by Eric Ahlberg

It’s Valentine or Valentines or Valentine’s Day and LOVE is in the air. Love makes the world go round. What the world needs now is love sweet love. All you need is love. How much of this can you take? I believe it is the world going around that makes love, because without that, we’d be half frozen and half incinerated.

I love everybody, even the police as they kick the shit out of me on the street. (The Mothers – Hey Punk) I’m another white middle class white boy(Mose Allison), that never happened to me, though I did see it happen to a friend who insisted on taunting them with “Pig!”. The LAPD Intelligence division did try to set me up with a drug bust when we had the Midnight Special Bookstore on West Washington Boulevard, back in the days when Venice WAS shit, and the cops were infiltrating the anti war movement and setting up entrapments. But that’s not what we are here to talk about today.

 LOVE 

Some Questionable Terminology:
Long Term Relationship=LTR=>1year,
Medium Term Relationship=MTR =<1year,2+dates,
Short Term Relationship=STR=Hookup

Valentine’s Day is the ultimate Hallmark Holiday for Love. Dating standards fall all over where Valentine’s Day rules. Flaky male LTR or MTR are put to the test, can’t you just go out and buy a box of chocolates you lump. Yes Valentine Love is fine, but love is the first reductionist consumer fantasy, hand in crotch with the oldest profession. It was internet porn that built the Internet, and today apps like Snapchat are built on sexy pics, made to disappear so as not to affect your mayoral candidacy later in life. The Erotic drives the wheels of commerce and the ultra-erotic violence of the cinema.

We are talking about love, wholesale love. We are talking about online dating.
Certain basic facts(!?) about online dating must be made clear so here are some questionable factoids from the internet, to get the ball rolling.

Total number of people in the U.S. who have tried online dating = 49,650,000
Annual revenue from the online dating industry = $1,935,000,000
Average spent by dating site customer per year = $243
Percent of people who believe in love at first sight = 71 % (25-35 year olds)
Percent of women who have sex on the first online dating encounter = 33 %
Any man I can get = 6 % – these are the truly desperate.
By 48, Men have twice as many online pursuers as Women.
Percent of sex offenders who use online dating to meet people = 10 %

33% first date sex? That is encouraging. Not my experience, but I am not that slutty. Slutty women dress slutty in their profile pictures, lots of cleavage. They show up for dates in fisnets, dead giveaway. Some of these are working girls. Hey, Venice loves its sluts. Are we our own porn?

“The fact is that online dating is, well, complicated. There’s a whole range of difficult human emotions to contend with: insecurity, disappointment, rejection, maybe heartache. Not to mention it’s a ton of work.” – Consumer Reports

Twelve Chinese dating apps run by 21 firms in China have been shut down amid allegations of fraud for using bots posing as women. – This was the plot of the film Her, and Metropolis. We’ve been hoping for a hot android who comes pre-loaded with our preferences. I believe it will allow me to empower my erotic fantasies while avoiding the baggage of the emotionally and dharma bound humans…on my spaceship to Andromeda.
53% Of People Lie about: Age, Height. Weight, Job, and Income, on their online dating profile. – fake it til you make it..

My daughter said I should lie and say I have a Masters Degree. No “Some College” matches. She’s looking out for me. I think the MSs and PHDs can sniff me out. I am certifiable, but not certified.

Putting “Pumpkin Spice” in your profile increases your chance of getting laid 8%. Hah, Somebody test this.

There is an entire report by Consumer Reports here: https://www.consumerreports.org/dating-relationships/online-dating-guide-match-me-if-you-can/.

Satisfaction rates 56% to 37% ‘…low satisfaction scores may be that “most dating sites have some misalignment between profit model and user experience because they are financed through subscription fees or advertising,” says Scott Kominers, Ph.D., a junior fellow in economics at Harvard University.’ – Better to fail to match you, but keep you hooked on the chase. Love crack?

Research shows that many of these people on dating sites are cheating! Well is it cheating, or is it seeking passion lost at home, or just out to mess around, and consentually quickly forgotten? Is that so wrong? I hate to say it, but a lot of people are boring, even if they’ll fuck you. How can an old lefty like me say that? Jesus folks I’m just trying to get this paper done. Look around on Zoosk and Plenty Of Fish. It is a eye opening look into how people represent themselves nowadays. On the upscale sites, match, tinder, eharmony, and meetingmindful, there are many more well groomed, and naturally beautiful professional women, who have perhaps gotten profile advice. On the down scale sites it is bad pictures, sketchy profiles.

Netflix and chill: An invitation to watch Netflix together, which has become slang for coming over to have sex.

I had a dry spell for a while, it felt like my libido was getting pretty low. I started taking a DHEA supplement for its reported ability to enhance hormonal activity. That and a hot online date, a 44 year old special education teacher, helped me realize that hey, I still got it. This 66 year old dude, veteran of 4 LTR in Venice, has been on 6 or so different dating services for years. Match.com, eharmony.com, meetingmindful.com, zoosk.com, pof.com, and most recently tinder.com. Look around among our Venice friends, I find many a couple who met on match.com.

Match has a new feature, missed connections, it lets me know that beachbabe666 has driven down my alley 18 times in the last 2 weeks, livelovelaugh 10 times, and “alive” 5 times. This is actually helpful because geographic desirability is important. You don’t want to date someone from Riverside or Fresno unless they are really special…but aren’t we all. Match.com seems to have the best locality (more Westside members).

Tinder.com has the reputation as the hookup app, but they want you to see it as a dating app, for a bigger market. I have been swiping right like a pro stroker but no hookups yet, might have to go back to beachbabe666.

Via match.com, I have dated a famous comedienne, one of the singers from the Manhattan Transfer, artists, general creatives, and received “Not A Good Match” rejection messages, but slip out the back jack, after saying you’ll call. No fuss no muss, lie and GTFO, move on dot orgasm. I am looking for an LTR, and I have gotten laid a few times on the way there, but usually under the spell of Cupid. I’ve been out on three dates where I realized in the middle that they were transsexual or at least a cross dresser. It’s fine it’s not my thing, and they were very intelligent, uh, and good lookin though they were Monets, had me going there for a while. One ran a makeup company, seemed to be a sort of alchemist about it. Funny if you’re not sure, but you can’t ask, or you tell yourself you can’t ask, that’s the kind of mental torture fun liberals have.

When it’s been a long time, and it feels right, then doing it on the second date just feels so right, to let the passions flow. I am not talking about straight-up fucking I am talking about the gorgeous sensuous lovemaking that may not even involve penetration. I have enjoyed meeting lovely forward women and we enjoyed having a lovely Medium Term Relationship, and no one got hurt. Can we have love on a trial basis? Is there love after breakup? Is there a no fault clause? I like to think so, but then, if I am too busy, what is that? Men. They just don’t call. Dicks.

One lover dumped me for warts. I quit another over Ambien. I feel that if the love you need is close, then enjoy it, but no is no. I’m not the aggressive type, I’m more gentle, windy, and thunder. Better to just relax and be available, and give her the power, it’s much more exciting that way.

I vaped weed with a first date, at Superba, and she lost it, we left and she followed me to my car, looked at my bumper stickers, and said this will never do. I felt sorry I had contributed to her stress. She apologized later for being an Aries.

Two of my dates were into Orgasmic Meditation. It turns out that right out north eastside of Lincoln and Victoria is One Taste, where they teach Orgasmic Meditation=OM. Now I have always been a big supporter of women’s orgasms, you can ask any of my exs. The OM technique of assuming a comfortable position to carefully connect and stroke a woman to orgasm is also something I like. Check the Youtube videos. The man would not get aroused, it is not at all about him except in his role as a stroker. They say it is not sexual. If sex means an act of reproduction, then indeed a women’s orgasm can be without that. There seemed to be little going on about male orgasm there, which I appreciated,; Men are dicks. I understand they had some trouble with the authorities for doing group orgasmic meditations. They must have been good. I envy the Denobulans of Star Trek with their three wives and three husbands.

First dates with an internet dating newbie, it’s hard to face that much optimism, but often they are ready to quit the dating site. She has little idea what to expect, but she could be my shero.

Well all that’s a fine body commercial for me, but the deeper consideration is if this is the person you want to be spending all your time with, helping you when you are throwing up or being a complete idiot. With all the divorce and relationship turnover, romance runs headlong into reality, reason, caution, and slow is advised. ease into love. People have extended family and friends and a new LTR has a gravitational effect on that.

Women in their 50s, who to me are extremely hot, often have a young child by the last relationship gone wrong. An LTR becomes a relationship with another family. There shall not be any STR daddies, not anymore. In your 60s and older, the kids are in or out of college, and empty nests abound, divorced or widowed.

Now suppose you were a hustler, I mean an emerging artist, looking for a sugar momma or sugar poppa. There are some very rich people dating online if you know where to find them geographically.

There are a lot of painted up middle class housewives, divorced or widowed, house(s) and Trust. There are a also lots of lonely homely home girls out there, and many of both have been abused, and in Landmark Forum for some self esteem. While people have their game on when they meet, some are just weird, but when the times are weird… Every further date becomes a reevaluation, as more of the other becomes revealed. MTR in slow motion stall.

Ok so suppose you liked, you chatted, you set up a Coffee Date. This is a date at an open public location, like Starbucks, where you meet and just talk. There are a lot of interesting and beautiful women to talk to, and many artists and activists with a commitment to political change. I like to find women who are doing something worthwhile with their lives.

Eharmony.com has a questionnaire that you can use to send canned questions to someone you are interested in. One question I received recently asked: “What childhood memory would you like to relive?” My answer: “My childhood was filled with abuse, racism, near-mortal illness, death, traumatic pain, and being shunned, I do not want to relive any of it.” I enjoy too much honesty. Dick.

I call three foundations of marriage. One is the day to day support and caretaking, the basis of true nurturing and strong love. Two is the recognition by community, some sort of ceremony, be it in front of an Elvis Impersonator in Reno or at the Lake Shrine, or on Venice Beach, an acknowledgement for your community. Third is private property and the state, marriage license, prenuptial agreement.

Here, from my match.com profile:

Artist and engineer seeks creative love partner for entertaining and creative life together, making trouble and raising eyebrows. I am passionately involved with friends in creative and social change activities. I love to throw a dinner party and make all the food. I will sing you love songs with guitar or piano, and you would sing with me, deep, slow. I love exploring and investigating the world with cameras and discovering what is in people’s hearts and finding ways to represent this, in many arts. Love is the fabric we weave. You are skilled, sharp, generous and kind. A singer, a craftsperson, and a writer. Able to leap rhetorical constructs with a single metaphor. Has let go enough to find their own personhood entertaining. Ambitious and demanding, or chill and whatever, as per the situation. Major computer or theatrical or technical skills are a big plus you beautiful geek. I like natural women, lovely in natural and minimal makeup, beautiful natural clothes, with creative taste in their appearance, thrift store chic.

So if you are feeling lonely this Valentine’s Day, remember that your love is driving down your alley nearly every day.