Tag: skout

Glossary – Terms, Apps and Websites

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 15 Comments

It can be pretty confusing when faced with a whole new lingo, and let’s face it, if you’re a Gen X-er like me, you’ve had a few years to amass a pretty useless collection of slang, jargon and cleverclogs terms that only a select few understand.

Here I take the mystery out of a whole bunch of words, phrases, names and pastimes in today’s online dating world. If I’ve missed any, be sure to let me know!

BDSM: A combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM is used today as a catch-all phrase covering a wide range of activities, forms of interpersonal relationships, and distinct subcultures. (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM)

Benching/breadcrumbing: Being put on the back burner or putting someone on the backburner while someone pursues other paramours. They often give you just enough contact to keep you attached but never really commit. You’re usually their backup plan.

Catch and release: Like cultivating laybys, this is a tactic used by people who need constant affirmation and validation, another type of ‘advance and retreat’ game playing.

Catfishing: “On the internet, a ‘catfish’ is a person who creates fake personal profiles on social media sites using someone else’s pictures and false biographical information to pretend to be someone other than themself. These ‘catfish’ usually intend to trick an unsuspecting person or persons into falling in love with them.” (Wikipedia)

Catch & Release: People who are one-date-wonders, they lure you in, you have a fantastic date and then they move on looking for the next exciting thrill. They thrive on the chase rather than looking for the actual relationship. Similar to Monkeying: bouncing from date to date, relationship to relationship, like a monkey swinging from tree to tree.

Chat, talk: Messaging or texting unless context is otherwise stated here.

Cougar: A slang term [for] a woman who seeks sexual activity with significantly younger men. (Wikipedia)

Cougar Life: A dating app aimed at cougars and men seeking them.

Cub: A younger man who is attracted to or in a relationship with a ‘cougar’.

Cuffing / Uncuffing: Cuffing season is usually during winter when people really want to have someone in their life to snuggle when it’s cold. Uncuffing season is when the weather warms up and people enjoy being single and mingling.

Demisexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone. Comes from the orientation being ‘halfway between’ sexual and asexual. (Wikipedia wiki.asexuality.org/Demisexual)

Friends with benefits (FWB): Friends who have a sexual relationship without being emotionally involved. Typically … casual sex without a monogamous relationship or any kind of commitment. (Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=friends%20with%20benefits)

Fuck Buddy: See friends with benefits.

Ghosting: “The propensity to evaporate into thin air, or more accurately cyberspace, when confronted by situations you don’t want to deal with, people you’d rather not see, or feelings more complex than you care for.” (Mariella Frostrup ‘My New Boyfriend Has Vanished’ The Guardian April 2016)

Hiding accounts/deleting accounts: Some dating apps or sites allow you to ‘hide’ your profile so that it is invisible to others. Other apps allow you to delete your photo so that you are somewhat incognito. Deleting accounts means closing it completely.

Icing: Defined by Esther Perel as ‘manufacturing a reason to suspend the relationship’ – equal parts anxiety and ego; fastest path to resentment. (Esther Perel www.estherperel.com/relationship-accountability accessed 24 July 2017)

Kik: A chat app that allows users to be anonymous, send pictures, videos and messages.

Kink: Sexual practices [that] go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices as a means of heightening the intimacy between sexual partners…sexual practices, concepts or fantasies. (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kink_(sexual))

Layby (also known as breadcrumbing or cushioning): People already in relationships who seek to get someone else emotionally invested or ready to date; an ambiguous way of cheating

Love bombing: A seductive and manipulative technique usually directed by sociopaths or narcissists. Follows three main phases – idealisation, devaluation and discarding. (Alex Miles ‘Love Bombing: A Seductive and Manipulative Technique’ Elephant Journal 28 January 2016)

Match&Chat: kik messenger group that presents fresh faces every day from around the world.

MILF: Mother I’d Like to Fuck.

My Cougar Dates: Dating app for people seeking older women that syndicates profiles to numerous other sites/pages.

NSA: ‘No strings attached’ sexual activity.

Oasis: Dating website/app.

OK Cupid: Dating website/app.

Paid sites/apps vs free apps: Free dating sites/apps allow users to have near or full functionality of the app without paying. Paid sites require regular subscription tokens/fees in order to see or contact members. Sometimes it is men who are charged and women who are free.

Plenty of Fish: Dating website/app.

Polyamory: Based on the Greek and Latin for “many loves” (literally, poly many + amore love). Polyamory is often defined as informed consent of all participants or consensual non-monogamy.

Poly solo: An approach that emphasises agency and does not seek to engage in relationships that are tightly couple-centric. People who identify as poly solo emphasise autonomy, the freedom to choose their own relationships without seeking permission from others, and flexibility in the form their relationships take. (Franklin Veaux More Than Two More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory 2014 and Janet W. Hardy The Ethical Slut, Second Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures)

Protocols: Loose or commonly understood ‘rules’.

RA – relationship anarchy: Relationships that are not bound by rules aside from what the people involved mutually agree on; a way of engaging the relationships in your life, based on abundance, consent, and autonomy; shares characteristics with polyamory. (Wikipedia http://www.relationship-anarchy.com/)

Roaching: A common behaviour named after the adage that when you see one cockroach, there are many more you don’t see. In this case, it’s the multiple other lovers your new discovery may be hiding (crushes, dates, flirtations, hookups and maybe even relationships). Like cockroaches, it’s very common not to declare that you’re not being exclusive – some people think the onus is on each party to fess up if they’re not being exclusive.

Romance scams: A confidence trick involving feigned romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining their affection, and then using that goodwill to commit fraud. Wikipedia

RSVP: Dating website/app.

Sapiosexual: A person who is sexually attracted to intelligence or the human mind before appearance. (Wikipedia https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sapiosexual)

Sexting: Sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs or images, primarily between mobile phones. (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexting)

Simmering: Defined by Esther Perel as ‘reducing the frequency of dates and communication’ – when something isn’t working for you but you want to keep the security of companionship. (Esther Perel www.estherperel.com/relationship-accountability)

Skout: Dating website/app.

Slow fade: Similar to ghosting, a coward’s way out of communicating that they are uncomfortable with how the relationship is progressing.

Snapchat: An image messaging and multimedia app characterised by images that are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible.

Swinging: Partner swapping, non-monogamous sexual behaviour mainly among couples; single men are kept to a minimum.

Textationship/Text relationship: When you feel like you’re in some sort of relationship (eg great chemistry, great rapport) via text or phone but you haven’t met the person, and may actually never do so in IRL (in real life).

Tinder: Dating website/app (probably the most well known!)

What’s app: Chat app that allows sharing of videos, photos and text messages. Mobile phone numbers need to be exchanged to use this app.

Viber: Chat app that allows sharing of videos, photos and text messages. Mobile phone numbers need to be exchanged to use this app.

Virtual sex: Sexting and sharing of sexually explicit talk, messages or videos via app or online.

Zombie-ing: People from the past who suddenly spring up in your social media and try to re-connect after having slow-faded.

 

 

What Happens When You Get A Dating App on a Whim?

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 16 Comments

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself in a bizarre new world of dickpics, sexting, hook-ups, friends-with-benefits, MILFs and the general collapse of what ‘dating’ used to be like.

And, you’ll probably be labelled a cougar, even if you don’t like younger men!

I came to embrace my ‘cougar’ self as a tongue-in-cheek recognition of the way society pigeonholes women over 35.

Apart from being a romp through cougarland, this blog is unashamedly about reclaiming my midlife sexuality, post-motherhood. The tumultuous ‘dating and mating’ rollercoaster forced me to grow and develop as I figured out what I like, what I don’t like, and ultimately what I want in this second half of my life.

In fact, I now see the word ‘cougar’ as a rebellious take on the outdated, patriarchal notion that women (unlike men) have a use-by date defined by their reproductive abilities, their appearance, their value according to men, and their clickability or appeal on social and mainstream media.

I’d even go as far as declaring that to be a cougar you can be a feisty, forthright and sexually empowered woman of any age – you don’t have to be attracted to younger men. You don’t even have to date men! You can date whoever you like!

At first, the cougar stereotype did not sit easily with me. I was a slightly awkward, intense and naiive online dating virgin. But though I may have been innocent in that regard, I was certain that I would be no young man’s teacher, experimental sex plaything or time filler. If they were crazy enough to want me, they had to take me on my terms – and that included (ideally) having a strong intellectual bond, as well as a certain openness or lack of pretension.

But right back at the start, to use a quaint Aussie phrase, I didn’t know my arse from my elbow.

Picture This – The Defining Moment

Two workmates huddling intently over a smartphone screen in a tiny, steamed-up Asian diner during our lunchbreak. The air filled with the delicious aromas of Laksa and Pad Thai, smoky with quick wok frying for the throng of hungry customers.

“Go on,” she said. “It’s fun – and you’ll never meet anyone sitting at home.”

The dating app in question was called Skout and it changed my life. My friend persuaded me to install it on my phone, and from there, it was an instant whoosh of energy on that exhilarating joyride to somewhere new.

At first flirting came as naturally to me as pedalling the cobwebbed mountain bike in my shed, after a good decade of being ignored.

But within a very short time in this new world – exciting, ego-boosting but also crushing and disturbing – I needed to express what I was experiencing, to try to make sense of it. No longer wide-eyed and youthful, I wasn’t used to being single. I was a dating ingénue.

I needed to relieve myself of the weight of strange experiences crowding my head, and to listen to the voice that said, ‘What the fuck?’ (And later, the smaller voice that said, ‘What the actual fuck?!’)

Writing it all down is natural for me but I also debrief with close friends, trying to figure out what I feel and get some insight into other people’s motivations or behaviour.

As time has gone on, I’ve continued this habit, mainly because I need to express and make sense of my experiences but increasingly, as this blog has grown and reached more people in the same position, because I love to share and read people’s reactions and advice.

As far as the WordPress community goes, blogging about dating, sex and relationships is great fun and an extremely supportive community.

The internet is an unpredictable space where almost anything goes. Social norms might fluctuate; vitriol and prejudice may be openly on display – but I prefer to remember that, underneath, we are all human. How we behave online is a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.

There Are Some Very Rude People Online

The things people say to others online, when they are tucked up on the couch with their phone or sitting safely behind a keyboard and screen half way across the country (or the world,) really are incredible.

I reckon keyboard warriors are the bane of our modern world. And goddess help you if you are a woman on a dating site who says no, sorry you’re not my type. Or that you’re not interested. Or if you refuse to send a pic of your naked boobies, or worse, a pussy pic. FFS people – are you serious? How can you go from ‘Hi’ and polite chit-chat to ‘Will you send me a pic of your boobs?’

I like what sista blogger Fabulous and Forty has to say on this topic, especially what she terms FUCKBOYS. They are probably the most prominent population on dating sites, equally matched by those desperate to find a partner before they lose all of their hair, or get even more unattractive or just plain old. Straight talking yes, but it’s scary out there.

Take a deep breath and prepare for the great variation of humanity if you are venturing online as a woman in the 21st Century. Brace yourself for dick pics, insults, insistent requests for nude photos, and best of all, ghosting.

These are all topics I love to explore, so if you haven’t had a good look in the sidebar of topics and stories I’ve covered, head over there now for some fun!