Sociopathy is a Must

You know, I really owe a lot of things to the Internet. I've found every single job I have ever held in my professional career on CraigsList. Ditto for my living spaces. And, thanks to NetVibes, I don't really have to read newspapers or magazines anymore. When I want to know what's happening on any given night, I simply pop over to Going to see what the deal is. My friends and I stay connected via Myspace and Facebook, and by the glory of Google, I never have to delete any of my emails. I've avoided possible food poisoning by checking out some of the reviews on Yelp! before hitting up a dodgy sushi bar in Pico Union, and by the same token, found a bevy of phenomenal ones thanks to a discussion on ChowHound.

These days, it's possible to avoid actual human contact all together.

Enter eFlirting.

"You met him where?!"

Home to a veritable treasure trove of stolen goods, thinly veiled drug solicitations, and blatant offers of prostitution, CraigsList also provides space for the broken-hearted, lazy, and / or alternative (read: anti-social) to get their date on. Despite heavy competition from pay-sites like eHarmony and JDate, CraigsList maintains a hefty user base, partly because it's free, but mostly because it provides anonymity in the Gen Pop's oft-unsuccessful searches for one-night-stands.

The Casual Encounters section (a misnomer, no matter which way you cut it) is filled to the brim with men, women, and transgenders seeking that glorious, singular feeling one gets while having drunken sex with a random pile of flesh -- that "Wait, what? This is crazy! Fuck it!" moment; that lingering farewell cigarette; that hour of meditation spent inches to the right of where a warm body once lay. And I'm not being facetious either. Melodramtic perhaps, but there is an undeniable energy to the drunken hookup.

It's absurd sex fueled by the absurdity of the situation and it's the corner stone of eFlirtation. Be it a "casual encounter", a date, a conversation, or a relationship, the absurdity is what sparks the initial attraction.

That notion became glaringly obvious when I mistakenly added somebody that I thought I knew on Facebook. I sent her a message talking about some party, how I was sorry that I made her miss a sorority Barbie getting dropped while attempting a keg stand, and listed out my top 5 drunken quips of the night. She could've responded, "Sorry, you've got the wrong girl" and left it at that. Instead, intrigued, she started a correspondence. One week later we were dating. One month later, we were in a relationship. Officially. Our Facebooks reflected it.

And while the relationship didn't last too long due to us "being in different places," it proved a point. Flirting with and even dating someone you meet on the Internet is not only possible, it's...strangely legitimate.

That same jolt of excitement/playfulness/regret/worry/indifference that occurs mid-inebriated liaison, happens the exact moment you hit the send button.

Will they reply? Should I have done this? I feel like an idiot. I should've said something different. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

In the same way that Ecstasy emulates euphoria, these playful exchanges of email emulate the feeling you got when you awkwardly kissed Margaux Janda in 6th grade in the back of the Centennial Ice Rink, lips coated in the residue of Sour Licorice Straws; the feeling you got when you started hitting on Aimee Mellinger by recommendation of your good friend who neglected to mention that the bitch was crazy-- that feeling of uncertainty, that optimistic capriciousness, that complete and utter sale of self.

The Appeal of the Meat Market

So why not skip the awkward feeler questions? Why not go online, peruse the personals, hoping to find the one?

Because most of the time, it's not real.

It's no longer about the sale of self, it's about the sale of self shoved into a mold of what you think the opposite sex wants.

All those imperfections, those endearing little nervous ticks that you can't stand, your cautious approach to all situations, your absolute ineptitude at maintaining interesting conversation -- it's... it's gone.

See, now it's no longer a courtship, it's a cover letter replete with the typical bullshit resume filled with embellishments and tactfully omitted facts. You are an avatar designed to push past HR, and I mean this literally as much as I do figuratively, because I swear to G-d that the moment a question about what negative traits you have comes up you either shut up, ignore it, or jocularly reply, "Well, some people say I'm too confident."

And it's not like it can be helped. The fantasy is running on both ends, with suitor requirements ranging from being "tall, dark, and handsome" to knowing all of the dialogue from Rolling Thunder. These generally ham-fisted, butter-faced, iLliteRat social outcasts list demands upon demands hoping to find that perfect somebody when all they really want is for someone, scratch that, anyone to pay attention to them.

And so why not skip the awkward feeler questions?

Because without them we leave our Ego to play Cyrano de Bergerac for our inept Id. Because without them, the entire relationship is based upon unrealistic expectations. Because as I have said time and time again, the difference between Like and Love is how much you can tolerate a person's faults.

"Can I be real for a second?"

I'm not saying that Internet dating is inherently negative. Certainly, I myself have found myself inventing scenarios to get the attention of a random Myspace hottie, or writing self-aggrandizing, meandering replies to Personal ads.

My rationale is the same as with real flirtation: maybe this will work, maybe it won't. My emails are conversation starters, just like in real life.

But for most people, it's not like in real life. For most people, who they become on the Internet is a reflection of who they desperately wish they could be. And it's fine if you want to pretend to be a restaurant connoisseur, or a vehement muckraker, or a trend-setting club promoter. That doesn't have to carry over into the real world. But when you start trying to be a smooth-talking elitist jock online only to come off as the uncomfortable data analyst at Dinner, what does that accomplish? Instead of learning how to successfully and comfortably be yourself, you spend hours trying to write your way into becoming this ideal. You relegate yourself to tens upon tens of false starts and, in the process, miss chances at actual connections.

How soul-crushingly depressing is that?

eVite me to 2015.

Much of the absurdity people find in Internet Dating is due to the perception that it probably won't work. They make a post, and after sorting through form letters and dick pics, they find one email that just shines. They get excited. They hurriedly throw together a cute response, careful not to seem too interested. They get another response, and now, they're really excited because, holy shit, this might actually work! And then they meet.

Fuck.

I don't use maps anymore. I don't really read magazines. I don't go to record stores. I don't keep a diary.

The Internet has simply provided better alternatives.

But despite this affinity for technology, I haven't forgotten how to be myself.

Internet Dating is arguably a better alternative to the whole bar scene, and is certainly a better alternative to blind dates. But until the disconnect between People and People on the Internet dissolves, it's never going to be a viable alternative.

Ever.

Guantanamo Bay: The Clinton Years

Sometimes Los Angeles stops moving.

It's like watching a wide-eyed child disappear quietly into the darkness. You're left with a memory of her face, eager and wired, and a nagging confusion as to why exactly this had to happen. And perhaps that's a little melodramatic, but to Los Angelenos (you know, the drug-addled, self-involved assholes who never refer to themselves as Los Angelenos), when nothing's going on a Friday night, our usual flirtation/twitterpation/confrontation attitude slows, pauses, and then makes a quick turn to bewilderness.

We breathe earthquakes, guns, car chases, and inebriation; the absence of chaos is the absence of life. Quippy aphorisms alone just do not cut it in the City of Angels.

And so it was, Friday, as that wide-eyed child fade slowly out of view, that I sat scrolling through names and numbers, methodically calling and saying "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing."

Fucking politics -- Muck and mire in tweed blazers and selvage denim.

You see, you can't just ask someone for something in Los Angeles. It's un-Hollywood, it's *gasp* so Manhattan. Thus, it's "Hey, what's up?" and not "I'm in shambles, it's one of those Fridays, what the fuck." It's showbiz in this town, you can't just pitch something. You have to feign interest in someones life, you have to pretend like you're not about to sell them a dream, you have to... chit-chat.

But it's not just school yard gossip. No, it's complicated meandering conversation, meant to sound as genuine as possible. You build up a rapport, and then slide gingerly in for the kill.

And as silly as it sounds, it is absolutely necessary.

Take this presently bemoaned Friday for example:

First. When you call, you know they're in shambles too. There's no ear to the ground, there's no secret handshakes, there's no "OMG I just found the hottest spot." There's places to be and places not to be and that information is shared digitally.

Second. A city-dwellers rolodex is filled with half-friends and acquaintences, so it's wholly appropriate to fill the beginning of a conversation with neat little reminders of who you are and why you have their phone number.

Third. You have to have an exit strategy. The last thing you want is to call, find out that they have no idea of anything going on tonight (a fact that you essentially already knew), and then have them say "Call me if you find anything to do!" You won't. They're just some Yo in the same boat as you, and it is not your responsibility to man the Party Phone. The polite conversation preceeding "the question" allows you to respond coyly. "Oh, I don't know, I'm probably just going to stay home. If I do anything, it'll be because my friends came over and kidnapped me, ha ha."

Fucking politics.

Deft dodging of half-friend hanger-ons aside, this Friday was a bust. And in Los Angeles, when the world stops turning, you give it a motherfucking spin. You eschew the politics and make something happen.

And maybe that's why this Friday, this G-d forsaken Friday, felt so G-d damn good. We weren't wingmen, we weren't accessories, we weren't names. In Los Angeles, your friends are people you use and your friendship is based on how much tolerance each person has for being used. But this Friday, this unrelenting Friday, my friends were something else. They were shitty Jenga players, they were excellent drinkers, they were people...

In Los Angeles, you do not play board games, you do not stay home, you do not childishly fall asleep with your roommate on the living room sofa. In Los Angeles, you do not take stupid videos of yourselves dancing or freestyle about statuatory rape.

We broke the rules, and I'm glad.