Maxine's Journal

Inspired by far too many posts on social media in which guys worry about the size of their genitalia. This is a slightly edited version of something I posted as a comment on facebook last week, but felt it deserved to be preserved for posterity, or future referencing:

"Aaaaaaargh!! I think I just hit my final limit for guys imagining that having a massive cock is what makes for a good lay. It just plain isn't true. It's not length, it's not girth, it's not even what you do with it that matters. What makes you decent in bed, guys, is NOT BEING ALL ABOUT YOUR COCK.

Guys, I have got to tell you, your best tools for pleasing a woman are (1) Your hands*, (2) Your mouth*, (3) your brain, (4) whatever sex toys you happen to have lying around, and maybe if she's really worked up and horny for you then your dick might be a welcome addition, and when it is... guess what? The size of it isn't going to matter, because (unless you're painfully bashing her cervix, which is so not fun) she'll only be able to feel the first three inches and your pubic bone grinding against hers anyway.

Don't get me wrong. I love fucking. I've used strap-ons with my girlfriends too, on occasion (NB. Funnily enough, it's never the first thing we go for). When it's good, it's good. But when it's good, it's because someone's paying attention to the girl-bits it's going into, not just to the size of the damn tool.

This rant brought to you by the Horny Bisexual Women's Commission For Better Sex."

---

*Okay, female opinion may differ on the order of these. But hey, this is my rant. And for my money, hands are WAY more versatile, flexible, sensitive and effective than mouths. I've never yet had a tongue hit my g-spot.

Find out why we call them 'unicorns'.



Edit, 1st October 2014 (Because I realised I hadn't properly defined my terms!):

In the poly community, a 'unicorn' is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek term for a single, bisexual poly woman willing to date both members of a couple, usually in an exclusive triad.

If that's what you're looking for, you may have already heard people tell you that what you're looking for is incredibly rare, and that it's going to be a long hard journey. Most folks just shrug their shoulders at this and say 'that's okay, I'll just keep on looking til I find it.'

So I took a look at just *how* rare finding a unicorn actually is, how many you're likely to find in your own social circle, and how long it might realistically take to find someone, as a couple, to fit you both.

Full disclosure: I am technically a 'unicorn' myself. As a poly bi woman with no formal primary partnership, I am hypothetically open to dating a couple (though the 'exclusive' part isn't for me). But how many times in my 20 years of dating have I actually met and fallen for two people who were also into each other at exactly the same time? Well, I'll let you know at the end of the essay!

---

As many folks who read my blog know, it is mostly used as a repository for essays on topics that I encounter repeatedly. I've been writing this essay over about three years, adding a tiny little bit every time I see some new person ask the same question, and if you scroll down you'll see it's a pretty long essay. Stick with me. It's worth it.

Everywhere poly and interested folk gather, I hear the refrain “Why is it so hard for us to find the perfect woman to date us both?” often followed up with some sort of comment to the effect of “There's two of us, so that should make it easier, right?”

Sorry, folks! The computer says no!

Finding one single woman (or man*) to date as a couple is many many many times harder than finding a different partner for each of you. And if we look at the finding-a-date process step by step, the numbers will tell you why.

Let's begin our step by step starting with the straight male member of a male/female couple (just for example), and throw some numbers in for illustrative purposes.

So, wannabe poly triad-building guy, let's say that most of your dating experience has been as a single person. That's great! You know how that works. You go out, go online, mingle with folks, you check women out and you see who you find attractive. Let's assume that's about one in ten, or ten percent of the women out there. Hey, you've got some taste, right? But you've already knocked out 90% of the dating population as possibilities. But let's carry on. Ten percent of the available dating population just happens to be your personal version of 'hot'.

Now, you already know how if you are single only a certain percent of the hot women in your dating pool are going to be interested in you. So let's say that maybe ten percent of those women that you find attractive are willing to consider dating you (obviously your mileage may vary, but 10% is a nice easy number to use to demonstrate). Seems like you're off to a great start, right? Right. One in 100 isn't bad odds. You've still got a pretty good chance of finding a date for yourself here. But you're already down to 1% of the total dating pool (that's ten percent of ten percent), and you haven't asked any of the difficult questions yet.

Chance of finding a partner if you're single: 10% of 10% = 1% or 1 in 100

Now, if you are *not* single, you are limiting yourself to only the people within your dating pool who are open to nonmonogamy. Since the vast majority of the population are still not open to poly, we'll take a guess at that again being about ten percent, so now you're looking at ten percent of ten percent of ten percent, that's only 0.1% of everyone who's available for dating. You have already cut your chances of finding compatible people down to one in 1000, simply by being poly. So if you're dating as an individual, your chances of finding someone who's interested in just you are roughly one in every thousand women you check out. If you're surfing dating sites as an individual, or going out and meeting people in public, that's not too bad. Your female partner will probably have about the same odds if she wants to date other guys.

Chance of finding a poly-friendly partner for just one of you: 10% of 10% of 10% = 0.1% or 1 in 1000

But then you want a partner who will also date your female partner. So it gets more complicated.

Assuming you are an m/f couple both looking for a partner in common, you are also looking for a woman who is bisexual. But don't forget, you're still limiting yourself to being inside that group of 'people who are open to nonmonogamy AND attracted to you'.
Across the board of sexuality studies, the highest estimated percentage of the population who are interested in same sex relationships is approximately ten percent (usually it's less, but we're rounding it up to make things look more hopeful here!). If your female partner is looking independently for another female partner who doesn't need to be attracted to you, her odds will be about here: ten percent of ten percent of ten percent of ten percent, or in other words, about one in 10,000. Out of the general population, only one woman in 10,000 is likely to be hot, poly and as attracted to your female parter as she is to them.

Chance of finding a poly-friendly same sex partner for just one of you: 10% of 10% of 10% of 10% = 0.01% or 1 in 10,000

BUT you're still looking for a partner who will date BOTH of you, not just one of you, so it gets more complicated again.

Specifically bisexual people account for probably about half of that 'interested in same sex relationships' population (maybe a bit less). So again, you're cutting your odds down, this time to about 5% of your already limited group of 'hot women who are open to nonmonogamy AND already attracted to you'.
So that's five percent of ten percent of ten percent of ten percent. You're down to 0.005% of the dating population... That's one in 20,000, and we haven't even accounted for whether or not those women are attracted to your female partner yet – after all, we were so far just looking at women who were attracted to *you*.
So assuming your female partner is about as attractive as you are, and sexily compatible with about ten percent of the people she meets, that adds another zero in front of your chances.

(I'm also assuming here that you and your partner have *exactly* the same tastes, and exactly the same definition of what is 'hot' in a potential partner. If your tastes differ, that's going to reduce your options still further, but lets not, because that's just going to get depressing!).

Still following the maths? Right now, the percentage of hot bisexual women in the dating pool who are open to nonmonogamy AND likely to be interested in dating you AND interested in dating your partner as well is ten percent of five percent of ten percent of ten percent of ten percent. Out of all the potential women in the dating pool, you're now down to 0.0005%, or roughly one in 200,000 women. At this point you have probably run out of women in your dating pool. Hell, you've probably run out of women in your entire state, but hey, if you cast your net wide enough...

Chance of finding a poly-friendly partner interested in both of you: 10% of 5% of 10% of 10% of 10% = 0.005% or 1 in 200,000

And that isn't even taking into account whether or not those women are open to being in a *closed* triad with you, just whether they might be interested in dating you in the first place. The number of poly women who will be open to creating a closed triad with you will be even smaller. Oh what? About ten percent, we figure? That's one in two million women, folks.

Chance of finding a poly-friendly partner interested in both of you AND in exclusivity: 10% of 10% of 5% of 10% of 10% of 10% = 0.0005% or 1 in 2,000,000

You probably call your existing partner 'one in a million', but to actually find ONE woman interested in setting up a FIRST date with both of you, are you really prepared to make contact with two million women?

And folks wonder why they're still looking years later...


*These numbers work equally well if you're an m/f couple looking for a male 'unicorn', just flip the gender of the 'partner' bits of the workings out, I just went with the most common scenario I see for illustration purposes. It's a little different, numerically speaking, if you're already a same sex couple, but not very.

---

So how long would it take you to sift through two million women, anyway?

How about I throw in some more numbers in for you?

Let's say you're trying to do most of your dating organically, in person or through forums, poly groups and other social mingling. Let's also wildly exaggerate and say that you can meet one woman every minute of your day. If you could do that non-stop without eating, sleeping, going to work or anything else, that alone adds up to nearly four years.

More realistically, you'll probably only be able to devote an hour a day to meeting brand new people. After all, you have lives to lead. At one hour a day, that initial sift alone will take you something like ninety years (actually, I make it 91.32 years ).

Now let's say you spend ten minutes chatting to all the women you find attractive (another 91.32 years), and another ten minutes chatting with the women who seem to be attracted to you. That's only an extra nine years at this point.

Oh hey, you've found out some these women are poly! And bi! You've got to chat with them a little longer, maybe research their background a bit. You're going to have to introduce them to your female partner, see if they get on. You've made great progress though! That's such a short list of women it's not even going to take you a month to sift through and figure out who's into who. You're so nearly there, after a mere 192.74 years of searching, why it's enough to make you drop your walking stick and click your heels together. It's time to actually go on some dates!

So let's say you and your partner finally have a shortlist of women who are hot, bisexual, poly, and even better, attracted to the both of you. Let's say out of your initial two million women, you've managed to narrow it down to ten. You take each one of those women out on a couple of dates to see how you get along, and then you pop the question: “Would you like to be in a closed triad with the two of us?” It's only going to take you twenty days or so. Barely even three weeks worth of dating. Of course, most of the hot bi babes say no. Perhaps they can't see themselves cutting off their options that way. Perhaps they already have existing partners they don't want to dump just for the privilege of being with you. Perhaps it's just not their style (It's not you, it's them). It doesn't matter though. Out of those ten women you spent nearly three weeks dating, miracle of miracles, one of them has said YES!

And it only took you 192.79 years to find someone who wants to start to date both of you. Assuming you're still alive, you'll all be over two hundred years old by now, so I figure you'll all have the maturity to build a successful relationship from this point, plus be too tired to look for anyone else if it doesn't work out. Congratulations! You've found your unicorn! Well done!

---

...in other words, unicorn hunting is the relationship equivalent of spending every day sitting at home imagining what you will do 'when you win the lottery', rather than going out to work and building yourself a viable business.

That doesn't mean you need to stop buying lottery tickets, but in the meantime why not go out, build solid relationships, build friendships, build family even, with people who fit *you*, and maybe in doing so you'll happen across people who also fit your other partner or partners.

Yes, it sounds like more work and less 'romantic', but on the other hand it's a whole lot more reliable.


Check my maths!

You can see my workings as a spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sm5YD8WASdDDs3RcIKUzaLaqF2yMuJe9TBE8tW8tl9U/edit?usp=sharing

---

Some further reading for couples who are seeking to date a 'unicorn', or for bisexual folks considering dating both or part of a couple:

About bisexuality:
Bisexuality & Statistics: Twice as many dates? (2010-07-16)

http://www.bisexualindex.org.uk/index.php/Main/Bisexuality#equal

More about unicorn hunting, and some advice from experienced poly folk:
http://goodmenproject.com/sex-relationships/hunting-the-elusive-unicorn/

http://www.multiplematch.com/2012/11/why-unicorn-hunting-is-exercising-couple-privilege/

http://unicorns-r-us.com/

http://polytical.org/2012/07/triads-ts/

About dating a couple:
http://www.morethantwo.com/coupledating.html

---

So, as a 'unicorn', how many times have I actually met and fallen for two people who were also into each other at exactly the same time? --- 0.

That would be big fat zero. I have, however, been dating a wonderful couple for the last several years.
Because they were confident and independent enough to date separately, I was dating him for at least a year when a surprise 'spark' developed with her too. If I'd had to choose between both or neither right at the start though? I'd have had to choose neither, and that would have been a sad loss for all of us.

I am not a brat.

I tend to keep my submissive streak rather quiet. Partly because it's very very rare that it comes out. I have gone most of thirty years and only been submissive for a few days of that, at most. Partly because I see the lack of respect towards submissives in certain parts of the kink scene and perhaps a bit selfishly, to avoid having to spend hours explaining myself or challenging prejudice, I have sometimes taken the easy route to avoiding that. Not by lying, but certainly by omitting to mention my switchy side when in public. I have also hidden my masochistic aspect on occasion, despite that being much larger, because it frustrates me when people automatically assume that masochist equals submissive, and submissive equals masochist (I've written about it in my livejournal before: http://emanix.livejournal.com/24585.html ). I work hard though, nowadays, to break down that false assumption and free other kinky folk from unsatisfying and confusing relationships. Most often, when I play these days, it's something along the lines of 'Masochist Dom' (“Spank me! No, harder! Mmm, that's good. More. Good boy!”)

But I do have a submissive side. There is a part of me that very occasionally wants someone else to be in charge, someone telling me what to do, or what is going to be done to me. It's small, but it runs deep, and comes out only when I'm with people I feel very very safe around, whom I respect emotionally and intellectually, and most often when I'm feeling pressured by the outside world and looking for a safe space to go to, where someone I trust is willing to take on the responsibility of making decisions for me, just for a while. And I am not a brat.

A brat is someone who misbehaves deliberately in order to be punished. An awful lot of masochists are brats, through nature or through training. The outside world teaches us that physical punishment is a response to bad behaviour. A child does something hurtful to themselves or others, and is given a smack as a swift way to create an aversion to that behaviour. Many countries in the world still use corporal punishment to control adults. More importantly, it is normal not to reward bad behaviour, for obvious reasons. If someone hurts you, or takes something of yours, you don't give them a lollipop. It is obvious to most people that giving someone a reward for undesired behaviour is going to result in more of that same behaviour. For a masochist, which I'm going to define here as 'someone who enjoys pain', a spanking is pretty much the same as that lollipop. If you give someone what they enjoy, every time they do something that's annoying or upsetting, you are setting them up to want to do those annoying or upsetting things more often. Even if they don't really want to do those things otherwise. Even if those things are actually bad for them. If you are habitually rewarding a person for bad behaviour, they will keep doing it because they want the reward. Curiously enough, outside the world of kink, this is known as a 'perverse incentive' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive). I've known certain masochists who were trained into behaving horribly, being genuinely rude and hurtful to people who weren't consenting to be a part of their scene, because it meant they would be 'in trouble' and get the punishment they really wanted.

I am a masochist, and sometimes I'm submissive, and I am not a brat.

It's still not an easy concept to explain in the abstract, so I'll work through an example:
A few years ago, I moved from a three bedroom house into a single room, and since I had way too much stuff in a very small space, I was struggling to keep it tidy. My primary partner at the time told me he planned to spank me every time he visited and saw that my room was messy. He thought he was being wonderfully helpful – and it would have made perfect sense, in the rest of the world. But for me, that was a stressful and hurtful position to be in, because spanking was something I enjoyed and wanted, this meant I had to choose between two situations I didn't want. If I had a tidy room, it would mean no lovely spankings, but if I left my room messy then I'd get spankings but I'd also have a room I hated to live in. Whatever I did, I lost. Eventually I burst into tears and begged him to please spank me when my room was tidy, or it would never be tidy again.

Don't get me wrong, 'bratting' works really well for some people. At times, it can be a really useful way to negotiate consent without dropping out of role in a scene. When I'm in charge I might threaten to spank someone if they poke their tongue out at me, and then I know, if they poke out their tongue it's a sign they want to get spanked. For some people it's a fun game to play, to see how much you can 'get away with' before you get punished. But (and a few people might find this rather surprising) my subbie side is not a bad girl. Submissive bunny desperately wants to please and hates the idea of doing something upsetting or wrong deliberately. If I've really done something wrong, a mere expression of disappointment is enough to devastate. Punishment of any sort is rather redundant, and physical violence when someone is genuinely angry at me just feels like abuse. I really, really don't want something I love (i.e. pain) associated with negativity and anger.

So how do you punish a masochist?

Well, for one thing, speaking for a moment from the dominant's perspective instead, and an occasional student of psychology, I would question the idea of 'punishment' at all. If you're genuinely in D/s for the purpose of behaviour modification, then there's a lot of research out there talking about how positive or negative reinforcement (i.e. rewarding good behaviour by offering something nice, or by taking away an adverse condition - "you will have to put up with this thing you don't like until you behave yourself properly") is more effective than punishment for long term change. If you're just doing it out of sadism, as an excuse to inflict some torture, then why not be more straightforward about it? “I want to see you suffer. Be a good girl and take it for me.” is, at least to me, hotter and more honest than “You're a bad girl, you need to be punished!” If that's not the way you're kinked, though, and you really, really want to punish, for correction, or just to be evil, then you have to consider what constitutes a reward or a punishment for the individual. Everyone has their own 'thing'. Some people love marmite, and would be really happy to be rewarded with a slice of marmite on toast. Other folks hate the stuff, and would see it as the worst punishment in the world. Same goes for pain, isolation, being enclosed, being paid attention to, being ignored, being humiliated... I could go on and on. For every person who likes something, there is someone who dislikes it. For every fetish there is a phobia. Yes, it requires communication, it requires paying attention. It might even lead to the terrifying possibility of intimacy. For me? Quite honestly, the thought of receiving a pedicure makes me squirm in discomfort. Try inflicting that on me if I'm not in a particularly agreeable headspace and the results will *not* be good.

But if you hate my essay, you're welcome to spank me for it. I'll just enjoy it

.

Extended Title: Collateral Damage - How certain members of society are disadvantaged and/or criminalised by laws intended to protect. - Part 1. How being assaulted can make you a criminal.

I had been planning to present an essay on this topic later on, after I'd put up OpenCon follow-ups (they're coming!) and I still intend to. At the rate I am coming up with new examples, it may turn out to be several, possibly even a book, chaos save us. However, an article on the BBC News site was brought to my attention this afternoon that literally made me feel nauseous.

( Long, ranty and potentially triggering for some (for reasons that should be clear from the above title). )

I'm not a lawyer. I don't have the legal language to name whatever system we should be using, but this isn't it. Victims of any kind of assault need to be able to choose, at any point in the process, to back out without fear of censure. To demand otherwise is inhumane. If we want to take crimes against the person seriously, then lets do that, but not at the expense of criminalising the very people who need the protection of the law.

---

Edit:
Another similar article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/woman-jailed-dropping-rape-charges

I've seen it in all sorts of places, the assumption that bisexuality has to mean that a person is equally attracted to both sexes, not notice the difference between, and so forth... Marcus Morgan has a lovely rebuttal to that one in this article: Bisexuals: putting the B back in LGBT and I also love The Bisexual Index's FAQ: Bisexuals don't have to be equally attracted to men and women.

This isn't the logic fail I'm going to address today though.

The logic fail that bugs me, and keeps on bugging me is this: the idea that if I am exactly equally attracted to both sexes, I will have had exactly the same numbers of male and female partners. Why does it bug me so? It fails to take into account the huge % of population that *aren't* bisexual.

So let's get this erm... 'straight':
even if I am EXACTLY equally attracted to men and women, I have NINE TIMES more chance of finding a compatible opposite-sex partner than a same-sex one*

Let's go through the workings:

I'm not going to hunt down stats and references right now, since the important bit here is the logic, which is flexible to whatever the exact statistics are, but of the research I have seen, the *highest* statistic for members of the general population who are interested in relationships with the same sex is roughly 10%

So working with that maximum statistic let's follow this through to work out my chances of getting a girlfriend, versus the chance of getting a boyfriend as a bisexual woman.

Now, we've been told that 10% of the male population is open to same-sex relationships. With a bit of give and take for bisexual guys, and for those not interested in relationships at all, we can assume that roughly 90% of the male population is interested in relationships with women. So my dating pool of guys is potentially 90% of the entire population of males.

On the other hand, the proportion of females interested in same sex relationships is only 10%, so oh look! -

% of males potentially interested in me: 90%
% of females potentially interested in me: 10%

Assuming roughly equal populations of men and women, and that roughly the same number of men and women share compatible views and interests with me, this means my dating pool for men is nine times larger than my dating pool of women.

So if I really want to date the same number of women as men, looks like I'd have to put nine times the effort into chasing them down - oh wait, wouldn't that necessitate being nine times *more* into women, if I was really willing to put that effort in? Well gee, I think that it would.

(Of course the same logic works perfectly well for bi guys, it was just easier to focus on one person to use as an example, so I picked on me)

This also handily refutes the all too common hypothesis that being bi 'doubles' ones chances of getting a date. Sure, it might increase a little bit - my pool of possible dates goes from 45% of the population overall to oh, about 50% - assuming that nobody is being bigoted or biphobic, of course. But since I have had both straight men and gay women tell me that they wouldn't date me because I'm bi, I suspect that any actual increase in number is cancelled out by the increase in prejudice.

Still, on the positive side of things, while being bi doesn't double my chances of getting a date, it *does* double the number of people I get to appreciate aesthetically - gay guys and straight women included. Since enjoying the eye-candy doesn't require mutual attraction, I guess I can check out twice as many people on the street, as long as it's look but don't touch.

Hey, you monosexuals?

Here's lookin' at you! ;)


___
*yes, yes, I know, this is referring to binary genders in order to keep the statistical workings simple - for the purpose of being inclusive, please assume that when I am talking about same-sex and opposite-sex I mean 'exactly like me' and 'not exactly like me', respectively

Dear OKCupid,

We've known each other a long time. I've seen you go through a lot of changes. I remember when we met, way back when you were still The Spark, the special connection I felt between us. We had so much in common! I really felt that you were a site that cared about me as a person. I felt like who I was mattered to you. I fell for your charming wit, and the quizzes. Oh, those quizzes!
We spent many a happy hour together. So, when you became a dating site, I stuck by you.  I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and it paid off. After all, you still seemed to have the same values, and of course, you still had the quizzes. I even kept my profile alive, despite reaching polysaturation point a long time ago, because you helped me reach out to new members of the poly community, and to people who enjoyed my artwork. Your matching algorithms kept on linking me to people I already knew and liked - it seemed like such a good sign. You helped me make new friends, some of whom became lovers. I introduced you to everyone I knew. You were almost part of the family.

We've had a lot of happy times together, you and I, but now I just feel betrayed.

A couple of days ago you sent me this email (highlighted exactly how it appeared in my inbox):

---

emanix:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.
How can we say this with confidence? We've tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people's reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.
Your new elite status comes with one important privilege:
This new status won't affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match's answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You'll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.
Suddenly, the world is your oyster. Login now and reap the rewards. And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

---

I double-checked the date. Had I managed to get my months mixed up and it was somehow April 1st again?

Apparently not.

I actually felt sick.

OKCupid, what are you telling me? I've stuck by you for so many years, yet secretly you only ever really valued me because of the way I look, and up until now, i just wasn't 'attractive' enough for you? Because I have a picture that people like to click on, I am suddenly an 'elite' member of society, and I deserve to be matched with other people who are in the same 'elite' group?

All this time, you've been secretly filtering what I got to see, based on some arbitrary measure of 'attractiveness'?

This is not a function I subscribed to, I was not asked if I wanted to be moved into this 'exclusive' group.  I can see no way to disable this new level of filtering, and that makes me really rather angry. If I was actively looking for partners or friends through you I would be more than just rather angry, I would be LIVID. I'm tempted to go pointy breastplate shopping as it is.

I don't WANT 'more attractive' people in my match results. If I'm going to be matched at all, I want to be matched only on what I have in common with people. That's it.

Honestly, OKCupid, I thought you were above this sort of thing. I though you valued people, because of who they are, and not what they look like. I thought you, like me, considered moral fibre more important than muscle fibre. I thought we didn't believe in that eyes-across-a-crowded-room crap. Now suddenly I find out that you're not who I always thought you were, and I'm supposed to be glad that I've made the grade?

I'm gutted. Seriously, OKCupid, how long has this been going on? Is this a new policy? Have you been screwing around behind my back the whole time I've known you? What other elitist and exclusive crap have you been pulling that I don't know about? I feel that you've betrayed the trust in you that I had built up over years.

Most of all, I want to ask what the hell you were smoking when you added that final line: "Go ask an ugly friend". Really? You're telling me that suddenly I'm more special to you because other people have told you I'm pretty (and this based on click-thrus to my photo, which for all you know could be based on 'Hey! Look at that freak!'), and now you want me to go and choose one of my own friends to pick on, and tell them that they're not a part of the club? Just how insensitive can you get? I don't care if it was meant to be a joke, in the context of the whole betrayal thing, it just wasn't funny.

I'm not quite sure where we go from here. I may never find a dating site quite as cool, or as poly friendly as you. We have too many mutual friends for me to just leave without thinking it over. Maybe we can still be friends. I can tell you though, I will find it hard to trust you again.

Your old friend,

Emanix

Or 'I can't be arsed to wade through all the crap'

I have to confess, I hate Facebook. I hate Twitter. I hate Livejournal too, though not quite so much. I disabled Google Buzz without even looking at it. I utterly detest every networking site out there designed to keep us all up to the minute on the minutiae of other people's lives. I've been hating them for a long time, with an almost unreasoning passion, and yet the light bulb as to exactly why I do only went on last night after I was in bed.

I was lying awake the other night, feeling utterly worn out, suffering from information overload. Ironically from nothing to do with social networking, but the thought was in my head 'I want all this information weeded out and only the important points left, preferably in a digestible format' – and 'bing!' suddenly the light went on about exactly why it is I am so attracted to, yet frustrated by all of the above sites. There is no system in place to weed out the crap and only see the important details – and there could be.

A lot of my friends insist that the only way to inform the rest of us about new additions to their family, house moves, impending marriages, starts and ends of relationships, new jobs etc. is by posting details on one networking site or another, and I guess that's okay. That's pretty much what these sites are for, after all. If I care about my friends then, I'm supposed to read these – and I *want* to read them.
The trouble is that to get to the important updates, I also have to wade through dozens of posts about 'I just had a really nice cup of tea', or 'I just gained/lost a random animal in this online game I'm playing', or chatty responses to other users (or whatever), and that is bloody hard work. It makes me feel deathly tired just thinking about it.*

This is the bit that drives me utterly crazy, though: I go offline for a few days because I have work to do and then there's no way to find out what I missed because there's way too much information to struggle through – but my friends have posted it, therefore they expect me to know.

What I want is an 'importance' rating on posts, and the ability to filter by it.

I imagine it working like newspaper headlines. Posts rated with high importance sit on the front page in bold type, and the chatty little editorials about how much you love digestive biscuits take a little more finding, for those who have the time. Alternatively they display in chronological order, and the reader just gets to filter out the less important posts.

Just imagine, it's the end of a hard day, you have ten minutes to spare, and you want to see if anything important's been going on – so you click on the 'show me the headlines' button, and there they are! All of the things that your friends really want you to know – without any of the nonsense. Got half an hour? Set the importance rating to 'Medium' and check the things your friends think you might find useful. Wouldn't that be wonderful? No need to be connected all day every day. No panicky feeling that you're missing something when you go offline, or guilty feeling when you don't go back to check what you've missed after a holiday – you know you can catch up on the important things at any time!

In database terms it's stunningly easy to code - I can do it myself (and I'm no great expert), which makes me wonder why it hasn't already been implemented. Can it really be that, like me, nobody quite thought of it before? Perhaps the owners of these sites feel that the knowledge that somewhere in amongst all that wittering there are some things you really ought to know is what forces us reluctant users to keep coming back? I for one would be a whole lot less reluctant if there was an easier way just to dip one's toe in, rather than total immersion being the only option.

So to my friends – I love you, I really do, but there are a lot of people I care about, and I just don't have the time or energy to read everything you write. Until this happens, do me a favour, and when you see me, assume I don't know, and *tell* me what's going on in your life.

Dreaming of the day when I don't have to sweat the small stuff.

M.

*Update for clarity, and to highlight just_becky's comment:

"Having said all that though, sometimes I do like to read the posts about the minutiae of my friend's lives. Sharing in the daily trivia can make me feel less isolated and more a part of their lives than geography currently allows."

(Me) Totally. That's why I want the importance rating system, not a cutting out of all the minutiae entirely. Sometimes I really *do* want to hear about that sandwich (ooh, sausage and gherkin! sounds yummy, actually ;-)), and I do want to feel included - without the worry of missing something vital.

In other words, I have no problem with the general gossip and silliness being there, I just want to have the option to skip it and get to the 'meat' when I'm pushed for time.