#1 - How It Is NOT Done.

I've recently been asked by a rather nice gentleman, what is it like to be on dating/social sites as a woman? The experience honestly does vary day by day, and hour by hour. Often I get messages that are quite polite expressions of interest or curiosity. Sometimes folks tend toward less than formal writing - dropping capitals, for example, or the occasional typo. When in conjunction with a respectful missive, I find myself able to overlook it to a degree (though I admit that very well-written communication is quite an 'on' for me).

However, sometimes I get messages that are quite rude. I'm sad to say that more often than not, these messages come from Doms - or rather, from men calling themselves Doms, who give a bad name to the real ones. These are the sort of misguided individuals who lack understanding of what it is to truly be dominant - they mistake it, instead, as being free license to be an arrogant asshat.

I recently received one such message that not only was wholly characterized by such an attitude, but with such poor writing skills that my brain actually cringed against the back of my skull. When I was able to coax it out again, it occurred to me that what this sort of message truly needed was a good, oldfashioned dose of the "red pen" treatment - the sort of correction you might have seen on your essays at school.

Only when I set forth did I realize that, really, I simply had to color the whole message red, if not for form, then for content, or for both.

Read on, if you will - in doing so, learn what sort of messages a woman is sometimes subject to on a social or dating site, and (I hope) please learn from this person's misguided attempt. This is, in short, NOT the way to gain my interest.

Well, not in a positive way.

(I am a member of several of each, for various reasons, and for the sake of what dignity they retain I will identify neither the sites nor the membernames therein.)

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1. Would seem you seek but just tease as well.2.Not nice an 3.tather naughty.girl4. 5.Should be taught better manners 6.Im not a switch nor subbie young lady.7.I 8.dont care for naughty girls who tease in their search.9.10.you need to truly present yourself,11.I or capitilizations are 12.refered to a Dominant force,13.not to you within your submission.14.15.Lets talk seriosly if you want to keep My attention unto you.

Let's take this piece by piece, shall we? I'd say sentence by sentence, but much, like this first line, are not complete sentences.

1. Sentence Fragment.

2. Put a space after terminal punctuation.

3. ...what? That's not even a recognizable typo, let alone a word.

4. The period goes AFTER the last word in a sentence....fragment.

5. Sentence fragment, lacking an active noun; also, no terminal punctuation, managing to magically make this a run-on sentence fragment. Bravo!

6. "I'm" has an apostrophe in it.

7. ...put a space after terminal punctuation.

8. "don't" has an apostrophe in it.

9. ......put a space after terminal punctuation!

10. Sentences should start with capitals.

11. Put a space after a comma.

12. It's spelled "referred"

12.5 I think you meant "referring"

13. ...put a space after a comma.

14. PUT A SPACE AFTER TERMINAL PUNCTUATION!!!

15. "Let's" is a contraction of "let us" and has an apostrophe in it.

16. It's spelled "seriously."

The aforementioned spelling and grammatical issues aside, let us now address your content:

1. Of course I tease; it's one of the single-most effective ways of getting attention on a busy dating site.

2. There is nothing in my profile that leads to a supposition of lack of niceness, nor of outright naughtiness; I was both poetic in phrasing and forthright in intention.

5. My manners have often been praised and lauded - and you have no grounds on which to judge them before I've even spoken to you.

6. Obviously you aren't switch nor sub; you self-identified in your profile information as Dominant and - having not made first contact with you - there was no reason to think that I would assume that you are.

8. You don't? And yet you accused me already of being naughty and a tease. Why, then, did you go out of your oh so important way to send me this nearly incomprehensible message?

10. I do truly present myself. In my profile. Did you READ my profile?

11. The capitalization or lack thereof of I/i and You/you is a common but not exhaustive delineation on the internet when referring to Doms/Dommes/Masters/Mistresses vs. subs/pets/slaves. Being an English major and a lover of language foremost, before my sexual self-identification, I prefer to eschew such a delineation - particularly when I am making a neutral presentation to an audience that in theory contains all types, and therefore to which the maintenance of accepted real-world written language protocol is not only acceptable, but I think rather to be the norm.

13. I am a submissive-leaning switch. I am not YOUR submissive - you have contacted me, and I have not offered you my submission in any way, shape, nor form. Not only that, but if you (again) had actually READ my profile, you would have seen where it clearly says, in boldface type no less, that I love my husband and am not looking for a Master.

15. I would actually prefer not to keep your attention, because quite frankly I have found it to be rude, assumptive, and repellently overbearing. I do hope that before you go trolling for subbies elsewhere, you do take a few minutes to read the notes and recommendations that I have made above in terms of your grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

They'll help you make a better presentation of YOURself - in form at least, if not in substance.

kthx,

TheSnob