No, not that kind of cheating.  I'm cheating, as in not really doing my work, with today's post.  It's Friday which usually means a list.  But I'm still sleep deprived and can't make my brain work so good.  So instead of writing a crappy list I will instead share with you some really funny dating related things I've found in the last few days.

OK, I'm cheating again.  Some of these things I've found.  Others have been sent to me by my wonderful friends out in the Twitter/blogoshere.

• First up - this guy is openly advertising for wingwomen in Craiglists in the section where people list writing jobs(please insert your favorite joke about writers being whores).

• Next we have this awesome website called Don't Marry whose purpose is to "educate men about the realities of today’s modern marriage".  It seems that modern, western marriage is a bad business decision for guys.

• And here's my favorite new online dating site (well, new to me): Farmers Only. I'll let the site speak for itself.

• Now, talk about a funny coincidence, some of you might remember the young man who sent me the inappropriately pornographic email prior to our first date?   It turns out that my dear friend KB had the same thing happen to her, with the same exact guy(we think)!

• Oh, and this is my favorite one of all (cheating, again).

I think it's safe to say that I was kind of out of mind when I posted last night.  I hadn't slept the night before and had been acting somewhat irrationally all day.* I didn't think about the consequences of my actions.  I was just exhausted and wanted to do something, anything, to make the world (the whole world - as if I could control it) be a nicer and gentler place.

Thank you, everyone, who reached out to me with words of support.  The comments here on the blog, on Twitter, the emails, the DMs - everything.  It all helped.  A lot.

'Thank you" doesn't seem like quite enough.  But it's all I've got.

*Sometimes when we choose to make people Dead To Me, they do not want to be dead.  And my life is already exhausting and stressful enough without ghosts trying to come to life.

I feel like I have to remind you guys, every once in a while, that I'm a real person.  Just in case you forget.

I spent most of this morning crying.  Over stuff that I've been keeping to myself.  Well, only sharing with my closest friends because I didn't want someone who might read this blog to find out about it.

But someone hurt me.  Someone who has hurt me many, many times before.  Someone who seems to take great pleasure in hurting me.

I'm not sure why, exactly.

Anyway, it's exhausting.  Really exhausting.  The manufactured drama and the lack of sleep.  All of it.  And the last thing I need is people who don't know me making my life more difficult here on the blog. So when I ask, repeatedly, for people to just be a little nicer to one another and to me here in the comments, I'd appreciate it if people would listen.

I love this blog, I do.  And I love reading the comments.  But I'll shut them down completely if people continue to be pricks.  That is all.

Some of you may have noticed a new little widget on the right side of the page called Cupcakes & Cupid.  And if you're really observant you might have even picked up on the fact that there's now a page option up there on my main menu called Cupcakes & Cupid.

So what's Cupcakes & Cupid?

Well, my dear friend Nando (from the fabulous blog Nandoism) had this wacky idea that there are women out there who might be able to learn from my years of online dating experience.

As you all know, I'm not a dating expert.  But I have learned a heck of a lot about online dating over the years.  What works, what doesn't work, what are some of the less obvious pitfalls.  Some of which I've written about here on the blog, and some of which I haven't gotten around to yet.

So I'm participating in this event.  It's going to be pretty awesome, I think.  I'll be there talking about online dating (which I contend is one of the most effective ways to meet men in NYC if you're over the age of 30- maybe even if you're under 30) and Maya Contreras (Author of 8 Weeks of Bruce - her amazing new book. The woman can write.) will be there.  She's more of a "real world" dating guru(and you know she must be cool, because I like her).

Whoa, too many parenthesis in that paragraph.  Sorry about that.  There's just so much I want to say about this.

Anyway, it's a Saturday seminar.  Late morning/early afternoon.  We're doing it at the Brecht Forum which is this beautiful space on the West Side in the Village.  There'll be cupcakes (lots of them) and champagne (lots of it).  And then we're throwing a party the next week for everyone who attended and their friends, too.  But I'm getting ahead of myself again.  More details about the party to come.  For now, all you need to know if that if you're a woman in/near NYC who's thinking she'd like to date more (or better) then this event is for you.

I know I promised I'd write something about What We Learned When We Infiltrated a "Pickup Artist" Seminar (if you haven't read it yet, you should) that appeared in Lemondrop last week.  But, on second thought, I've decided not to.

I'm probably one of the least appropriate people to comment on it.  First of all, I'm a lot older than those women, or any of the boys who were participating in that seminar (I'm assuming. And I'd bet money on that assumption.).  And I've never seen the VH-1 show they're talking about and only vaguely know from other blogs who this Mystery dude is.

The truth is, I think there's a generation/demographic gap that affects my ability to find anything sympathic about these guys.  I'm a child of the 70s and 80s and therefore grew up before this so-called hooking-up culture.  Hell, I had to take ballroom dancing classes in phys ed.  It was mandatory.  Every boy had to learn to look a girl in the eye and ask her to dance.

So I'm just gonna keep my specific comments on this article to myself.

$3000?

Seriously?

I had a damn near perfect first date on Sunday.

We were batting about times and I specifically said that I was available during the day.  So he suggested that we go for a walk on the highline (he lives nearby) and then go for brunch.  It sounded like a great idea to me, weather permitting.  I saw brunch as an option.  Kind of a, 'if we're having fun' thing.

Our walk was pleasant and fun and we had plenty to talk about.  We were sitting and talking at one point when he pulled out his phone.  I assumed it was buzzing and he needed to check to see if it was important/work-related.  Instead he said, "sorry, just checking the time.  I made brunch reservations for 2:30 at [name of very nice restaurant]".

And so after our walk we made our way to brunch, which was lovely and then said our good-byes.  Will there be a second date?  Maybe, I don't know.  He's out of town now, for work.  Typical of me, he's away a lot and hours after our date he had to leave (I saw an old friend yesterday and we talked about the fact that I seem to have a knack for dating men who are either emotionally unavailable, physically unavailable or both - but that's a whole other post or a series of posts).

The point is, he planned the perfect Sunday afternoon date.   Absolutely perfect.  And that made me like him more.  It just did.  Because he had his shit together and I find that really, very hot.

And now for a musical interlude (sorry, I am a child of the 70s, and this was the song that ran through my mind when I sat down to write this last night).

Oh boy.  Where to start?

OK, let's start here - Only an idiot would ask a question that he didn't really want to know the answer to.  And yet...

Last week Tom Miller  wrote an amusing column on Sexual History and why a woman's specific number doesn't count. I'm not going to parse it here. Losplum already did that in her blog (no we aren't planning these double attacks).  His inspiration seemed to come from a post at The Frisky on Sexual Partners That Don't Count.

I'm coming at this from a totally different place.

GROW THE FUCK UP!!!

Now I realize that I'm older than Tom and the writers at The Frisky and Lostplum, too.  So sure there is an actual age difference to factor in.  But my number stopped being a topic of conversation around the same time I stopped playing truth or dare.  You know - back in college.

It seems utterly ridiculous to me for adults to be having conversations with their romantic partners about how many other people they've slept with.   As Tom pointed out, quantity is irrelevant.  All I want to know is that someone's been practicing safe sex and that they've been getting regular, appropriate (read=HIV tests) check ups.  A guy who's had 8 partners but never wore condoms and has never had an HIV test is a hell of a lot more of a danger to me than a man who's had 50 partners but who's always practiced safe sex and gets tested every 6 months (especially since I gotta believe those 8 partners have also had unprotected sex with other men - factor that out a few times and it makes my skin crawl).

And furthermore, any man stupid enough to ask me that question is going to find himself very, very sorry.  Not only won't I answer it, but I'm going to think a lot less of him for asking.  Because every guy knows or assumes that every woman is going to lie.  And no matter what the number was, there'd be a reason for you to be unhappy (too high, too low, someone you knew).   So why the fuck would you ask?

Consider this my rant for the week.

There are a lot of dating blogs out here on the interwebz.  Lots of blogs.  Lots of bloggers.  Lots of advice.  I don't tend to give much advice.  And when I do it's usually the product of a hard-learned lesson.

I'm willing to tell you what I know doesn't work (because I've failed miserably) and what I think might be a better plan or way to go.  No wisdom of the ages.  No lectures on biological imperatives or the recent scientific data that might back my thesis.  Just my own trial and error.

With this in mind...  It was a few years ago.  I remember it was summer (I still remember what I wore on our second date, but I'm skipping ahead).  I had just returned to online dating.  Fresh from one relationship or another.  And I received an email from a man who lived in a city other than NYC.  I didn't even look at his profile.  I just sent him a quick, "thank you but I'm only interested in local relationships" reply.

Shortly after that I received a message back.  I can't recall what it was that he said that made me take notice.  But it was something.  Something smart or charming or special.  And I read his profile and became intrigued.  He lived in a city not too far from NYC.  Just a few hours away.

Anyway, let me both skip ahead and provide some background.  I was at a place in my old career where I was starting to get frustrated.  Starting to feel like I was nearing the end (and a year later I quit...),  He lived in a place I'd always thought I might be able to live, as an alternative to NYC.  And I'd had my heart pretty badly bruised early that year.

It sounds so bizarre now, but within a week of us connecting online we were having drinks not too far from my apartment.   He was officially in the city to visit family, but he made the trip to meet me.  We had a great time and I thought we really connected.  And then after our drink he walked me home and nothing.  No kiss.

Later, I found out from him that he didn't want to be too pushy.  We spent much of the next two weeks communicating online.  He was moving very, very fast.  Even saying that he'd move to a part of his city that I'd like better (he was in the 'burbs) if I moved there.  It was surreal, but also comforting as my last relationship had imploded because the guy was moving too slow.

And then he came for another weekend visit.  There was no pretense of him visiting family.  He came straight to my apartment.  Mind you - this was a man I'd never kissed.  I took him out to dinner to my favorite restaurant and from there everything went downhill.

He barely talked at all during dinner.   It was like a bad first date.  But I couldn't make a polite excuse and leave early.  He was staying with me for the weekend, and just a few days earlier he was talking about moving to make me happy.

After dinner we went back to my place.  I considered, for several minutes, telling him that it was all a mistake and asking him to leave.  But I didn't.  I felt I needed to follow through and see just how it all turned out.

The first kiss was awkward,   Like it never should have happened.   But instead of stopping we proceeded to the bedroom.   The sex was awkward, yes.  And also tense and bumpy.  (Yes, sex can be awkward, tense and bumpy.  Trust me.).

I was so happy to see him go the next day.  And then when I got the email from him, saying how much he missed me already, I didn't hesitate to write a polite but firm goodbye.  I had no doubt in my mind that I never wanted to see him again.  That even the second date was a mistake.  That probably the first date was a mistake.  That I'd let myself believe things about him that had no basis in reality because it was convenient and I was vulnerable and it was easy.  But that the truth was the truth and it was time I moved on and lived in the real world.

I now have pretty strict rules about not dating guys who live outside NYC (and really, I mean to stick to them from now on) and even stricter rules about first dates and second dates and not getting stuck with someone out of sense of obligation.  But when I see people reference my rules, I have to laugh a little.  I learned the hard way.