Online dating dealbreakers

I don't necessarily believe that it's safer to date people you meet in person as opposed to the internet. Some of the biggest crazies I've dated I've met in person. If anything, the internet allows you to screen people a little more thoroughly ahead of time and opt out faster.

One of my challenges in being in an open relationship is there just aren't that many people I consider dateable or even fuckable. Especially from the online pool. Join me as I share tales of some of my favorite online dating dealbreakers- in these cases I had actually been considering going out with the person until these things happened. Most of these are from OKCupid unless indicated otherwise.

-Aging hipster dude: "I don't expect you to fuck me on the first date, but I expect you to wear nail polish, eyeliner, lipstick and the dress from your profile photo." Actually no, you're not my personal stylist. He also claimed there were "no datable women" in the entire Detroit Metropolitan area, which makes me wonder what he's doing wrong.

-23 year old college student, claimed to be bisexual and kinky. I sent him a text message mentioning I was going to a play party, he replied he "wasn't comfortable with that sort of thing," and then admitted he had virtually no experience with kink, and "is that a dealbreaker?" Yes it is, son. Honesty is the best policy.

-Short Latino Dom off of Craigslist (this was a few years ago). We had a perfectly nice pg rated phone conversation, and the night before our first planned date, he sends me a text out of the blue asking if I like buttplugs. I reply that I feel like it's a bit soon to be discussing this, since I haven't met him yet. "Wrong answer," he replies, and never speaks to me again.

-Bearded poly dude can't stop gushing about how great I am and how much he likes me when he hasn't met me yet and we've barely chatted. I tell him that maybe he should reserve judgment until he's actually met me. (Everytime a guy decides they're "crazy about me" before meeting me, they're generally bad news). He asks me if I have a "self esteem problem" and says I shouldn't be so "emotionally guarded" about showing my deepest feelings to strangers on the internet, because "what's the risk?" Big red sirens going off. BUH BYE!

-Cute, interesting-seeming scholarly punk dude, seemed ok over email, but kept sending me "wacky" nonsensical text messages that I guess he thought were clever but were actually just incredibly annoying, and making up weird nicknames for me. I actually bumped in him by accident at an event and got the BIG CRAZY vibe.

-Super hot bisexual musician guy, sent me naked photos. Found out from a friend that she'd gone on a date with him, he'd insisted on trying on her clothes (without her permission), told her to spank him, then left, never to talk to her again. Never went on a date with him, but one time he spotted me through the window of a store where I worked and asked me if they were hiring.

-Hot, emotionally damaged yet witty underachiever with excellent taste in music. Began bombarding me with tales of his bedbug problem, sexual addiction, and existential misery via gchat on a constant basis, sight unseen. Ok, I actually did hang out with him (and fuck him) after 2 months without sex following a shitty breakup. Probably more trouble than he was worth, but the rebound sex was good, and it got me over my ex. Was deeply confused by his assertions that we were more than fuckbuddies, we were "good friends!" when I decided to stop hooking up with him.

I am continually impressed by how inept people are at crafting online dating profiles and facilitating communication. For example, I recently spotted the profile of a dude I thought was reasonably hot and shared a lot of my more obscure interests, but he kept asserted "this is an act of revenge!" over and over again in his profile, and alluded to a bad break-up. In that case, you're not ready to date- online dating should not be treated as an "act of revenge," though I suspect a lot of people don't understand that.

Maybe next time I'll talk about the worst first dates I've lived through.