Love, Sex and Deception

I review books in a particular way. Firstly, I avoid introductions and prefaces; if the book's any good I figure I should be able to begin at chapter one and proceed to the end without explanatory notes. Any half-decent book will stand on the text alone.

Explanatory notes are for after digesting the complete book meal, if you'll forgive the unbalanced metaphor. I like to think of them as a nice fig or a spoonful of tiramisu, a sweet syntactical end-point.

Secondly, I refrain from reading any kind of cover blurb. Actual negative comments are as rare as dodos, and for the same reason - reviewers who disparage a book or its author are dead as far as book publishers and PR people are concerned.

All of which is a somewhat ironic introduction to my review of a book called Love, Sex and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating. The photograph, above, is of the co-authors, a mother-and-daughter duo who created this opus, Lisa Hultin and Claire Hultin.

The trouble, in my opinion, begins with the sub-title: The Chronicles of Online Dating. I've been around dating blogs and books for five years now, so to imply that this book has any kind of rank in the world of writing about online dating is risible. Talented, smart, creative people are out there every day blogging about the dating game. Anyone can relate a story - the brilliance lies in interpretation and dissection. Fortunately, we're living in an age of surfeit in this area.

I should explain that the book is a series of chapters containing a series of tales from alleged online daters. The chapters group similar experiences (Disaster Dates From Hell, Navigating Through A Jungle) punctuated with advice from the authors;

"Unfortunately, the Internet is a mysterious medium popular with predators looking for opportunity. Even a mafia gofer will eventually find a willing participant. I once had a lady admit she made a vast majority of her sales by networking online dates. If you run into a con, report and abuse or block them from contact."

Wise. Good. But for whom is this advice intended? Surely anyone who has ever been on a regular date understands not all people are truthful with their intentions? Why would online dating be different?

Which highlights my overall ill-will towards this book - it feels more like a kids' edition than anything an adult could use. There's no insight, no intelligent deconstruction, nothing to make you go Ah-Ha! More than that, a depressing quality surrounds all the dating tales. Either the person dating is a dope, or the people they meet are mopes, or they're both both. Uplifting thoughts are rare.

My own personal view of online dating is clear - I am opposed. But the fact is that every day people find their significant other, and hundreds of them marry. Obviously, I am wrong. For some folks the electronic dating scene is the best thing that ever happened, which makes me happy to be wrong.

Obviously, I'm not recommending this book unless you have a ten-year-old you are trying to keep away from dating. For that purpose, it's a great buy. Otherwise, spend time to find good blogs about real-life online dating and read them. You'll be infinitely more entertained.

In keeping with my policy, here's the first paragraph of the introduction, quoted verbatim:

"We are a mother and daughter that (sic) have dated online, compared notes, collected hundreds of hilarious dating stories from around the country, and decided to write a trendy little lit (sic) concerning research, short stories, tips and tricks that are related to personal internet dating experiences. Part of the impetus for doing the book-and the rational (sic) for the title: Love, Sex, and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating is that throughout dating, everyone has either expressed finding true love, to great sex, or has at least been deceived once or twice."

If I'd read this first, I wouldn't have wasted all that time actually reading the infernal thing.

Grade: F

Reproduced here [link]




Bottoms Up, You Quality Bloggers, You!

Showering With Friends

I like the colour pink, and was told once that it suits me by a 'colour consultant.'

She was one of those women who flourish in fat good times, when people have money to waste on the kind of women who convince us they can change our lives by removing taupe from our 'wardrobe palette'. For a stupid big fee.

As a result, I used to wear pink business shirts - with blue and dark pink ties in case the message that pink is good for me wasn't completely obvious. Pink supposedly says 'gay' but I'm sufficiently at ease with my sexuality to be unconcerned. Perhaps that's the thing about pink on heterosexual men; it's ironic.

Times are far from fat, and I haven't tripped over a colour consultant in days. I could have used one in SuperTarget this morning, as I searched for a shower-curtain. Naturally, I was drawn to the pink one. It spoke to me in a way that none of the others could, hinting at loofahs and sharing hot water and scented body-wash with a lady friend. Grrrr. Give me a slippery, soapy wench, someone.

But an evil voice spoke up: What does a pink shower curtain say about you, Mister? Will that lady friend be so keen to lather up if she thinks you're a pink shower-curtain kinda lad?

So it came to pass that, right there in the bathroom section of SuperTarget, I gave in to the evil voice. I chose the shower-curtain with the aqua, teal and navy-blue dots. The days of pink are over.

Oh, and China? If you insist on sending me your cheap-jack shoddy plastic shower-curtains, you could have the respect to actually punch out the holes for the rings. Fucking jokers. And Target? Ten bucks for that? You're even worse. Screw you, too.



Bottoms Up, Shoppers!