This idea, as it turns out, is maybe not as good as it first sounds. (It sounds good enough, in fact, that apparently user demand has shut down the site for at least two days going.)

[GameCrush is] an entirely new interactive social gaming experience allowing gamers to meet, match and pay to play online games with other users (PlayDates). GameCrush is the only online service that allows gamers to choose a companion to spice up their favorite online games. Both Players and PlayDates define the experience they want- either “flirty” or “dirty”, choosing from some of the most popular console titles and casual web-based games.

On GameCrush, players can find their perfect PlayDate through browsing their profiles and chatting live with them. Players can then purchase a live one-on-one private gaming session, complete with two-way video and text chat.

OK, skipping over the “flirty or dirty” part — I mean, how many of us ignore red flags at the outset? — it seems kind of genius: meet and get specifically match-made, with someone with similar interests, while doing exactly the thing that in some cases, um, keeps you from getting matchmade! But, as Postbourgie.com notes, it’s not quite that innocent: “On GameCrush the Players are male and the PlayDates are female. There are about 1200 profiles registered thus far of women recruited using (you guessed it!) a Craigslist ad. They’re also paid. Each PlayDate keeps 60% of the cash she earns. Players can also rate their PlayDates:

After a session you can rate your PlayDate on her hotness, gaming skill, and flirtiness. The highest-rated girls will receive preferred placement on the site. GameCrush is assembling a team of its most highly regarded PlayDates called JaneCrush, which would be positioned similar to Ubisoft’s Fragdolls in that members of JaneCrush will generate content for the site like blogs and editorials.

Hooookay. now it’s starting to sound a bit more like GameGeisha. Postbourgie continues: “It seems like it has the potential to walk the line between being a relatively innocuous social service to something a bit more…distasteful…For the most part the PlayDates are just girls who want to play and get paid and guys who want to flirt with an attractive girl while enjoying a game. And as my blogmate R.A.B pointed out, if this had existed 10 years ago he would have been a much more happy and well-adjusted adolescent, so the benefits may outweigh the possible pitfalls. Even so, I can’t help but wonder when Rule 31 and Rule 34 are going to kick in and it all devolves into ‘Show me ur b00bs! </fap fap fap>’. Is everything all good or am I just being hypervigilant and seeing possibilities for sexism and general ickyness where there are none?”

Echoing one of Postbourgie’s commenters, I’d say, option C: Seeing possibilities for sexism and general ickyness…right where they are.

By now you’ve heard of Chatroulette, the Russian roulette of online chat? Turn on your webcam and you never know who you’re going to be speaking to; When the session is over you never know who you were just speaking with. Naturally, this kind of anonymity leads to chats with a lot of penises. Now, if you’re lucky you’ll get Merton. And if you’re really REALLY lucky maybe you’ll end up chatting with a cute guy or girl. But when that bullet fires (rarely!!), remember to get their information, because as we said, it’s anonymous.

That’s what happened to this girl. Please, if you know the guy in the below screenshot help these two reconnect! (via Ulresque)

And if you have your own Chatroulette missed connection, there’s a site for that!

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn tries to comfort a girl who is Confused and Hurt. She is not a virgin herself, but her boyfriend said he was. That is, until he finally admitted that she wasn’t his first. (Confusing!)

I even told him from the beginning that it was very important that we know about each other’s sexual histories. Honesty is a big deal to me in our relationship, and I feel he has lied to me about the biggest possible thing.

(Hurtful!) Is she overreacting? Can we even understand why he lied? Just go read the letter at Happen, then come back here to comment on sex, lies, and virginitygate.

I cannot lie to you. This is not the first time we’ve covered this letter. You see, about 12 months ago, MSN and I did it. Check out the comments here.

The Curse of the Friend-Boy continues on March 23, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Hi, I just replaced the phone after a two-hour conversation in which the subject was “male bashing” (perhaps you know of it). My “girl”-friend had just been told by her steady that he had only wanted her for one thing (take a guess). Yes, I was as disgusted as she was and it set me thinking. I am used by a lot of people as a comfort from the tough times and although I am not unhappy, I am sick of hearing about all guys being chauvinistic pigs who look for one thing in life. I have gone out with two girls for a grand total of four days and after both, I was given the good old friends line. I know this is similar to other letters, but it is slightly different. I am not bad looking, I have a decent sense of humor, and consider myself romantic (flowers, candy, letters). The problem is, no one wants to accept me as more than a friend. I don’t see what my problem is. Although I am used as a stuffed toy when times are tough, it is not a position I would change for the world. Why is it that a) all the women around me seem to make the same mistakes even though I warn them, and b) How do I get over that “friends” line? It destroys me inside, and leaves me feeling inadequate as a guy, but more like a used tissue. What can I do to make myself appealing? Should I change or accept the fact that I will only ever be a friend?

Thank you kindly for all your help.
— Unlucky in Love

Dear Unlucky,

Everything I said before, plus a few points:

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Single women are still feeling the “stigma” of spinsterhood, a new study of middle class, never married, women over the age of 30 has found. In fact, single women between the ages of 25 and 35 reported feeling both highly visible in certain social situations — like, God help us all, bouquet tosses at weddings — and highly invisible when it came to social status, in almost every situation from consideration by political representatives to expectations in office environments.

Despite the fact that 40% of all adults in The United States were single in 2009, it is women who often feel pressure to explain or justify their single status.

Pandagon goes into more detail about the humiliating catch-22 of the bouquet toss,and also explores the potentially harmful situations the pressure to be married can foster. That is: “men can make higher demands on women in exchange for their validation of women. Sometimes a woman’s devalued position in a relationship merely means she does most of the housework and emotional work, and her sexual satisfaction is a secondary concern. But in the worst case scenarios, culturally created female desperation can be used as leverage by domestic abusers to keep their victims in place.”

A new book by social scientist Bella DePaulo, PhD, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
addresses all these issues and more. (The  fabulous bullet list she includes in her post about the book had me yelling, “sing it, sister!” at my computer screen.)

And here’s another antidote for all the single ladies, all the single ladies — and anybody who loves a great self-published comic: the amazingly funny and philosophic story, “My Every Single Thought” by Corinne Mucha. This comic chronicles the author’s attempt to get over an old relationship, and come to terms with a — yes — saucy new label: Single.

Enabling Supporting the time-honored marketing scheme theory that everything is OK if it results in shopping, UK department store empire Debenham’s has introduced a kicky new concept in retail therapy: the divorce registry!

Another nail in the coffin of the sanctity of marriage? Liberating new trend? Stupid marketing gimmick? What do you think?

Clearly, the grownups aren’t at all sure what to do about sexting. While legal scholars (rightly) ponder when, whether, and most importantly how to prosecute sexters, one Pennsylvania school/DA threatened kids suspected of sexting with child pornography charges unless they took part in an after-school program which, among other things, required girls to write essays on why their actions were wrong; the goal: to “gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today’s society.” Is it shaming in here, or is it just me? To be sure, sexting should be taken seriously (as harassment and abuse). But why do I suspect — perhaps cynically, yes — that this focus on “what it means” will not include a full exploration of the deep cultural factors that appropriate and contain girls’ sexuality and limit their worth and self-expression to “hotness”? (Maybe it will; I hope I’m wrong.)

But as theoreotical counterpoint — and to counter the oft-peddled image of teens doing nothing all day but re-watching Twilight, playing Kill Everyone, and forwarding around naked photos of the French exchange student, I offer this: a reminder of many of the positive and, dare I say, actually empowering, ways that girls use social media.

As eleventh-grader Nadia Tareen — as part of a video series on media issues called Girls Investigate, a joint project of The Women’s Media Center (WMC) and Girls Learn International®, Inc. — writes:

Adults are often too fast to condemn teenagers’ use of technology. We aren’t as “clueless about online threats as some adults believe – Two-thirds of the teens who have created profiles have used privacy controls to limit access to them.” Also, I suspect that my parents and teachers are unaware of everything that my peers and I accomplish online. For example, social media is a great tool for activism. As the leader of my school’s chapter of Girls Learn International®, Inc., I have found that e-mail and Facebook messages are invaluable for organizing and spreading awareness. Teenagers even use social media to make their dreams come true. As an avid YouTube-watcher, I can cite at least a dozen teenagers who posted videos of their musical and comedic talents on the website, to then be discovered by industry professionals. If social media is used intelligently, it can yield endless benefits.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn responds to a woman aptly named Lost. She’s a woman that’s going places, stuck in a relationship that’s going nowhere:

We have fought constantly … and every time we fight we break up. He decides that he can’t handle what’s going on and tries to blame me. He is going to be 30 and yet can’t seem to get a grip on what he wants in life. I do not think that he appreciates me.

After dating for five years how can she break away? Read Lynn’s advice at Happen, then share your own stories below!

Age: 9.

City: Detroit, MI

Activities: Standing in a department store trying on school uniforms. Being adjusted in said uniform by my mother. Witnessing my first public fight as another mother yells at her son.

Quotations: From yelling mother – “Pants don’t fit you. You’re too fat. You should stop eating. Why can’t you be more like the other kids? My life is hard enough without having to come home and deal with your sorry %*@!

Status: I watch furtively, and then hide behind my mother. A silent thank you to the powers that be. My mother says something to the woman about being in public and embarrassing her child. The woman scoffs.

In the New York Times’ I Need to Vent. Hello, Facebook, Skyler Hurt, 22, friend and bridesmaid to a feuding couple, likewise, intervened:

“Hey, you guys know we can still see this right …?”

Apparently, couples DO know their fights are being observed, and like the mother yelling in the store, they don’t care. In fact, as the Times article notes, some of them welcome the chance to publicly air their grievances for friends and family to see.

Michael Vincent Miller, psychologist and author of the book “Intimate Terrorism: The Crisis of Love in an Age of Disillusion” notes:

Today, popular representations of marriage tend toward “two very self-protective egos at war with one another,”…“each wanting vindication and to be right by showing that the other is wrong.”

The thing is, isn’t marriage about two individuals coming together as a couple? By using Facebook and other social media to gain “support” for their respective “sides” in an argument or disagreement, it feels more like they are keeping separate counsel and setting up camps to do battle. Additionally, when you ask your friends and family to constantly choose sides and what they see most is your Facebook status rather than your faces at the dinner table, that support each person is looking for individually can quickly turn into disapproval for the couple as a whole. [Plus: “Tacky!” — BG]

Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia would agree.

“People tend to do better in their marriage when friends and family are supportive,” Mr. Wilcox said. “When that support dries up, that can be a really big problem.”

Additionally, in an era rife with passive aggressive forms of communication, from sites that allow you to anonymously tell your friends and family what you really think to others that allow you to virtually “slap” someone, one has to wonder exactly where we’re going. Are we really evolving as thinking and feeling human beings or is technology slowly unraveling us? Have we become a society where we are more comfortable interfacing virtually with our partners rather than speaking with them when they are sitting in front of us? Just as importantly, will couples venting their frustrations with each other in the new public spaces, as parents, do the same to their children? Will anyone say anything?

The accompanying photo was particularly powerful as one of the couples sits together on the couch, their faces aglow, not with love, but lit from the screens of their laptops. While the Victorian ideals of marriage are thankfully passé, the openness that modern couples should be striving for is openness with each other, not the World Wide Web.

An ancient evil resurfaces on March 23, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a problem with not wanting to hurt anyone, even at my own expense. I know I must bite the bullet and break off clean rather than drag/lead on a relationship after it’s gone sour. I become what the girl wants me to be and when I want to be myself she thinks I’m going psycho when in reality I was just a facade to her in the first place. I guess I just have to learn to be myself first and find a girl who likes me for me and not who they want me to be. In a way I guess I don’t really have a question, I just needed to talk. Thanks BG. I really appreciate your ears.

Love,
A Hopless Romantic at Purdue

P.S. I also am a classic case of “nice guys finish last.” I don’t drink or smoke (anything) and I’m waiting until I’m married to have sex.

I do have a question after all. All of my relationships have lasted over two years. I’m now trying to find one that I can be myself in but every woman I know says does this just before I ask them on a date. They give me a big hug and say, Sometimes I’m even told that I’m their best friend. Yet some seem to flirt with me anyway, but when I ask them on a date they are always busy. I have 100s of great female friends and not a single romantic one. Minus one clinging vine that I have to cut loose. We broke up four months ago and she still thinks we are going to get married. (I feel like Wayne in “Wayne’s World” with Stacey.) My question is this. If a girl says “You are such a great friend,” should I give up on a romantic relationship or do women just get kicks out of confusing men? Thanks again.

Dear Hopeless Romantic,

No, thank YOU. You — along with your brethren all over the world who share this same waking nightmare — have provided me with one of the best articulations I’ve ever seen of

The Curse of the Friend-Boy.

First of all, OUCH. They hug you too? Yeesh. That adds insult to intimacy. Who knew niceness could be so harsh?

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