Internet dating is filled with confusing jargon. Hayden Darkwith decodes.

i’ve gotten on a tangent here about internet dating.

not long ago, i discussed the tres sketch craigslist, which is so sketch, even i don’t use it—and i have a paid subscription to manhunt. (i’m letting the manhunt subscription expire at the end of the month though, pickings have gotten even slimmer on there than at blur. i never thought a college town bar would need to designate a college night, but jesus!)

but you have other gay internet dating options. gay.com, connexion, true.com, etc. but you might find the profile descriptions on there confusing; even harder, writing one yourself. there’s a whole mess of confusing shit on there: VGL, HWP, PNP, 2M4M, NSA, FB, what does it all mean? thankfully, i’m here to translate some common gay internet profile terminology so that you don’t go in unitiated, setting up a PNP threesome when you really wanted a piss play foursome or a pig play twosome (word to the wise: don’t abbreviate words starting with the letter “P”).

let’s consider some purely hypothetical internet profiles which are completely fictional and which i promise i did not copy and paste at 2:23 this morning.

example 1:

“HWP dude looking for NSA fun.”

“HWP”. translation: “height weight proportional. this is a politically correct way of saying that i am not fat, which should give you a pretty good idea of how skilled i am at subtlety, and that it would be inaccurate to describe myself as slim, toned, muscular, athletic, or attractive. don’t say you weren’t warned.”

“NSA fun”. translation: “no strings attached. let’s at least have a few good romps in the sack before a few inevitable conversations where we find out we hate each other too much to get our dicks up without rubbing them with viagra and cocaine. or that we like each other and fall in love. either way, good times had by all!”

let’s move onto something more challenging.

“Normal guy here, not into the scene, looking for fun.”

“Normal.” translation: “although most people discover that they are separate from the defined mainstream and grow to resent the box that everyone gets forced into and that life can be more than just a hollow carapace chinked with the necessary failings, miseries, and impossibilities of emulating the status quo, i didn’t.”

“not into the scene” translation: “dancing scares me.”

“looking for fun.” translation: “looking for sex.” although everyone’s looking for sex, so this is a bit superfluous. it’s true! even your mom was looking for sex, evidenced by you. and if you’re a gay male, there’s a good chance you have lots of older brothers, which means she took it in two! well, not necessarily, but would you know if she didn’t?

let’s try an even more difficult one. test yourself: guess what it means before i tell you!

“looking for masculine guy for drama-free relationship.”

“looking for masculine guy” translation: “i don’t actually want masculinity. if i did, i would go down to the eagle and get a hairy bear who could parallel park a semi at 50 miles per hour without stalling out while smashing six beer cans on his forehead and providing intelligent commentary on why it would be better for the packers if favre stayed in retirement ALL DURING A SINGLE POWERSLIDE.” (Editor: Are we just talking about the amateur Atlanta Eagle hairy bear here? The good ones can do this while attaching nipple clamps.) (me: to themselves, or to others?) “what i really mean is that i want… (choose one)…

“fratty masculine. you should be able to get past the dress-code enforcing doorman at Bourbon Street in the clothes you wear in the shower. and rich.

“Abercrombie masculine. i want to be able to crack walnuts on your pectoral muscles. also, thick, bushy eyebrows that end in a rectangular boundary drawn by laser beams.

“high school jock masculine. i want a man who can play a sport. a masculine sport. like football. also i never got over Jimmy Stearns, my high school quarterback and FCA huddle leader. i’m convinced there are some gay guys out there who are 22 year old versions of him, minus going to auburn and getting fat and kind of weird in the face after early onset puberty took a wrong turn.

“dumpy masculine. only by making fun of the polished guys with the six packs and attributing it to an effeminate, queeny obsession with their appearance can i be comfortable with the fact that i am normal looking. you can be normal looking too. well, i mean, you don’t have to be, you can be hot. just be ok with the fact that i’m normal looking.

“top masculine. i’m a bottom, and it seemed tacky to write ‘power bottom looking for horse-hung top’ in a place where all my students might see it.

“suspicion-free masculine. my ultra religious family, without excessive inquiry, must not be given cause to suspect that we aren’t spending our time smoking pot and playing halo and that you’ve instead spent four hours a day spelunking my asshole in grandma’s basement.”

whew! that’s quite a lot! if only people were more specific! but such is the inherent ambiguity of language. most gay internet daters don’t read Saussure.

TOMORROW’S BLOG: yet more gay internet dating translations! because i’m going to milk this gimmick for all it’s worth! which is at least one more blog entry. also Josh is in D.C. and he needs a bit of a vay-cay.