I like a challenge. Imagine a dating website without email...

1:03 PM 2/14/11

I like a challenge. It has to be the right kind of challenge, the type of challenge that my mind is designed for.

I like the idea of making a dating website that has no email and no status updates (so it isn't a social networking site like myspace or facebook).

This is like the contortionists who enjoy finding ways to escape from a straitjacket. I like setting up restrictions and then finding a way to do the impossible. I like using Edward de Bono's green hat thinking.

Without emails and status updates, those sites would be useless, wouldn't they? A dating website or social network without emails and status updates would be pointless.

You'd only be able to look at profiles that people had written. You'd see some pictures of them, but pictures would be somewhat restricted too. We don't want people to start adding lots of pictures for their own sake, and we don't want the website users to enjoy looking at everyone's pictures for their own sake.

We want to keep the 'process of using the website' to be as light as possible. You spend less time 'using the website' for its own sake, and more time meeting real people face to face.

I thought that the website could be used to organize meetings at a real place in the real world, someplace local and specific, and you would meet people in a group environment.

Drinking alcohol would be strictly forbidden. This would be an unbreakable rule. It wouldn't just be some trivial rule that was allowed to vary from place to place, a rule where we would look the other way if people ignored the rule. This rule would be the heart and soul, the central core, of this website. It would be the whole point. If anyone was found to be using alcohol at the meetings, they would be banned from the website. It would be one of the strictest rules.

After all, bars already exist. Party crashing already exists. If you haven't been invited to a party, you can just walk down the street and listen to the house that is making the most noise, and then walk right in as though you belong there. Nobody will know that nobody invited you. They will all be too drunk to care. If that's the kind of place you want to go, it's easy to find. People have plenty of ways to find other alcoholics easily whenever they want to. But it's harder to find single non-alcoholics who have the intention of meeting people for the purpose of starting a serious relationship.

Without alcohol, people's inhibitions would not be lowered. There would be less likelihood of meeting random strangers and going home and having meaningless sex with them. The purpose of this website is to help you find people who you like when you're sober.

I would say that if anybody else wanted to start a website devoted to setting up meetings where people drank alcohol, I would be happy to let them make their own website.

I have heard about meetup.com. I think I looked at that website once and I haven't looked at it recently, so I don't know how it works. I don't even know if it still exists. I don't trust any website that was built using venture capital, a website that expects to make a profit through advertising. My website would be a nonprofit site, so cheap and so basic that it used the least possible resources, like plentyoffish.com. I like almost everything about plentyoffish.com, except that it still doesn't work for me because of the 'send a thousand emails to a thousand random strangers' model of online dating.

This is slightly off topic, and slightly on topic, I guess. I wanted to talk about how repulsive this is to me. I tried using online dating again recently and had an unpleasant experience.

There are two things that are repulsive to me, and please, please, for all the men who might be reading this blog, please forgive me because I am about to say a very negative stereotype of men, but I have to say this because it has been my experience. If it bothers you what I am about to say, then just pretend I'm talking about everyone else except you, and YOU would never do such a thing.

Okay. On dating websites, there are very large numbers of men who will fuck anything that moves. It doesn't matter if you don't have a photo on your profile. It doesn't matter if you have an ugly photo. It doesn't matter if you're sixty years old and wrinkly and past menopause. It doesn't matter if you weigh 600 pounds. It doesn't matter if you write bizarre, scary, creepy things about yourself on your profile. All that matters is that THEY BELIEVE you have an XX chromosome and a hole between your legs. (And you might even be able to get away with having some other chromosome combination as long as there was a hole somewhere on your body.)

I emphasized 'they believe' you are a woman, because for all they know, and for all they care, you could be a guy pretending to be a woman, but it doesn't matter, they'll write to you, talk to you, and have cybersex with you anyway, and not care all that much to find out who you are.

Your specific uniqueness is invisible and unimportant to them. One of the most undesirable traits in a mate, for me personally, is 'someone who is unable to see and appreciate my uniqueness.' If someone is unable to see who I am, then I dislike that person. If someone is unable to appreciate my specialness, I dislike that person. If I am viewed exactly the same as 1000 other women who might be disgusting, boring, ugly, stupid, and every other negative thing imaginable - if that person can't see the difference between me and them - if he thinks that I'm just another female like all the others instead of a special, wonderful, unique treasure - then I dislike him.

I am not asking for someone to flatter me with compliments about how wonderful I am, because that is also very annoying. I want someone who *SEES* me. I want him to be perceptive. I want him to look at me and understand me. I want him to understand who I am, why I do what I do, what I care about. I want him to be curious about the things that I am interested in. I want him to ask me 'why' questions. I don't want someone to just give me flattering compliments telling me that I'm the most wonderful, beautiful, amazing woman on earth, because that is a generic statement that anyone can say. He must see something specific and unique about me that other people do not see. Anyone can memorize the words 'beautiful, wonderful, and amazing' or 'incredibly hot' or whatever. Those are just words. They can be given to anybody. I want someone to say groups of words that no one has ever said before.

The other thing that bothers me is people who enjoy having cybersex as an end in itself. Someone who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself, I want to have cybersex today. I want to get out of bed, get on the computer or send a text message on my phone, and have cybersex with someone, because I enjoy having cybersex with someone, and I don't care that I've never met this person, and I don't care if we really don't have much of a relationship yet, and I don't care if we ever meet each other in the real world at all. I just want to have cybersex. I enjoy writing and reading words on a screen while masturbating. Again, for the men out there reading this blog, please forgive me, but I am telling the truth: I can't stand cybersex. I can't stand it when guys seem to enjoy cybersex as an end in itself, the goal of their day, and meeting the person and having a real relationship is of little or no importance to them. Because that is what happened to me when I tried using the dating website again recently - I had a guy who wanted to have cybersex for the sheer joy of having cybersex, and it wasn't all that important for him to meet me in person - and not only that, but he outright lied about something about himself - and the result was that I struggled, painfully and with terrible strain, while crying, to force myself to try to enjoy having meaningless cybersex with a stranger as a way to start a relationship. It was very unpleasant. (Obviously, I'm not complaining that I was cyber-raped. It was something I consented to do. I tried, I struggled, I had sincere intentions to try to make myself do this, but it went directly against my feelings and against who I am, and all I did was cry.)

So I would like a website where there are no emails. The message sent is: Email is not the purpose of this site, and neither is cybersex. It will still be possible for people to exchange cell phone numbers when they meet. But perhaps I could forbid that as well. Perhaps there could be an official rule forbidding people to exchange phone numbers, at least early on. We would be expected and required to meet in person, AND ONLY meet in person, at this group meeting.

If there's anything I don't like, I can make a rule against it. And the challenge becomes more difficult. How can this dating system work AT ALL if people can't use emails, can't read people's status updates, and are forbidden to drink alcohol or exchange cell phone numbers or have cybersex? That's not even a dating website at all!

I've listed a lot of things that the website is NOT meant to do. What IS it meant to do?

It could be used to tell other people that you exist, that you are single, that you desire to meet someone. It can signal your intention to show up at a particular meeting at a specific time, date, and place. Other people will be attracted to this meeting if they know that someone interesting will be there.

People might 'crash' the meeting. They might show up without having signaled their intent to show up. They might not have put a message on the website saying 'I will be there.' They might feel like it doesn't matter whether or not they tell people that they'll be there. What do we do about that?

People might also say they'll be there, but not show up.

And what do we do at the meetings?

How is this different from a 'singles club?' Don't they already exist? - Well, it will be different from a 'singles club' because it's something I've created. Whatever it is, it will be slightly different somehow. So I would need to research 'singles clubs' and notice the ways that my vision is different from theirs.

Also, even though I said alcohol is forbidden, I don't want people to think that this is a 'quitting alcohol' party. It isn't an alcoholics anonymous meeting. This isn't a place merely for people to all go when they want to quit alcohol. It's for people who don't drink alcohol to begin with, and don't have any issues with alcohol. It isn't focused on 'quitting alcohol' as a goal in itself. 'No alcohol' is a rule, but not a primary goal of the meeting. Kind of like going to activities at the YMCA - it doesn't have alcohol there, but at the same time, 'quitting alcohol' isn't the purpose of all those activities. They have some other purpose in their activities.

What do we do at the meetings? I don't want people just to mill around randomly in a group. Maybe some of the time could be spent 'milling around randomly,' but I want something that brings people together and helps you get with someone you will love.

It shouldn't be just a social meeting for the sake of a social meeting. I don't want this to just end as 'we all get together and socialize.' I want it to be 'We get together as a group to see potential mates in the real world, and interact with them, and after taking a series of steps, we will go off alone together and have a private relationship separately.' There might be some kind of 'social' aspect to the group, however, it's very important that we make it clear, we are not here merely to enjoy socializing, because if that is what you want, go to the YMCA and join some of their classes and activities (which I have sometimes wanted to do, every time they send me one of their catalogs in the mail and I've looked at it and seen that a lot of stuff there looks like fun).

I want this to be a meeting where everybody knows, everyone is aware, everyone AGREES that we are here for the purpose of finding someone to bond with privately. At the YMCA (or wherever) you might randomly happen to meet someone and like them individually, but you don't know for sure whether it's okay to go asking them on dates or asking them to spend time alone with you. At my meeting, I want everyone to know for sure that we are all here, every single one of us, because we have all agreed that we need to meet people for the purpose of finding our own relationships. I don't want anybody to be doubtful about whether or not it's okay to ask someone on a date here. That will be the whole purpose. So 'socializing' must be secondary to the main purpose of 'meeting mates.'

There will have to be rules about how to say yes and how to say no, because I don't want cruelty and contempt and rudeness and unkindness to hurt people and make them give up trying.

There would have to be a method of cautiously expressing your interest in someone, while protecting yourself against getting hurt too badly, although it always hurts when someone says no.

I don't want people to go there and spam every single person with a request, and not bother to distinguish people's specialness and individuality. There should be a REASON WHY you want to be with this one, particular, special person, INSTEAD OF all the other people there. Because again, it bothers me very, very much, and disgusts me, when people want to have sex with 'anything that moves' or 'anything that says yes.' If you are there to 'have sex with anything that moves,' there must be some kind of method or restriction that makes it impossible, or unlikely, that you can do that there.

My idea process is like this: if the idea seems exactly like something else, or similar to something else that already exists, I want to compare and contrast the two things and find ways that my idea is different. If someone says 'They've already done that - just go look at X,' or 'That already exists,' then my response is, 'This isn't X. How is my idea different from X?' This isn't a normal dating website. It isn't meetup.com (and I need to go look at them again to see how they work). It isn't Craigslist. It isn't facebook or myspace. It isn't a singles club. It isn't a bar. It isn't a social meeting. It isn't the YMCA. It isn't a group orgy. What is it?

Well, I'm putting this out there... I've been thinking about this idea for a long time. I'll get more ideas later.