission that looks like an enormous DANGER WILL ROBINSON to me, he does have permission and therefore is not a cheating cheater.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Basically, I don't think that LG should feel bad because some random jerk feels guilty about cheating on his wife.

I don't, in fact, give a fuck what his excuses are, and I don't see why she should either. You know what the reasonable thing to do is, when you encounter the profile of someone who is not interested in you or your circumstances? Click away, look for someone else.

I would put money on the table that this guy isn't butthurt because she called cheating cheating. My bet is that he's butthurt because she's hot and she made it clear in her profile that she won't fuck him. I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten from guys who are mad that I won't even "give them a chance".

It's entitlement, pure and simple. Asshole farm up there is mad because he wants to cheat without anyone calling it cheating, but even more so, he's mad because she's closed the door on something he thinks he deserves, which is access to that fine ass.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think the thing that pisses me off the most about the "respect the cheater's feelings" argument is that because the cheater's spouse doesn't know, the cheater has essentially forced them into a non-consensual relationship. It's not rape, but the cheater has taken away their spouse's ability to choose whether that's the relationship they want to be in. And regardless of what the cheater says (and hell, if they're lying to their spouse, why expect them to be honest with total strangers?), totally "sexless marriages" are INCREDIBLY rare, so the odds are that the spouse is also having at least occasional unprotected sex with someone who they believe to be monogamous, but is not. That's an incredible violation of trust.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Basically, I don't think that LG should feel bad because some random jerk feels guilty about cheating on his wife.

I don't, in fact, give a fuck what his excuses are, and I don't see why she should either. You know what the reasonable thing to do is, when you encounter the profile of someone who is not interested in you or your circumstances? Click away, look for someone else.

I would put money on the table that this guy isn't butthurt because she called cheating cheating. My bet is that he's butthurt because she's hot and she made it clear in her profile that she won't fuck him. I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten from guys who are mad that I won't even "give them a chance".

It's entitlement, pure and simple. Asshole farm up there is mad because he wants to cheat without anyone calling it cheating, but even more so, he's mad because she's closed the door on something he thinks he deserves, which is access to that fine ass.

In addition to the entitlement angle, I think the last little bit about "trying to make you better" is especially telling. You see, I am a woman who does not want to sleep with him, and therefore I must be wrong and broken and need a middle-aged know-it-all white male atheist to fix me.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did not look this guy up or message him first. His profile is really fantastic, though. He heavily implies he has talked this over with the wife, when it's clear from our discussion that no he has not.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

  Actually, come to think of it, I think a legal argument for rape could be made, on the same premise that it is legally rape if you significantly falsely represent yourself in order to convince someone to have sex with you.

I'm surprised there isn't legal precedent for that, especially since bringing home a disease is definitely something that happens fairly frequently. I even knew someone who died from AIDS due to her cheating partner bringing it home. I know that in Oregon, at least, knowingly spreading an STD is illegal (partly due to Shawn's death, actually), but I wonder what the precedent, if there is one, is regarding having unprotected sex under the pretense of monogamy.