8 Users who want to meet you! (or POF doesn't have a fucking clue)

In addition to TransGenderDate.com and OK Cupid (OKC), I also set up an account with Plenty of Fish (POF), which tends to make rather lofty claims about itself. Compared to OKC, the condos with community club house and swimming pool (maybe even a fitness room) of the online dating world, Plenty of Fish is "manufactured home" park. I see a few of the same people on both sites, but for the most part, my matches on POF seem a bit more like Walmart shoppers who regularly eat at McDonalds, whereas the OKC ladies are shopping at Whole Foods. 

These are probably bullshit analogies, and as such, could use some work. Never mind them for now.

Let's talk about how badly POF fucks up when it comes to matching people. Specifically, their "new matching algorithm" emails, and their "Meet Me" feature.

In the case of the former, every so often POF sends me an email from as sender called "Customer Care" similar to the following:

Hi Prem,

 

We're trying out a new matching algorithm that lets guys know when a woman who's highly compatible joins the site. Yvette recently joined POF and we think you two might just be great together. Check out her profile and send her a message.

 

Markus

 

I've gotten five of these things by now and they all have a few things in common. 

• No photo of the person. In the one instance with any photo at all, it was a plate of cookies
• Profile details sparsely filled out--sometimes with the "default" info only, but usually with "joke" answers
• Profile text is non-sensical, or promoting some iPad app.
• "Needs Test" and "Chemistry" (the two tests that POF administers--though they are both optional) were not done

Basically--all those profiles looked like fakes. In fact, one had a user name like: q1w2e3r4t5y6u7i8o9

If this is what POF considers to be "highly compatible," they are fucking idiots! It makes me wonder about all the other "matches" they suggest for me.

The second thing, Meet Me, demonstrates how slipshot POF is, and how willing they are to mislead people.

Meet Me is a quick rating system where you are presented with a series of photos for the type of user you're interested in dating, so for me this would be women. Above each photo are the words "Want to Meet Her?" with three buttons below, labeled: Yes, Maybe, and No. The photo takes up most of the screen, interestingly. But if you scroll down a little you can see the person's POF username, where they (claim to) live, and a link to their profile. But if you didn't think to look for this additional info, you might think that all you're rating are the photos. This make sense because the first time you do this, POF asks you to rate 50. There's no countdown, so once you reach 50 it just keeps going. I may have rated nearly 200 photos.

The cute thing that POF does is that it starts sending emails to the "Yes" people that claim that you want to meet them. This isn't strictly false in that, based on appearance alone, I did indeed say "Yes" to the question of meeting them. But I hadn't read most of the accompanying profiles, nor did I notice that POF was having me rate women far outside my then 10 miles away dating range limit.

I got my first couple messages on POF shortly thereafter--but they were vague enough that I hadn't immediately clued in on what had happened. The were both from people I recognized, as I had seen their pictures before. In fact, in those two instances I had even read their profiles. One gal, whom I might actually pursue for a meeting, complimented my on my stated spiritual goals and path. The other gal simply said that I looked better with my hair cut (as I had posted a photo taken a couple months before I started wearing it short). I had no clue that these two messages were in any way related to the "Meet Me" procedure I had recently gone through.

But a few days later I got a really nice email, with multiple paragraphs from a lovely woman who lives on Whidbey Island--which is kind of far from me (given the "quick" route involves a ferry ride, etc.) When I read her profile I realized she was someone I would have never contacted--mostly because she explicitly states that she's interested in guys that are stable and career-driven, i.e. who have decent jobs. That was clearly not me at the time she sent the message--and I have been very open about that in my profile. She recognized that, but said there was something about me that made her want to give me a chance--and that she really liked my unconventional outlook on life. To top it off, she included her phone number.

Fuck.

I felt really bad--because she was really lovely. She was very nice looking, she had a great job, a cool set of kids who still lived at home, and a fabulously life there on the island. Furthermore, she wrote well--both in her profile and in that message. The message alone was magnitudes better than the first two I received, which were both one liners with no greeting, or other niceties. This island girl had really exposed herself--in making a huge compromise in deference to a positive feeling she had about me, along with sharing her number with someone she couldn't know wouldn't turn into a stalker.

I wrote her back right away, trying to explain the situation--that some combination of my not understanding how the "Meet Me" results were going to be used, and POF's (apparently) deliberate effort to create more "Yes" answers by focusing on the photos, and placing location and profile link info out of view, further down the page, had communicated a false positive match to her. First of all, she lived too far away. And second, had I read her profile, I would have respected her preferences that a guy have a certain level of "financial security" if he wants to meet her. Aside from those two things, she would have been a contender. Along with my profuse apology for wasting her time, I sent her my mobile number so we would both be in the same position--given how I feel she mistakenly over-exposed herself.

I never heard from her again.

I added some lines to my profile warning people that might visit based on POF emails claiming that I "wanted to meet" them, explaining that if we didn't seem likely match candidates--like they explicitly mentioned wanting a man who "loves the Lord," and I didn't fit that bill, at all--this was probably why. I made a mistake in that survey, with some help from POF (in my cynical opinion, at any rate). I left that message up for about five days, during which I've gotten no messages from any new people. I felt safe to remove it yesterday.

But since doing the "Meet Me" thing, I've gotten a new email each day from POF telling me that so-and-so "wants to meet" me. From my experience thus far, I have to wonder whether these ladies were in the same boat--just rating guys on their appearance? There is some evidence for this. Out of the eight women that POF has notified me about thus far, all but one has an explicit "Must not do drugs" stipulation at the bottom of their profile. This seems weird because POF (unlike OKC) has a specific drug-related question on its edit profile page, "Do you do drugs?" with answers "No," "Socially," and "Often (>3 times a week)." I selected "Socially" and I have yet to find ANY woman with an answer to that question other than "No." Why would POF even suggest profiles like mine to women who specifically state "Must not do drugs"?? (Not all my POF profile matches have that stipulation, by the way--it just so happens that seven out of eight of the "Wants to meet you" people do, and the one who doesn't happens to be the least interesting--for other reasons. Bizarre!)

By the way, I answered "Socially" to the drug question because I consider certain drugs to be sacraments--and it's very likely that I'm going to run into cannabis at some point in the future, at the very least, even though I haven't gotten high since January of 2013 (as of the time I write this--early November the same year). I may yet write some of these women and discover that they wouldn't have a problem with the manner in which I'm "involved" with "drugs." We shall see.

When I removed the blurb from my profile about screwing up the "Meet Me" evaluations (by not including profiles while rating whether I wanted to meet people), I replaced it with a mention of the "drug" issue--to give people a heads up about it. That may be a mistake, so who knows how long I'll leave that in my profile. I also need to be careful about how much I dump on POF, because some people may not see the problems I see, and by my criticizing the site, some might experience some transference and feel like I'm criticizing them for using it.

There's just a lot of murky shit going on with Plenty of Fish, that seems to be lacking on OK Cupid. But in terms of successful matches, or even dating--I cannot really say whether one site is better than another as I have gone on zero dates thus far. What I can say is that more and more I feel more comfortable relying on OK Cupid for evidence-based matching. But this assumes that their testing actually has some relationship to successful outcomes. It may well be that it's all a crap shoot, where success or failure ultimately boils down to interpersonal chemistry. If this is the case, POF might well be the superior site, even if it sort of "tricks" people into meeting.

Interesting times, in any case.

One of my OK Cupid "Favorites" Questions my SJW Street Cred

I am currently on three dating sites: TransGenderDate.com, PlentyOfFish.com, and OKCupid.com.

TGDate is a piss-poor dating site, having few real tools to help match compatible people.

OKC and PoF at least do some testing, and between these two, OKC provides more useful feedback in that you can quickly size people up based on their Friend, Match, and Enemy scores.

So, the funniest thing happened the other day on OKC. I got an email from someone I hadn't written yet--but she was on my list of potential candidates.

This is what the email said:

In my book anyone who self identifies as "woman" is one TG or not. I find it interesting that you included this on your profile. 

I applaud the haircut,

What's kind of amusing is that this woman writes for a living, so I have certain expectations of her. No "Hello, my name is...." or any of that silly Emily Post stuff. I quickly deduced this was not some pretext to start a conversation that would lead to an actual date--despite the comment about my haircut. Instead, this was something else.

I wrote her back, giving the appearance that I wasn't "onto her game" by including a little dating site banter of my own--about her hair, etc.:

Hey there K#######, 

I noticed you a long time ago, and you're on "the list"--so it's nice to hear from you! 

I included the info about my being open to both cis-gendered and trans-gendered women because there are heteronormative, cis-gendered women for whom this may be a deal-breaker, assuming they might be interested in a sexual relationship with me. 

I don't (necessarily) believe this makes such people "bigots," or "less enlightened." I can even empathize with the discomfort some cis-gendered women might feel at the thought of someone with a penis sitting in the stall next to them in a public restroom. 

There are real life sensitivities at play, and to declare "Trans-gendered women are WOMEN--PERIOD." doesn't adequately reflect the complexity of the issue, which demands education and dialogue, not sloganeering. 

I tend to identify as "liberal," but since I started reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind," I've become a bit more nuanced in my thinking when considering some of the positions taken by "the other side." 

I hope your thesis is going well, and that my writing gets me passing grade with you, at the very least. (If I was comfortable with using "LOL" - I'm not, there would have been a "LOL" at the end of the previous sentence. I don't mind so much when other people use it, though.) 

[A bow in response to your polite applause.] It's much easier to take care of, that's for sure. 

I like your haircut and color too. From your profile you seem like a lovely, fun person. 

My name's Prem, by the way, and it was lovely to hear from you. 

Warm regards!

(I wasn't lying. She's nice looking and seems nice enough, despite the SJW tendencies.) She replied within a few minutes with this:

Hi Prem- 

Well I have transgender friends and I feel comfortable with the idea self-identifying gender labels. Yes, I am more than aware that people have issues around gender and sexuality and that there needs to be "education and dialogue." Still, I don't feel that what I have written is sloganeering. 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 
K########

Testy! My suspicion that she was challenging my suggesting that not everyone in the world views transgendered women as being exactly the same as cis-gendered (genetic) women, confirmed.

So I wrote back:

Dear K########, 

Where did I write that what you said was "sloganeering?" 

I was specifically referring to the simplistic notion, the kind one finds Tweeted a lot by people who act as if they have a superior world-view, by default, specifically along the lines of: 

"Trans-gendered women are WOMEN--PERIOD." 

I don't recall you writing that. 

"Trans-gendered women are WOMEN--PERIOD." suggests there is no room for discussion. What you said reflected your own perspective, one that I tend to share, actually. I just don't expect everyone else to. 

People who say things like "Trans-gendered women are WOMEN--PERIOD." tend NOT to be open to discussions about women with concerns about who gets to use the ladies room. For them, women with such concerns are simply "wrong." It's not quite as simple as that, for me. 

Another about "group identity" stuff--we tend to congregate with like-minded people and thus we don't appreciate the extent of other points of view. If we are going to make any real progress in this country, on a social justice level, economic justice level, or criminal justice level, we have to get out of our echo chambers and have authentic conversations "across the aisle." 

Trying to do it "winner takes all style" will never work, because today's winners become tomorrow's losers, and yesterday's "gains" (by whomever is no longer in power) can be reversed by the new winners/former losers. For this reasons, win/win compromise is better--make all parties have some stake in the outcome. 

Or maybe not. I kind of hate politics these days--but, we work with the system we have--or make an end-run around it...or do nothing at all. 

Your welcome. Likewise, I'm sure. 
Ciao K########.

And as I screwed up on some punctuation, spelling, and grammar, I followed up with:

Sorry for the typos--hopefully they didn't obscure the intended meaning.

And no further word from her that evening, but the following morning she sent me this:

I noticed the typos, but they didn't keep me from reading and understanding your message. 

I did write "In my book anyone who self identifies as "woman" is one TG or not," so you might have construed that as sloganeering; from you message I see you did not. 

I'm a mite touchy about being lectured about topics I hold important. I thought it was interesting that you dedicated two paragraphs to your attraction to transgender women and your vehemence about not being labelled. I hadn't seen that before and I thought it deserved recognition of some kind. 

I wish you much luck in your search.

Cool. She's self-aware enough to recognize that she might have been "touchy." (And also douchy enough to mention that she noticed the typos. Please note that I didn't feel the need to make the same revelation about hers. Just sayin'.)

And though I didn't spell it out for her there, I am doing so here--I am self-aware enough to admit to framing her from the very beginning as a "Social Justice Warrior" type, based on the stance she took in exchange, as well as the fact that she explicitly uses the terms "social justice" on her own profile.

I don't know her well enough to doubt her word when she suggests that she found it "interesting" without intending a value judgment, or the need to "school" me -- though she herself mentions being annoyed by me attempting to "educate" her on subjects she cares about--another tell-tale sign of the Social Justice Warrior--they take pride in their causes, and don't take kindly to people on the wrong side of them, or not "in the fight" suggesting that they don't already have all the required facts to render a final judgment on whatever matter might be at hand--in this case, that TG women are "women," period.

Anyway, I wrote her back the following, silly me, revealing the hurt little boy inside:

Hello again Katherine, 

Your "touchiness" triggered suspicion that you had no interest in me at all as a person, but simply felt the need to "school" me, with the addendum regarding my haircut acting as camouflage. 

I wish you luck as well, in all things. 

Prem

And she promptly replied:

I'm not trying to school anybody. I thought it was an interesting thing to include on a profile and I really do think the haircut was a good choice.

And I say "Thank you K########!" for helping me get my list down to something a bit more manageable!

The missing question (Y'all Got Issues #2)

I just happened upon another OKC "match," and a counter-intuitive one at that, because she's got a 53% "Enemy" rating! I've figured out that anything above 30% triggers the "Y'all Got Issues" tab.

So I took a look at her "issues" and found out that she's only answered four questions thus far, and I have answered them as well. Furthermore, for the three questions displayed for her under "Y'all Got Issues," I have the exact same answers as she does. So that missing question, which I assume we answered differently, must be a doozy to tilt things over to 53% Enemy.

Or maybe I've got it completely wrong, and these matches are based on other factors besides the answers to these questions?

It's rather odd. She seems nice enough on her lightly worded profile, and she's one of the nicest looking ladies I've encountered thus far that meets my selection criteria.

Color me....confused.

Y'all Got Issues - from OK Cupid

OK Cupid has a variety of features to help its members evaluate potential matches. Aside from member profiles--where they can describe themselves and what they are looking for in their own words, there are a battery of "survey" questions that you can answer. Things like: "Would you ever sleep with someone on the first date?" The answers to these questions factor into OK Cupid's match-making algorithms, and determine (in part or in whole, I'm not sure) how other members compare.

OKC provides "meta-data" in the form of three numbers for each member, as seen from the perspective of any other member. These numbers are "Match," "Friend," and "Enemy." (ENEMY?! Really??!!!) So yeah--it seems that higher Match and Friend scores, with lower Enemy scores, make for a more likely connection--though without some sort of testing, who can say whether this is "true" or not? It seems that we are all just trusting OK Cupid will "get it right" in this regard.

I don't know why, but I've made 30% my cut-off point on the enemy score. There are a couple people I've favorited, or given 4 star ratings that are a little higher than this, but that was earlier in the whole process.

Each OK Cupid profile has four tabs--the About tab is where a person can describe herself/himself in their own words, within 11 or fewer sub-categories. The second tab is Photos, which is self-explanatory. The third tab will be either "The Two of Us," or "Y'all Got Issues," depending on whether there is a low or high enemy score between the two people involved. And the fourth tab, "Personality," provides a comparison based on personality traits like being more or less "Compassionate," "Political," or "Adventurous."

Whenever I run into a interesting person with a "Y'all Got Issues" tab, I like to open that up and see how we compare. I've definitely scratched people off my "possible" list for some of the answers that differ from my own. One example was a woman who didn't think men should ever wear earrings. Yawn....

Well today I came across a different "Y'all Got Issues" response that I found amusing. She's currently a 57% Match, 64% Friend, and 37% Enemy--so she's outside my enemy range anyway. But she sounds OK from her profile, and she looks nice enough. But the kicker is that she's a little chubby--which I don't mind at all. I'm a little chubby. But it's the survey question that popped up under "Y'all Got Issues" that inspired me to blog this today. (Her response is the top one; mine is the lower):

If one of your potential matches were overweight, would that be a dealbreaker?

Yes, even if they were slightly overweight.

No. Not a "dealbreaker" deal breaker given the fact that most people tend to put on some weight in their middle years. I'm not a "chubby-chaser," but some fat (yeah, I said it) women wear their weight well. I'm overweight myself, but I'm pretty fit despite that. Being fit and healthy is more important to me than weight. Based on appearance alone I seem more attracted by curvy women trending towards HWP rather than BBW. But there are some hot BBWs out there too!

I suspect that many would view her as at least "slightly" overweight. Yet that would be a deal breaker for her? OK lady, good luck with that!

Actually--I have NOTHING to remark about. She's being "honest" about what she wants. I just wonder what sort of person would allow an otherwise wonderful person slip through their fingers because they were "slightly overweight?" Seems like you'd have to be pretty shallow. 

I mean--if it's a deal breaker for even considering a person, might it not also be grounds for dumping someone? "Sorry honey, you've put on a few pounds since I've been wining and dining you three times a week for the past month. This is goodbye. See ya!"

Yeah--I'm sure I'm making too much of this, but wow. 

And then there's TransGenderDate.com

I don't quite know why I feel like things are "going well" at OK Cupid. Actually, I have no way of knowing. But it's been a pleasant enough experience checking out profiles, comparing answers to the match questions, and wondering whether I am going to take this story any further.

Somehow, I was feeling so pumped by my OKC experience that I got the (ill-conceived) idea to check out TransGenderDate.com. Things moved along smoothly enough at first--I built out my profile, using the same photos I used on OKC, got my ID verified, and made my first blog post, an introduction of sorts.

Within an hour of doing that, I was descended upon by a pack of rabid dogs. Nine really harsh comments appeared, making fun of my writing, pointing out a typo I made and suggesting I had cognitive issues as a result. One dissected my article paragraph by paragraph, and attempted to cut me to the quick, psychologically-speaking, with a very practiced hand (at this particular kind of cruelty). One of the "nicer" ones simply had the title "Yawn..." and an embedded YouTube video of crickets chirping. Cute.

Oh, there was this one guy who might have been making fun of me too, but could have been giving me some "friendly" advice. He suggested that I was being given the standard "warm welcome" for newbies who hadn't lurked long enough to grok the culture there. I probably should have thanked him for that.

The comments were mostly from women, and the one giving me the free paragraph-by-paragraph personality analysis took the additional step of blocking me before I even knew who she was, or could read her comments. It was like she had no other use for me except to dump some shit on me and disappear. What sort of person does that? Opportunity missed (for a "teaching moment.")

I've been in similar situations before, where you're expected to keep your mouth shut until you know whose asses need to be caressed in order to be welcomed into the fold. But those were discussion groups--not a little blog connected to a profile on some dating site. Imagine some guy after his first day ever on Facebook being savaged from a dozen, angry FB regulars because his first comment about Farmville was "meh?"

Fucking harsh.

I took it rather personally too, I'm afraid. I was embarrassed by the typo (numerous jokes about me being too "literate" to know what spellcheck was), my face got hot while I read the comments, which seemed to build on each other with a sort of resonant nastiness.

So did I take it all in stride, shrug it off with a laugh, my pried intact--"like a man?" Nope. I deleted my account right then and there. What a ninny, right? I didn't even screen-cap it for future reference. I was so taken aback by what happened that I didn't want to be there any more. I didn't want anything more to do with such a place, so full vile and mean-spirited people.

I feel like a fucking idiot for even letting it get to me. Who the fuck were these people to me, anyway? Random strangers that I would probably never be friends with under any circumstances anyway. Why would a give a flying fuck about what ANY of them thought about me?

I definitely have some soul-searching to do. Even though nothing like this has happened with OK Cupid, it has shaken my confidence a little. How presumptuous am I being with my activities there thus far? Example: For shits and giggles I re-did my profile questions with a bunch of pseudo-haiku poems. A couple of them are OK, but they're kind of "slap dash" and I'm sure I'm not "impressing" anyone.

Well, I guess I need to lick my wounds and "man up" if I intend to put myself out in the world again.

In the meantime, I'll just write a stupid Blogger post for my OKC friends to wince at.

What can I say? I've got it goin' on, I really do!

Siwwy Wabbit!

Welcome OKC peeps!

The last time I was in a relationship, and coincidentally, the last time I had sex with someone other than myself, was 2008. It was also supposed to be the last time I would ever get involved with someone I met online. As you might guess, it didn't turn out well. She was a lovely London-based artist and yogini that I met via MySpace and Facebook the year before. We were emotionally-entangled before we ever physically met, which set the stage for a very awkward week together when we finally did. Although our hearts and minds were game, something was missing on the physical plane.

I now believe that biochemical compatibility plays a stronger role in bonding with another than I previously assumed. It may even be more about the "energy" that accompanies physical presence. I cannot say for sure. But after that experience I decided that I would tread more carefully in the future where online love connections were concerned.

For awhile I was kind of resigned to being alone. After all, I don't feel particularly lonely, and am somewhat solitary by nature. Were I to die today, I would have few regrets, particularly were loving and sexing are concerned. I've loved and been loved by some really amazing people, and been through most of the peaks and valleys that come with being intimate with someone, including making a life together.

Still, there's an unacknowledged yearning that I usually don't even notice unless I'm in the presence of someone I find myself particularly attracted to--a hint of magic, or some powerful intoxicant of "possibility" which may be more romantic projection than something perceived. Whatever it is, something awakens in me at that moment and I realize that maybe I'm not done with love (in the romantic sense) after all.

So for the past several years I've been kind of tuning out any ideas about being with someone again, despite the occasional heart pangs I just described. I kind of figured if/when the "right" person came along, I'd just know it. Until then, best not think too much about it. And that's where I've been at with "dating" for the past five years or so.

But when a very good friend of mine in Ireland was recently lamenting the end of a long-term relationship, and how hard it was for her to meet quality men, I thought of OK Cupid, because I had recently seen some mention of it in HBO's brilliant drama The Newsroom. I might have heard something about OKC before, but I didn't give it a serious look. I thought it was just another E-Harmony or Match.com. When the aim of helping out my friend, I signed up for an account--thinking I could better "sell her" on the idea if I poked around a bit myself.

I kind of got "sucked in" by it, to be honest. I was impressed by how well-designed it was. It seemed rather smart in how it set up matches and encouraged people to risk reaching out to people they found interesting. I've been playing around with it for a week now, and still haven't reported my findings back to my friend, because my research now involves my "real life." I'm actually finding it all sort of fun and intriguing.

I mentioned on one of the iterations of my profile (I keep changing it) that I feel like I may be too much a "work in progress" to attract the interest of the kind of women I might be interested in. This is a theme I'm likely to focus on a lot as I wade more deeply into OK Cupids mysterious waters. I sort of see this a long-term project that becomes part of the even larger enterprise of re-creating my own life into the "life of my dreams," something I've lacked the courage to even attempt up to now.

I used to think that I need to "better myself" to a certain level before I'd even entertain dating again. But as there is no defined end point, such a day may never come. It wouldn't be that big a deal given I claim that I don't "need" to be with anyone to be happy. (I truly believe this.) On the other hand, why can't meeting new people, maybe delighting some of them with my unique presence, and being delighted and challenged in turn, be part of the journey?

After all, NOW is all there is. (Eckhart Tolle space, for the initiates among you.)

This is but an introduction. I'd like to pop in here from time-to-time, I don't know how often, to reflect upon my OKC adventures. I haven't set any sort of editorial policy as yet with respect to what I might write about. For example, how specific can I get here? I'm inclined to protect the anonymity of OKC people I interact with--although I may want them to be able to recognize themselves, even though others might not so easily.

Finally--I am currently limited in that I have a free account, and have elected not to know who looks at my profile. So if you want me to notice you, rate me and/or message me.

Much love to you all, and may you find what you are looking for--be it on OK Cupid or elsewhere!

When a friendship is challenged by someone's "other half"

(I originally wrote this in April 2013 - the last time I hung out with the people described below was December 31, 2012. I left it as a draft all this time. As I'd like to write about some other things here soon, so I thought I'd just "pull the trigger," and publish it. I still haven't cleared the air with these people.)

I know a very nice man who I thought could be a good friend. When we met he was in a long-distance relationship with a woman who lived almost two thousand miles away, but had once shared a house with her.

About six months into our friendship, she moved back in with him, and things changed.

He loves her dearly, and I can see that he really appreciates having her around. Unfortunately, she doesn't care much for me, although she tries hard to tolerate me.

However, the last time I saw them (it's almost always "them" now that she's living with him again), things didn't go so well. She made an amazing dinner, and I told her so. But somehow we ended up in a private conversation while my friend was occupied with his kids, who were visiting that night. Something I said, the way I said it, or maybe my mere presence set her off. I felt really unwelcome, not sure of what I had done, or how I could "fix" it. I felt to leave, but as this would have made matters worse--because I was an invited guest that evening, I decided to linger a it bit so there wouldn't be an obvious causal relationship between her upset and my leaving.

A day or two later I emailed her to see how she was doing, and to apologize for not being more "tuned-in" to where she was at, as some greater sensitivity on my part might have kept her bad feelings from escalating to the point where she had to cry out in frustration and leave the room for some minutes.

She replied to my email, explaining that she wasn't feeling well that night, which may have contributed to what went wrong a couple days before. With language that felt a bit "stern" (but maybe just "emphatic") she gave me a list of things I could do differently in the future--like speaking more slowly and pausing more to give her a chance to speak. I grant that I was going at a different pace than she, but I did, in fact make an effort to hear her responses--and I can recall several of them. I was asking her questions, a lot of the, frankly, because I didn't understand the point she was trying to make. So I found it a bit weird that she didn't think she was given an opportunity to respond, but I may be thinking of a different part of the conversation than she, and I've already admitted that I was aware of not being "in tune" with her, not least of which in terms of pacing.

But then she made the following comment that kind of threw me for a loop:

On another note, I perceive that we have widely differing views, particularly on sexuality and gender, and you often speak as though you assume I think as you do.  I find I often don't. 

The reason being is that I have zero recollection of discussing such things with her. In fact, aside from the "how's it going?" variety, I suspect I could count all the conversations I've ever had with her on one hand. So it's a bit weird to imagine she has such as clear idea of our "widely differing views" on "sexuality and gender." WTF?

I was so astonished because I have some rather complex views on these subjects, and I'm pretty sure I never even discussed them in much of any depth with her boyfriend, let alone with her. I don't speak of women casually as "sex kittens" or as being "only good for one thing" either, because I don't believe that, and I find such talk kind of boring.

So what did she mean? I was was so gob-smacked by the implicit offense, and the passive-aggressive way she seemed to be communicating it, that I didn't bother to challenge or directly question where she came up with the idea. Instead I complained that I was being accused of crossing some sort of a boundary that was never shared with me--as if I was just supposed to "know" where it was. And had I known, I could have taken more care around such subjects. (But as I said--I have no recollection of ever discussing such matters with her.) She didn't explain her position further, only to say she appreciated that I "heard her" and that I meant no harm.

But...what I do recall is sharing the fact with her boyfriend, a couple months before she moved back in with him,  that several years ago I once paid for the services of a very lovely Venezuelan M2F sex worker in Amsterdam (prostitution is legal there). I know some feminists have very strong views on the subject of sex work, and according to them--the fact that I paid a woman for sex makes me a "rapist." (The fact that this "woman" was technically a man further confuses matters--as some transphobic feminists deny transsexual women their rights as "women," with almost hateful scorn.) I didn't know what my friend's partner's sexual politics were. She did describe an incident that she and my friend had been in recently where there were more men than women, as feeling a little "unsafe." That's telling, in retrospect. But in all honesty, I don't really know.

I could have it all wrong, frankly.

In any event, I'm not feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about either of them. Her remark, being perceived as "passive-aggressive," and weirdly so, makes me want to steer clear of her. And the prospect that my friend shares details of my life that might better be shared by me in person with someone who has such strong, emotional reactions to them kind of challenges my trust in him. This, added to the fact that he became much less "available" (which I understand--we've all been there) once his girlfriend was back living with him, has made it easier to keep my distance.

I imagine eventually I will "get over myself" with this, but that day hasn't arrived just yet.