Brittney Kelly In This Month’s Issue of Forty Ounce Bachelors
Electro-literary magazine, Forty Ounce Bachelors has published my fake persona, Brittney Kelly. She is providing readers with some very insightful truths about how to date. Check it out! By clicking this.
Last time, they published my other writing persona, delusional housewife Martha Smith back in November. If you never read that then do so now…by clicking this.
I’ve got a pretty well filmed stand up video up on the youtubes. It’s the first half of my set at Get Yucked Up (Sylvan Productions). Dirty Trix, SF. Check it out! Big thanks to Arny Cruz for filming!
The always amazing Fembot has let me contribute again. This time I decided to do a guide to online dating. Check out the original link here. Also, please be sure to follow this blog. I can’t stress enough how good it is.
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Alison Stevenson’s back with a guide to online dating, OkCupid style!
Remember the last time she posted? It was pretty fucking awesome. Read on for some sloppy seconds.
Yeah, okay, I’m on OkCupid, but lately it seems as though everyone and their mom is (seriously, your mom is probably on it). Most of my friends are just beginning to get into it now, but I’ve been on it for over a year. A lot of people find it hard to actually meet other people through it, but I’ve managed to go on a lot of dates. Mainly because I hate messaging back and forth for what feels like years. If neither one of us has initiated meeting in real life by the fifth or sixth message, I just give up on them. I don’t believe in OkCupid being a tool for actually getting to know people. That’s probably where a lot of people get misguided. I treat OkCupid profiles like job resumes. It’s as if everyone on there is applying for a job, and as an employer it’s my duty to see which applicants will best fit the position I have open, i.e. my vagina. What’s best about OkCupid is that I find the inevitable rejection I get from time to time, much easier to handle. I mean, it’s the internet, for crying out loud. Nothing on here is real. This is the world where unicorns have laser dicks. If someone on it doesn’t message me back, I’m all like, “Whatever, time to roll the dice on this bitch.” The ego is less bruised, and the whole “other fish in the sea” thing is much more apparent. Then again, it’s not all daisies and gumdrops over in OkCupid land. There are plenty of cons, many of which I have experienced first hand. In fact, let’s break this shit up into sections. Here I give you the highlights, and lowlights (some very low, low lights) of my personal online dating experience thus far. Warning: a good amount of bad decisions and drug use are displayed in the following paragraphs. Any future potential employers of mine, please stop reading now and keep in mind that I have excellent communication skills.
Pro: You actually meet someone you like, and start dating. I know, sounds weird right? But seriously, it can happen. I was able to sustain a relationship with a human male I met through the internet. Cynics say that if you marry someone you met on the internet your kids are going to one day ask how you met, and your story is going to suck. “Oh, well, Daddy was one of my Quiver Matches!” Sure, yeah, that sounds pretty shitty, but there’s more to it than that. I think the story of how me and my (now ex-) boyfriend met is pretty sweet regardless of the initial OkCupid thing. He was living in Oakland, while I was still going to school at Davis. We had messaged each other a few times, only discussing our favorite Daniel Clowes books. A month later I get a message from him saying he’s in town staying with a friend and leaving in the morning. He wanted to give me a comic book he thought I might like, and wanted me to meet him at the Amtrak station before he left. Me, in my drunken stupor, decided to call him that night, and we talked on the phone for around 20 minutes. To this day, I don’t remember what the fuck I said to him. Well, a brief meeting at the Amtrak station to pick up a comic book turned into him staying with me for the rest of the weekend and us instantly deciding we should be a couple. It was scary weird how quickly we bonded. He wasn’t even phased by meeting my closest friends who crashed our viewing of The Doom Generation and brought copious amounts of alcohol. We got totally shitfaced, had awesome sex, and saw each other every week until we broke up. Okay, so maybe it’s not the type of romance story tween girls would cry into their pillow at night over if they read it in a shit romance novel but my point is, behind every OkCupid couple there can still be some sort of cute “first meeting” story.
Con: It can be fucking dangerous You guys, I’m an idiot. Seriously, I’m fucking dumb. So for dumbasses like me, OkCupid can be extremely life-threatening. When I first started using it, I agreed to meet with one guy in San Francisco who convinced me to eat ‘shrooms with him at Delores Park. This guy was really hot, and really dumb. We had absolutely nothing in common, but I was down to give it a shot anyways (mainly because he was hot, and I wanted to bone). Idiot me thought eating some ‘shrooms with a stranger at a park wouldn’t be a big deal at all, but of course after I got fucked up, my paranoia set in and I became convinced this guy was going to murder and rape me. He totally wasn’t. He was having a great time trying to talk to me about his feelings and shit. I kept smiling and nodding but in my head kept thinking, “Why is his face looking so evil all of a sudden? Why is everyone at this park staring at me? Am I sinking into the ground? Oh no, I pissed myself didn’t I?” I ended up calling my friend who had to come get me all the way from Davis to stop me from running around the city crying uncontrollably and covered in piss. Another time, I met with a man who from his pictures had that “sexy, older British man vibe” but in real life was more like “not-so-sexy Bilbo Baggins”. We met for lunch and he started telling me all these stories about how in England he kept getting arrested for beating up random people at grocery stores, which is why he decided to move to America. He then complimented my tits, and would not stop talking about masturbation. Seriously, dude? You think that’s something a lady you’re trying to bone wants to hear? He then invited me back to his place and asked me if I could pose for a photography project he was working on. I politely declined, and left that lunch date amazed creeps like him exist. What would have happened if I went back to his place? I don’t know. However, I do know that the next day he deleted his OkCupid profile. Lolz. Could have been a murderer. Whatever. Pro: You meet people that are just plain cool, and introduce you to awesome shit. I’ve noticed a lot of people who have OkC accounts are new to the city and just want to find some shit to do on the weekends. I’ve made some awesome connections this way. I met one guy who introduced me to the greatest dive bar in the Tenderloin, another guy who let me write about comic books for his website, and a third nice dude who took me to The Lusty Lady, a unionized strip club in San Francisco (in a totally sweet and charming way and not in a gross, creepy way) because he had read an article I wrote on feminist porn. So, just know that meeting people on OkCupid is not entirely about finding love. Oftentimes it’s about making great friends.
Con: If you’re not living in a big city, or near one, it’s really not that great of a dating tool. When I lived in Davis I found that the only compatible guys for me were out in San Francisco or Oakland. No offense to Davis, but by my senior year I felt like every guy that was “my type” I either did date, tried to date, or had at least fucked once or twice. Davis guys lost their appeal to me and I was ready to meet some men outside the small town. Even the Sacramento pool was proving weak. I ended up meeting one guy from there who after two awesome dates stopped talking to me. He finally called me back about three weeks later and told me he had been put in a mental hospital by his family and was finally back. I have awesome taste in men, by the way. Suffice to say, all my potential suitors were an expensive Amtrak ride away. Aside from having to travel to Oakland to see my boyfriend all the time, before that I went on two OkCupid dates in SF while living in Davis. One of them was ‘shrooms guy (oops) and another was this guy who was pretty cool, but made it very clear he just wanted to fuck. Shitty, yeah, but I must say it was pretty sweet of him the next morning to buy me a Subway sandwich with his EBT money. Did I mention I have awesome taste in men?
I don’t know„ what am I trying to say here? Basically, OkCupid isn’t so much a tool for the desperate as much as it is a tool for cutting the bullshit and getting straight to the point. Plenty of the people on it are completely normal, well-adjusted human beings. Obviously, you need to be wary. Don’t assume everyone you meet is going to be awesome but also don’t assume meeting someone through it is some sort of cry for help. That’s why my favorite thing about OkCcupid is finding profiles of people I know in real life. I’ve found that the best thing to do in that situation is message them and initiate cyber sex (it’s only weird if they take you seriously). I hope most of you can use this article as a guide, not a deterrent. Know how to avoid the “cons” I experienced, and take proper precautions. You know like, try to meet for the first time in public, don’t take psychedelic drugs with them on the first date, and definitely don’t be potentially stranded in a city where you don’t know anyone. Other than that, have fun and make sure to actually meet these people in real life before you write them off entirely. To be honest, that’s something I’m trying to work on myself. I’m totally the type that’s quick to judge. In the past I’ve dismissed so many people just because they happen to enjoy things I completely detest. You know things like dubstep, or Burning Man, or “the outdoors”.
Alison Stevenson lives in Oakland, CA, where she is pursuing stand up comedy around the Bay Area, and writing. She does not have a website yet, but recommends that anyone who wants to speak with her, or attend one of her comedy events, to add her on Facebook or check out her Tumblr.
