The Huffington Post‘s “Gay Voices” section recently ran an article about how Facebook is using our personal information to try to “suggest” friends that we may still be trying to forget about – those folks we hooked up with a time or two awhile back…our one-night-stands!
I saw the piece linked on Facebook with the header “has this happened to you lately?” Oh my, yes. At first, it was really startling to see the face and real name of my first black guy – and recall my first walk of shame. He was the second guy I slept with after my separation and I would never have put up with his nonsense and games if I hadn’t been so desperate to get laid properly! As it was, I didn’t put up with him for long and he did get a little “stalkerish” even after I’d told him to lose my number. I like to think that I have a bit more taste and self-respect now and would never go home with this guy because he really personified the cliche of guys who “only want one thing” but the fact of the matter is, at the time, I hadn’t had good sex in years and had only had any sex twice in the previous 18 months – once with the guy who came before he got it in & showed no interest in my satisfaction (identified as B36 in this blog entry,) and once with my ex husband. I feel like I made a decision to choose sex over self-respect in that case and I don’t really regret it. However, it was a shock to see this guy in my “people you may know” feed on Facebook. The only contact I had with him was on Plenty of Fish and by cell phone. Which data did they collect? My cell phone contacts or people I communicated with on my POF phone app? Either way? A little scary & something to think about.
Incidentally, in writing this post today, I went back and actually searched for that guy on Facebook and he doesn’t even come up. Perhaps he saw me and hit block? Fine by me.
Just the other day I had a double shock when two men that I had dated some time ago showed up in the #1 and #2 positions on my “people you may know” on Facebook. One was the married guy that I saw regularly for four months. I realize that I covered the story of how we met in a blog entry, but I never really wrote about the rest. The fact that he was perfect in many regards – a regular fuck buddy in the early days of my dating & being on my own – not a demand on my time, but a regular pleasure in my bed. At some point, things got a bit too involved – feelings developed on both sides and intensity happened. He played a “push pull” game where he would give and demand and absorb and then act like it was “just fucking” and remind me that he was married – despite the fact that I never demanded anything from him at all. He was the one who said I was like a man when it came to sex – precisely because of my lack of wanting anything other than the sex. Basically, he was the one who was insecure and wanted more, but he would turn it around like I was the one doing so. He would write me huge emails about his feelings or text obsessively then tell me that he wasn’t attracted to me & remind me that it was “just sex.” He would say we could never kiss…then one day kiss me as passionately as anyone ever has. He had a problem with booze and didn’t seem to like himself very much. He liked to challenge and tease me and used to see how far he could push it before I got really annoyed. One day that involved biting during sex. Playful biting became rough biting. My “no” became a challenge and he bit me hard – on the face. The second time he bit my face, I fought him and kicked him. We had a scary moment where I realized “this is how sexual assault happens” and then we both took a breath, he got dressed and left. He told me that if he left he was never coming back. I said that was fine. It’s been about two years and he hasn’t been back. Honestly, I think it was good to rip the band-aid off when we did. While the episode between us left me shaken, it also allowed for a clean break – and I think it was time.
Five months after the night he left, “married guy” sent me an email to see how I was doing. I told him that I was seeing someone that I really liked and we exchanged a few “glad you are doing well, take care” emails. Good. Basically, it let him know that there wasn’t room for him in my life right now but that I didn’t harbor any ill will. I’m just over it. My life has moved forward.
Ironically, this guy who so often did protest too much – used to act all secretive like I was going to stalk him or tell his wife or something – has his Facebook account wide open. I almost want to send him a friend request just to shake him up a little bit. But I won’t. I’ll just smile thinking about it here.
In his case, we did use email to communicate as well as phones. However, it was a different email address than the one I use for Facebook, so I think that once again, my phone may be responsible for sharing my personal information.
The fellow who showed up second in my “people you may” list is less surprising because we have friends in common. He’s the one that I called “Dancing Doctor Who” and who was downright obsessive about cooking. He also didn’t like to have his penis sucked, climaxed in German, was my first OKCupid Meetup, lived in a Harry Potter closet and turned out to have mutual friends with. I think we wound up seeing each other three or four times in total – twice involving playing board & card games. He was part of my plan to stop seeing hot pieces of ass, embrace the nerdy and actually date people rather than just screw around. However, I think he proved to be a bit too nerdy and weird for me. He was truly living the life of a larping, gaming, cooking, dancing, fellatio-hating, communal-living 20-year-old. I know that we will encounter one another at some Convention or another – and he’ll likely be the one in Cosplay.
In writing this, I found a fourth guy in my “people you may” list – a guy that I never met, but whose POF messages had advanced to phone texts. So…four men – three different methods of introduction and the common thread? My phone. I put my number on Facebook because I reasoned that anyone who was a FB friend is someone that I was comfortable having my number and being able to contact me that way. Now I realize that Facebook is using some algorithm involving my phone contacts (and possibly text history,) to target my social interactions. There’s a part of me that thinks this is fine – despite my “no Facebook rule” about men I date, they certainly would qualify as “people I know” and might want to reach again. There’s still another part of me that is creeped out and a bit concerned about the ability to access my personal information.
risquédivorcée 
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