Is sex passionate and meaningful anymore?

Czarcasm wrote: »

*Packs webcam away again*


Damn you anyway pharmaton


Don't mind if I steal that line though? It's class!

work away, I know you wife will appreciate it

I must say AHers, you're all becoming impeccably sexy of late. Could it be the dark winter evenings or the warm toasty fire fanning the flames of desire, igniting a little sexy spark in each of us? are your beds a little colder for not having it pre warmed by another? POF run out of women?

Stheno wrote: »

I met my OH here on boards, and five years later we have a great relationship and a good sex life

I've also met people I share a common interest with (mainly the motors crowd) and gotten help and advice and assistance fixing stuff that I'd never get offline if that makes sense.

Just tonight a small problem I had with my car was solved by a member on here volunteering help.

Is that weird?

The person I'd consider my very best friend would be a boardsie and I wouldn't obviously know them without the Internet, however, I didn't come on the Internet looking for a friend, the same way I could never imagine myself going on a website looking for NSA.

paulieeye wrote: »

So I think its safe to say that some people are comfortable online dating (maybe because you know the person that little bit more first) and some aren't. Much the same as some people are comfortable talking to random people they know nothing about in pubs/clubs and some aren't.

You don't really know them any better tbh, you know things ABOUT them, but you don't know them if you've never met them, and that's why I agree with strobe when he says you have to move it into the physical meeting asap because all too often people get caught up in their own fantasy expectations and build up a profile in their minds of the person they WANT that person to be, as opposed to who they are offline. I'm sure you've heard of online LDRs where two people have a "connection" even though they've never met. It's a connection based on a false premise.

As I said before, it just sets up the initial meeting, that is it. After then its up to you. If online dating doesnt work for you, then its hardly the online dating at fault (as long as you are going on dates that is).

Absolutely, I agree with you here, it's very much down to the person themselves, but more and more people are using online dating sites as a substitute for physical social interaction and closing themselves off from opportunities offline in favor of a fantasy relationship online where they base their self worth on their number of profile views or contact requests, etc.

As you can see from this thread (correct me if I missed something here) but the people who are pro online dating are the people who actually used it. The people who think its gross/weird have not, surely that must tell us something!

I don't think it's gross or weird, I think the OP is badly worded, and advocates of online dating are putting words in people's mouths. You can promote physical interaction above online interaction or vice versa without denigrating either, but the important thing is to keep some perspective and realise that you will never have in the virtual world what you can have in the physical one.

It's like I said earlier - You can't ignore the thousands of singles on various online dating sites for whom online dating hasn't worked out for, in favor of a handful of anecdotes for whom it has worked out for.

Some people the lack of physical interaction even suits them, and that's an aspect you can't really ignore either. Somebody in the thread linked to it earlier but there's an article going around about Japan's lack of interest in physical interaction and intimacy in favor of virtual interaction and intimacy.

I'd hate for that sort of lack of physical intimacy to catch on, I still like my sex sweaty, filthy, physical, instinctive, as opposed to the nuances of treating it like an interview selection process!

Daveysil15 wrote: »

Not necessarily. If you go in with realistic expectations and not take it too seriously, then its all good. Now I know there are more than likely a lot more people who have been unsuccessful with online dating as opposed to those who it has worked for, but if you're that easily disillusioned then you're going to struggle in both areas.

Totally agree with you Dave in one respect, but it's so much easier to be disillusioned in the virtual world even if you're the most rational person offline.

More generalising. Why does it have to be a substitute? Plenty of people use online dating in conjunction with their normal everyday lives. It's not just for socially inept people and randy feckers looking for a quick lay. There is a middle ground.

*cough*


But honestly, the whole premise the OP is based on is indeed randy feckers looking for a quick lay! That's the thing- with online interactions it's nigh on impossible to nail it down to individual's specific motivations to cover all the bases, so when we talk about online interactions vs physical interactions, it's almost impossible NOT to generalise as there's no quantifiable specific data available.

paulieeye wrote: »

I think we are talking about 2 different things here. I'm saying that normal use of a dating site can work out very well for you. I would definitely recommend it and have done so to many friends people. If you want to meet people who you know a bit about first and have had a chance to chat to then go for it.

I see it being recommended for people all the time, you only have to look in PI on this site alone to see how many times it's recommended by posters who consider themselves "socially awkward" -

"Have you tried Online Dating OP?", which does nothing to solve their social awkwardness, in fact only enables it, postpones the inevitable, because they'll still have to meet the person! And that's where the online CV and all those flirty chats can suddenly go tits up - expectation doesn't match reality!

Honestly, if I'd a dime for every person I've met who's been left embittered by their lack of success in the physical world, only to have that compounded by their lack of success in the online dating world, well, the success to failure ratio among a very small sample of a few hundred I've met over the years is about one in ten - For every one person who proclaims online dating has worked for them, I've met nine people that has had their disillusionment compounded by it.

Plus the amount of beautiful girls on plenty of fish is astounding!

The amount of beautiful girls you'll meet on a daily basis that you don't even give a second look is even more astounding! Think about it - you'll send a wink to some random girl after reading her profile, but you wouldn't ask a beautiful girl you meet on the street to go for a coffee with you? Why is that?

Because it doesn't require as much effort to send a wink as it does to approach a girl offline.

Daveysil15 wrote: »

Not sure I'd agree with that. Facebook isn't really a place where you'd actually look to hook up with someone is it? Maybe I'm missing something here.

Ahh Dave!

I thought we'd already established people aren't actually that bad, you can't honestly tell me you... Now THAT I find even harder to believe myself tbh! I've just met somebody online who doesn't know that facebook and twitter are THE tools for online hookups! I'm not easily shocked, but that's floored me :pac:

Because we're not living in America. :pac: Shur that would be a very creepy thing to be doing in Ireland like.

No but in all seriousness though, its not the done thing here.

I know what you're saying and all that it's not the "done thing", so I can't really introduce my anecdotal evidence that says I've gone for more coffees with random girls I've met on the street, on buses, in shops, galleries, geez feckin' LOADS of places besides the usual pubs 'n' clubs, activities, etc, you make some great friendships that way, and I don't have a particularly large set of cohones either, I just ask, straight out - "Would you like to go for coffee?". It's a lot more direct than sending forty odd winks, flirts or virtual gifts or whatever to a load of girls and hoping one of them replies with "Hi"... :pac:





I could've been a real bastard and pointed out your use of the word creepy when physically asking a girl to go for a coffee is the same creepy that some posters thought of online dating, but that'd have been mean


One person's creepy is another person's perfectly normal, and vice versa of course

Czarcasm wrote: »

Ahh Dave!

I thought we'd already established people aren't actually that bad, you can't honestly tell me you... Now THAT I find even harder to believe myself tbh! I've just met somebody online who doesn't know that facebook and twitter are THE tools for online hookups! I'm not easily shocked, but that's floored me :pac:

Are you for real? I think you're confusing facebook with fookbook. It's a networking site, not a hook up site. I don't use twitter so can't comment on that.

Daveysil15 wrote: »

Are you for real? I think you're confusing facebook with fookbook. It's a networking site, not a hook up site. I don't use twitter so can't comment on that.

Davey people have been hooking up on social networking sites since before the term "social networking" was even coined. Widemouth and Optichat were two of the more popular ones in Ireland before bebo came along, and then facebook, tagged, many many more...

paulieeye wrote: »

If you had to put your point into 20 words or less, what would it be??

20 words eh, might just squeeze it -

Czarcasm wrote: »

despite the rising popularity of "Online Dating" in society nowadays, it's still a shìte way to judge potential sexual suitors!

Czarcasm wrote: »

Ahh Dave!

I thought we'd already established people aren't actually that bad, you can't honestly tell me you... Now THAT I find even harder to believe myself tbh! I've just met somebody online who doesn't know that facebook and twitter are THE tools for online hookups! I'm not easily shocked, but that's floored me :pac:

Do you mean hook-up as in, meet a guy/girl in "real life", add them on facebook or twitter, have the chats for a bit and then arrange to meet up?

Coz I'd never consider either of those sites as hook-up joints at all, outside of the above sort of route. Sure, if you're a woman on facebook (can't comment on the male experience) you'll get the odd creepy "Hi beauty, saw your profile & thought you were gorgeous, wanna chat xxxxxx " from randomers, but I assumed most if not all women would ignore those kind of characters for obvious reasons...I'd be fairly cautious about contact / messages / friend requests from ANY random guy on facebook who I hadn't met before because I see it as a "friends/family/acquaintances" kind of thing.

As for Twitter, I see it as a professional tool given my line of work and wouldn't DREAM of engaging with a random flirty stranger any more than I would in a work environment. Most of the people who I follow / follow me would be the same - I don't see it as a personal medium at all. Haven't heard of many dating scenarios that arose from it either.

beks101 wrote: »

Do you mean hook-up as in, meet a guy/girl in "real life", add them on facebook or twitter, have the chats for a bit and then arrange to meet up?

Coz I'd never consider either of those sites as hook-up joints at all, outside of the above sort of route. Sure, if you're a woman on facebook (can't comment on the male experience) you'll get the odd creepy "Hi beauty, saw your profile & thought you were gorgeous, wanna chat xxxxxx " from randomers, but I assumed most if not all women would ignore those kind of characters for obvious reasons...I'd be fairly cautious about contact / messages / friend requests from ANY random guy on facebook who I hadn't met before because I see it as a "friends/family/acquaintances" kind of thing.

As for Twitter, I see it as a professional tool given my line of work and wouldn't DREAM of engaging with a random flirty stranger any more than I would in a work environment. Most of the people who I follow / follow me would be the same - I don't see it as a personal medium at all. Haven't heard of many dating scenarios that arose from it either.

beks I understand it's different strokes for different folks and all that, but I can't believe more people aren't aware of the phenomenon, well, it's not even a recent phenomenon, people have been doing it for years. Here's just one article on the subject, and this is only from a very quick Google search by way of trying to explain the concept -


http://www.sexysocialmedia.com/navigating-the-dating-game-on-facebook-and-twitter/

Czarcasm wrote: »

beks I understand it's different strokes for different folks and all that, but I can't believe more people aren't aware of the phenomenon, well, it's not even a recent phenomenon, people have been doing it for years. Here's just one article on the subject, and this is only from a very quick Google search by way of trying to explain the concept -


http://www.sexysocialmedia.com/navigating-the-dating-game-on-facebook-and-twitter/

That article talks about the various 'dating apps' you can use on Twitter and Facebook though, not your random "hey @hotguy1000, I like your profile, let's hook up" kind of thing you're talking about.

While that obviously happens, I seriously doubt it's as big a phenomenon as you seem to think it is. Most women I know would be cagey about random adds or messages or tweets like that when the guy was completely unconnected to them - no friends in common or anything. (unless yer man was a SERIOUS roide and very obviously not some nutjob / halfwit)

Czarcasm, you can't honestly say more people hook up on facebook than all the dating and swinging sites put together. That's just silly. If that were the case they never would have invented fookbook.

Czarcasm wrote: »

Christ Dave you're an early riser!

But yeah I mean, ok, it may have been a slight exaggeration on my part as there are thousands and thousands of online dating sites, let alone the many thousands of social networking sites (For example in China, facebook hardly even get a look in!), but certainly in the States, Facebook is commonly used ahead of dating sites for meeting people for whatever takes your fancy. I know you're saying it's a social network, not a sex network, but as Lexie gave a good example of earlier - people do indeed just add random friends and if they're attracted to them they arrange a meeting. My friends don't so much add randomers as opposed to actually seeking guys out on Facebook and twitter for ONS and NSA. They go on dating sites for the same reason, but facebook would be their primary method for online dating.

So are your friends women seeking out men, or are you just saying 'guys' colloquially? If they are women then I can see how it would work. I think men would find it more difficult to find NSA on facebook for obvious reasons as beks mentioned.

Now granted its certainly feasible to meet people on facebook. My cousin actually met his wife on facebook, but they had been chatting for a long time and they didn't meet up for NSA. They took it slowly. :cool: I've met a few women on facebook too, but again, nothing to do with the naughty stuff. We just shared a common interest and decided to meet up.

I'd imagine its not that common, but if people are meeting on facebook for a bit of the how's you father, well fair fooks to them I suppose.