Posted by Lilly | 3 Comments

How (not) to Impress and Woo on Okcupid: Message Dos and Don’ts

When your first line of communication is text-based, you  really should try to make a good first impression. I don’t mean that you need to hire Cyrano to ghost-write your profile, or be insincere or embellish anything. Be yourself. However, be yourself with decent spelling, grammar and punctuation. We’re not grading here (unless you message a teacher) but it speaks louder than your words: It says “I don’t care”.  For reference, Case File #267:

His first message:

Hey how are you
I am Shane I would like to talk and get to know you
I saw you and I have a bit in common and seem to be looking ¹
for the same things let me know ifi ts possible
shane

My response:

#1. I do not know what the hell this means: “you are defiantly raland honest then i look foward to getting to know you” ²

#2. You live more than an hour from me. Which means you didn’t read my profile. ³

#3. You would not consider having an open relationship – since I am married, that would make things impossible ⁴

#4. You seem to be a conservative Christian. We have very opposing views that I find important. ⁵

Are you just sending this same message out to everyone, hoping someone will take the bait? Seems like it.⁶

His “zinger”:

omg seriously no i am not sending same message
you way over analyze things and read to much into things that are not there
and i was simply trying to talk and get to know you
its your personality alone right there in this email that i a huge turn off
and that will keep u from getting a decent man if you do they will be nothing more then a door mat cause i am not one to sit by and talk to anyone who insults me when all i did was try and be nice and talk to them learn how to approach people you are shallow and close minded and personally it makes you insignificant take care dont bother replying im blocking you⁷

Other gems from his profile include:

“Looking for the right person to get to know see where it can lead and have turn to some thing long term and amazing. Hey wait lol a guy who is not afraid of commitment lol.”

“im not a bar or club person
not my style like going out butttttttt
would rather be with someone i am with at home”

“I DO NOT DO FWB FLINGS OR RANDOM HOOK UPS
SO IF THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE INTO PLEASE DO NOT MESSAGE ME “

I didn’t change a thing on those.

This says so many things to me. First, he’s 34. He’s way past the “text speak” generation (which is never any excuse, anyways). Unless the whole entire profile was written from his smartphone OkCupid App, then the lack of punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure and odd line spacing just scream “Lazy”. I really don’t know what else to think. Theory is, you’re trying to woo people, impress them, show your best side. If this is his best side then I’d hate to see the rest.

Make your first message count. Make it personal, but on the flip side don’t write 4 long paragraphs. If you have things in common, point them out. Ask a question other than “Hey what’s up / how are you / does this thing work for you”. *yawn* I actually say right off the bat in my profile to please not just message me with “Hey what’s up” or “Hi” or “Nice pics” because it’s lazy and I won’t respond. It’s the first sentence. So when I get message like that, and yeah of course I do, they immediately get trashed because it’s clear they didn’t read my profile. And if you’re on a site like OkCupid – why in the fuck wouldn’t you read someone’s profile before messaging them??

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Posted by Lilly | 7 Comments

I haven’t done one of these in awhile…..

“Oh, he made my blood just burn
I flipped so far, I thought that I would not return”
~”Get him back”, Fiona Apple

 

I sat here yesterday typing out the beginning half to an erotica story but I just haven’t been able to finish it. I have a post about the TLC series “Strange Sex” nearly done, but haven’t finished it. This rant? Feels soooo good and is just flying off my fingertips. In fact the keyboard would yell “ow!” if it could. It might just have there a second or two ago. Sorry, keyboard.

 

In order to get back into the erotica groove, I joined Lushstories.com recently. I went back to some of my earlier work here on the blog to post over there. I chose the Taxi Cab Confessional posts, and at first tried to submit them in two parts. Part 1 was soundly Rejected with a litany of sins, mainly it lacked content and was “far too short”. Ok, fine. So I put the two parts together, separated the one occurrence of two words lacking a space between, corrected my lack of conversation “”" and re-submitted. A day later it was accepted. It garnered some pretty nice, high praise from the members/other writers there.

Now, before I go any further….I must say this about Lushstories. Not quite a year ago I’d seen the site because someone had tried to submit their story from there to e[lust] and I wouldn’t allow it. I glanced around the banner-ad-laden site and saw stories that made me long for Literotica. Bad, bad erotica. Trite plots, bad euphemisms and a metric fuckton of incest stories. Not my thing, sorry. Not only was a lot of the erotica not my taste but it was painfully long. Perhaps others enjoy painfully long erotica, I don’t have the attention span for it.

Today I tried to submit a piece that was always one of my favorites, “Fucking for Art“. If you’ve not read it, or are no longer familiar with that piece, I encourage you to give it a quick glance to further understand the moderator’s responses to me.

This personal note was sent to me with the standard “Your story has been rejected” email:

I am both a photographer and a model. This is impossible: “I made them hold poses for 5-10 minutes, sometimes difficult poses, until I got the angle of light and the angle of the shot “just so”. Try holding still for thirty seconds, never mind a minute, never mind up to ten, and especially for difficult poses. A real photographer does not demand that the models wait until she gets the framing and light right, at the cost of the models holding a pose. This is also rather short in length. In addition, use a comma before reported speech, not this – : Also use a comma before the final quotation marks, as in this: “Carrrrieeee” I taunted. Thank you.

Wow. Me:

Seriously, my story is being removed for plausibility?? I’ve had this posted in two sites and no one has ever cared about such a detail.

I’m sorry but given some other stories I’ve read on here that present situations both unlikely and impossible, I’m confused as to why mine got singled out. Also, with regards to length, there is no posted word minimum but yet I seem to keep submitting things that are too short?

I can appreciate the story moderation but it feels like the reasons for mine getting rejected do not apply to every story submitted, as I have most certainly seen stories short or with a misplaced comma or misspelled word.

My story was about 8000 characters, theirs doesn’t do word count. As Rayne pointed out to me: What about models who sit for painting and drawing classes? They hold poses for 5-10 minutes! And in fact that angle was my inspiration for the story. My inspiration story was similar, but the artist in question was photographing for his paintings he’d do later.

Her rude response made me fume:

You had the good luck or misfortune to come across a photographer. Go ahead and stay still for an entire minute, never mind five or ten, and get back to me on it. If you put the detail in and it isn’t believeable {Note: I’m copy/pasting, that misspelling there is hers, ironic no?}, then one day someone is going to get back to you on it. In this case, it was me. Good writing depends on the details holding together.

I also verified a story of yours the other day and extensively corrected it, which I do not have to do. You are welcome, by the way.

Yes, your stories are short and lack structure, but they have been verified anyway, with effort on your part and good will on ours.

I pointed out Rayne’s comment to her in a single-sentence reply of “what about models for painters/drawing classes?” but ironically she never responded.

What a self-righteous cuntwad. Fuck off, to the whole site. Seriously. I’ve pulled my profile and my stories. Crap like “love poems” of which I wrote better emo-crap in highschool than that; erotica that makes the Fabio-covered-burning-loins seem tolerable….and I get yanked because this cunt says my plot basis is unrealistic???? Geezus they even have a fuckin “Supernatural” category! I was reallllly tempted there to link to the drivel I was referring to but I just couldn’t do it to the authors. I’ll take out my anger against the Moderator-Bitch-From-Hell but not innocent writers, no matter how much I want to say “look at this crap!”

Anyways.

Moving on.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

*deep breath*

Today on Twitter I ran across this tweet:

I (as Toyswap) replied:

@Epiphora and @FemeDeliciosa jumped in as well, and to us (the sex toy reviewers on TSN in general) the term sanitize/sterilize means the same thing. No, I do NOT mean that they’re 110% professional-grade germ-free but they ARE the very definition of sanitized. This derision and PR idiocy is coming from a company that makes such winning products (can you hear my sarcasm?) as Clone-A-Willy (ew, rubber); a “Tongue Vibe” which is basically a tiny cheap bullet you strap on to your tongue; Clone-A-Pussy (also, ew, rubber) and dodgy “libido stimulators and supplements” that you ingest. Go ahead and call me a sex toy snob right now if you want but if I ever owned my own sex toy store, products like these would never be sold.

Both Epiphora and I attempted to tell the person behind the account what ToySwap actually IS.

I said: “you do realize that TSN is a private network of educated sex toy review bloggers who trade safe items amongst ourselves?”

E said: “We all have a LOT of toys that we never use. It’s nice to be able to give them a good home. Plz quit the butthurt responses.”

Their responses:

No…come on. They’re playin with me. Surely they’re not THAT thick-headed????

Yes. they are.

I replied: “oh, really? You can provide a Lelo toy? A whipspider toy? A tantus silicone dildo? For free?”

SHOCKINGLY, I received no reply to that one.

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Posted by Lilly | 6 Comments

The Ghost of the Mysterious “J”

Every once in a while I chat/email with someone and the “click” is there immediately. I wish I could produce the formula that equates to this click, but I don’t really know. It was like that with R, too, except that I had the pleasure of knowing a little about him before he even emailed me. Yet still, R took my bait and we chatted and we never shut up. It was kinda like that with this mysterious J (that’s all he called himself). He emailed me to pay a few compliments about the blog and there was just something there, something in his words. What he said, what he didn’t say, how he said it and his “voice”.

We  both recognized the click and the too-easy banter and the immediate intellectual attraction as being dangerous. Dangerous with the chance of addictive.

And so….at the end of that day full of flying emails, we said goodbye. He gave in briefly once more via my chat box but that was it. Today, nearly 4 months later, I tried to contact him only to find that the email address he’d been using was now closed.

Maybe he was just a ghost?

A figment of my imagination?

An entity capable of communicating through the wires and currents but not of being real?

Pity. I could have used a little more J right now.

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Posted by Lilly | 1 Comment

Shouldn’t

The flirting has been coming back in bits and pieces; odd occurrences and mostly lighthearted. Some improper things said, things we used to say, and then 5 minutes later it’s back to talking about whatever.

I don’t know why it’s back.

He is the one who put the ban on this side of the friendship, last year.

I tried very hard to stop thinking about him that way for many months. I wouldn’t let myself. It worked for a number of months though, I kept it at bay. And then the first time of falling off the wagon together I tried to quickly push it away. “Shouldn’t do that”. Teasing here, inappropriate innuendo there.

But every now and then I give in for a few minutes with him. I guess he’s giving in, too. Occasionally he’ll get Toppy with me and that affects me even more. He knows it. But we shouldn’t do this. But I think we can’t help it, given the infectious grins that spread on our faces for the few minutes.

And it always starts off so inconspicuously. Innocent, like the sort of teasing that might occur now and then between any other pair of friends who share a hint of attraction to each other. But the problem with us is the history, the knowing how to push each others buttons. We shouldn’t. But it’s hard to resist. It’s an ego stroke, I guess. It feels good in more than one way.

It always shocks me how quickly an off-hand, innocent “joking” remark can turn into something that makes me squirm. Last week it was bratty banter and a “shut up or I’ll whip you” which, in text, is harmless. Harmless, except for how badly I still want him to actually do it. Before I could catch myself I said something to the effect of “front or back?” and the mental image of him wielding a flogger or his hand to my naked ass and then my bare cunt was just too much for me to handle. He knew it was getting to me; and I told him so. When he gave me an order (half-joking?) it would have been so easy for me to give in and answer with nothing more than the “Yes, sir” that wanted to fall off my tongue. I shouldn’t, I knew it. He tried again and it took all of my self control to stay my course.

Of course, where did I find myself hours later?

Egging him on. Giving in, subtly. Telling myself, telling him (but not outloud) to go there again and I’ll follow. Thankfully (I guess) he didn’t take the bait. Either I was too subtle or the “shouldn’t”s took control for him again or he was merely too deeply embroiled in work drama whereas first thing in the morning he’s still in transition. A minor rebuff, a reality check for me. Just as well……….

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Posted by Lilly | 13 Comments

Titties

So the other week I wake up to an email notification in my inbox from the kinky social networking site I belong to. I’m not very active there, so I don’t get a lot of messages. I’ve had a few recently……dominant men who make me snarl and snap, but they’re not worth mentioning. Everybody gets those sort.

But this morning in question I was fresh into my self-imposed hiatus and easily irritated. When I read the message in my email I had no clue who the sender was other than their name but could see that the subject line was “hi honey” and the message was merely: “nice titties sexy girl”. I logged into the site with guns a’blazin’ and was all ready to fire off a “fuck you” email for the offensive and assumptive content (I told you I was feeling cranky and pissy! I’d normally brush it off)

but wait.

It’s not from a guy…..

And suddenly, I was stopped. My first reaction was “hey that’s kinda…..hot”. She appears to be a little butch but she’s in a relationship with a guy and her look isn’t “butch” just “metal/punk/raaaa” tryin to be a hard ass. Her profile though comes across very butch and gruff and Toppy and a few lines in it lead me to believe that anything I might do with her I can expect him to be involved and neither one of them appealed to me quite enough to get involved in a dual-topping session from them.

Mostly importantly though was that lingering word that I hate.

“titties”

I hate it. It sounds like a word used to describe an animal, like a cow’s teets or a dog’s. Which therefore leads me to imagining it coming out of a uneducated redneck-drawled mouth and…….no. Just….no.

Tits is fine. Boobs is fine. But yet I also cringe at “boobies” unless its coming from a kid. The word “boobies” seems juvenile to me. Whether it comes from a man or woman, it just feels asexual. It’s a word that if said during dirty talk would feel like a bucket of cold water.

Of course my skeptical brain then sat there and thought about it and then wondered if that message did, in fact, come from HER. Was it maybe him controlling both accounts? Or just him logging in to her account on a whim? They are local, and if I cared enough I could figure out if she’s actually behind it. But despite a deep craving recently for girly sex or group sex, the intrigue just isn’t there enough for me to take the risk in trying.

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