Having a Moment: Cheating

Oy. Looks like infidelity is having the best month ever. Our girl Sandra Bullock is the latest Hollywood wife to get blind-sided by a cheating scandal, Esquire explains why men cheat, Maxim schools us in how to get away with it, Sex and the Single Guy asks if it’s cheating if you don’t get caught, GuySpeak wonders if “chexting” is considered cheating (while Crushable asks if it’s even a word) and Tiger Text destroys the evidence. Cheating. There’s an app for that!

Love in the Time of Smart Phones

Last night, I took my girl Christie Griffin’s advice and went out with two of my best friends and exactly 0 guys. And wouldn’t you know it? That CosmoGirl is worth her healthy weight in sex tips because while cruising the crowd to make sure all systems were go at the bar with a friend, four guys stopped me to chat.

Now, before you get your knickers in a twist about me giving myself undue props here, I have to note that they were standing together at the time, so if we we’re keeping score, (and, we kind of are) it would probably count as one come-on. But that’s one more than I would have were I was swimming in my usual sea of testosterone, so, let’s count it. A pattern seems to be punching me in the face here, and it’s this: G² – girls & glasses. Go out with your girlfriends, wear those glasses you hate and bam. Guys. Why? Because girls make you approachable and glasses are (apparently) a conversation starter, even if it means ignoring the first three Lisa Loeb references, which, spoiler alert, it’s going to.

Go. Me.

So I chat with this crew for a while until the crowd dissipates and the conversation continues with just one guy. He’s young, handsome, and a great conversationalist. (Life. It’s happening to me now!) Towards the end of the night he asks for my card so we can “keep the conversation going.” I don’t have one, so he takes my number and calls me so I have his. And just that gorgeous Manhattan area code is flashing across the screen, my phone dies.

And I mean dies. Like, complete loss of life-dead. Like, starts displaying snow-filled, never-before-seen screens featuring images from the past, future and hell before really dying-dead. So, now I may never know if he does in fact call.

But maybe that’s a good thing. I couldn’t help thinking that if that’s the kind of virus I can get from his phone, I better start backing away slowly from his pants. I’m only one Gardasil vaccine into the three-part series!

But I guess that’s dating in this city. Sometimes you can’t even give a guy your number without getting something you can’t get rid of. So here I am: one step forward, two steps back, and one strife-tastic reason to upgrade to a smart phone for dating in the information age.

Taboo Tactics: Is Cyberstalking a Dating Don’t?

So, try this on for size. I’m at a bar with my gaggle of guys who have broken into a party for some girl they don’t even know. The place is packed to the gills and I’m picking wax off my roommate’s face after she’s too forcefully blown out a candle (Hi. My life.) when a guy shimmies up behind me.

“Hey! I love your glasses!”

Now. This is my emotional Achilles’ heel. For some reason, my eyes, which are screwed up to begin with, started arbitrarily rejecting contacts on Jan 1. I see my eye doctor more than my boss, (I have to use that example because I don’t have a boyfriend. Two points for honesty?) And the whole ordeal has landed me in glasses that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love them on other people, specifically J.Crew models. I hate them on me. So natch, I love this guy. And I’m dumbfounded.

So I slap him on the chest and scream in his face, “Are you for real?” I know, I hate me too. But he his for real. He loves the glasses, and, wouldn’t you know it, my smile. This is the first day of the rest of my life. I will probably re-enact Tony’s “Tonight” scene from West Side Story back at the apartment. But I digress. The guys are laughing in my face, and the mystery man fades into the crowd.

Later in the night he resurfaces and we start chatting at the bar. In addition to having impeccable taste in eyewear, he’s handsome and reportedly spends his days helping a non-profit finance research initiatives for early stage cancer treatments. I wish I was making this up. And I can’t tell if he is. Regardless, we have a refreshing conversation.

“I think you’re so interesting,” he says at the end. “I feel like we should be Facebook friends for life!”

Um. What?

Yes. By all means. Let’s take this human interaction to the artificial realm. I see a shitload of poking in our future. But sadly, it’s not to be. Finding me on Facebook is akin to jailbreaking Alcatraz. I’ve got those privacy settings locked down because I like to pretend I’m in control of my internet persona, and because I’d rather new acquaintances find out about my love of Shrek 2 through conversation, not investigation.

Wishful thinking? Maybe. But it resurrects the ongoing debate about cyber-stalking potential dates. You always hear that it’s a bad idea; that learning about new people should be done organically. I agree with that but there are so many tools out there that stalking has become too easy. So, please, invest your two cents in my wedding fund:

Sex by The Numbers: A Walking Tour

In today’s news nugget, we continue our examination of the way we live now, which is clearly, balls out on the Internet. The item of the day:  Ijustmadelove.com; the user generated outlet we’ve been craving that allows us to confess every instance of sexual intercourse and display it conveniently on a searchable world map.

Using GPS and Google Maps, the site allows users to enhance their uploads with details of the deed, including selecting sexual orientation (heterosexual, gay or lesbian), one of six positions, and the type of venue, whether it be indoor, outdoor, in a car or (naturally) on a boat. (And I pause here to note that I’ve read enough women’s magazines to suggest that planes be added to this list. Just sayin’.)

The Daily Beast takes a closer look at the popularity of the site, which, as of this morning had logged a total of 98,775 encounters. And for all the stats lovers out there who are looking to analyze something more personal than condom-use by country, a mechanism is being developed to allow users to track their own sexual activity over time. Because there’s nothing like little s-Excel to brighten Monday morning.

Thank you, Internet. We needed this.

Via Gothamist.