Curious about finding a hookup online? AskMen [1] gives us a primer on the secret world of casual encounters.
I spend a huge chunk of my day looking at a screen. So many of us do. Complaining about this is redundant. Our world is different now. Computer to phone to flat screen to iPad to bed and all over again. Do your eyes hurt? My eyes hurt. Since we do everything through our Mac products, why should finding sexual partners be excused from the protocol? One day Her will become a reality and we'll all be having meaningful relationships with polygamist operating systems, but until then, there are apps designed specifically for single people to try to get laid. It's a wiggly world, man. Here are the basics you need to know about casual encounters [2]:
Craigslist
Craigslist is the OG of casual encounters filled with primitive codes — "m4w, m4t, 420 friendly, str8" — and more dick pics than Chatroulette circulated. Maybe in its heyday Craigslist's "Casual Encounters" was primed with available freaks ready to get down, but now it seems like one giant scam where things are less safe than a dimly lit alley in Northern England. As with any casual encounter, there has to be an understanding between the two parties about what they actually want and this is where things tend to explode. Craigslist now is where the pros go to get down. It's verging on Deep Web lite. A few years ago, a handsome young Danish man and myself were bored in Philadelphia and decided to make Craigslist ads for one another to see who could get more responses. I even let him do one for me asking for violent, aggressive group sex. The responses were insane. I mean, there is no way that half the men responding to the group sex ad weren't going to skin and eat me. It was dark. "Casual encounter" indeed.
Pure
Pure is like a big giant tease of a hookup app and I kind of like the philosophy (even though it seems very high risk): there is no pre-game chat. You choose users you are sexually interested in based solely on their profile and you do not actually interact until you are face-to-face. Your casual encounter is guaranteed not to be boring.
Tinder
By now, everyone has tried Tinder, the king of casual encounters apps. And if you are not single, you have taken your friend's phone to check it out for yourself. For those of you living under a rock in the most Northern forest of Russia, Tinder is a "dating app" designed almost exclusively for straight people. Using your Facebook profile as a way of selling yourself to singles in your area, Tinder users swipe threw hundreds of profile photos saying "Yes" or "No" looking for a Tinder match. Once matched up (both Tinder users have to swipe "Yes" to one another) you can start a private conversation. Tinder is ripe for contention, confusion, STDs and broken spirits because some look at this as a "hookup app" whereas others think it's meant for "dating." [3] This opinion piece on Tinder written by award-winning physicist Martin Lavery is probably the most honest and accurate depiction I've read: "I hope you downloaded it specifically because it's a brutal but totally addictive way to judge a lot of people you have never met. God help the poor unwitting fools that download it thinking it's a way to actually meet interesting people."
Visit AskMen for more casual encounter sites [4].
— Mish Way
Check out more great stories from AskMen:
- 5 No-Fail Ways to Ask a Girl Out [5]
- Fun Date Ideas to Keep Your Relationship Fresh [6]
- What Every Woman Thinks as She's Going Down on a Guy (in GIFs) [7]