Five

Only weeks ago The Drummer and I debated about a television documentary featuring a prostitute who provided services for disabled clients. His view was that she was undertaking a valuable service for members of the community who might face difficulties meeting others; mine was that she was selling a service like any other sex worker and by lauding her are we showing how patronising we can be towards disabled people? Thinking about this in detail raises many other views and biases: the truth probably lies elsewhere as neither of us has experience being or living with a physically disabled person.

I was given the opportunity to eat my words or live by my conviction when I read the profile of a man in a wheelchair. On the positive side, he’s local, of a similar age, I find him attractive from his photos and his profile reads as someone who has a positive attitude and knows what he’s about. On the cautious side, my mind wandered to how the logistics might work if we ended up meeting and liking each other. He has lived a full and active life but his profile didn’t go into detail about being able to drive, his living situation or the sexual side – nothing he should feel compelled to tell the world in a profile, of course, but I’m curious as there are unusual considerations and I don’t enter into anything lightly.

He accepted my contact request and sent a message saying he was looking forward to talking more. I responded and we’ve exchanged a few more brief messages but haven’t been online at the same time. I have sent him a note asking if organising a time would be easier, but he hasn’t been online for a week.

Six

A contact request was waiting for me from someone who sounded familiar. Very tall, thin, divorced, located in a suburb where I’d met someone before, oh, hang on … I scrolled to the photos at the bottom and it was indeed SL, who I met last year and never returned my last message after we had sex. In a fit of indignation I blocked his little white arse off the face of the earth, but I then settled and thought I should have added the request so I could send some blunt feedback. I wonder if he had forgotten me that quickly or, whatever, I need to let it go.

Seven

He sent a contact request when I was online and we chatted for a while. I haven’t felt this comfortable chatting to anyone else and we had the right balance of fielding background questions and engaging in playful conversation. He sent a follow-up text message after I gave him his phone number and things were proceeding smoothly, however, there are just little hints of inconsistency that don’t mean much individually but could add up to him being too smooth an operator. Another part of me would prefer not to get involved again with someone attached, which might be making me look for fault with him.

I don’t know. He’s going on holidays at the end of the week so I might have a couple of weeks to form a definite opinion.

Eight

He met the usual wish list and had ‘separated’ checked as his relationship status. I added him and he wrote a note thanking me because it was hard to meet women who wanted to spend time with a married man. Heh? I re-read his profile and the text implied strongly that he was not in a relationship. I knew he had lied about his status, but I sent an innocently worded message asking if he was separated and had so recently re-united that perhaps he hadn’t updated his profile, or maybe he was lying to me and not given me the choice to make a decision based on reality? I hope I don’t receive a response.

It’s less about his relationship status and more about taking away my ability to make a decision with accurate information.