Kissing Strangers: How to Online Date Like a Boss

By Alethea Spiridon

Every single (and soon-to-be-single) woman knows the Dating Horror Stories. The guy who charms your panties off before he bolts. The funeral planner with a foot fetish. The Early Ejaculator. Or that filmmaker looking for a soul mate—provided you don't mind he lied about his height, his weight, his wife, and... oh look, a micropenis. Ho

• Language: English
• Publisher: Little Black Hook
• Release date: Mar 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781775209218

Alethea Spiridon

Alethea is a writer and editor (lots of romance books, so many) out of Ontario, Canada. When her marriage fell apart she realized she had to get back out there and figure out how to date again or accept a life of eating from the Dinner For One menu option permanently. The book in your hands (or on your screen) is the result of that research. If it saves one woman (you!) from the landmines out there in the DatingVerse, then she’s done her job. For more bits of dating advice and man mysteries solved, visit her website at www.littleblackhook.com.

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Little Black Hook

www.littleblackhook.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. 

Copyright © 2018 by ALETHEA SPIRIDON. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Edited by Stephen Morgan

www.stephenedits.com

Cover design and formatting by Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs

http://sweetnspicydesigns.com

Publicity by Barclay Publicity

www.barclaypublicity.com

Ebook ISBN 978-1-7752092-1-8

Print ISBN 978-1-7752092-0-1

Manufactured in Canada.

First Edition January 2018

Author Note: Opinions in this book are solely the opinions of the author and are based on her personal experiences. Names have been changed in stories discussed. The names of experts talked with are their own. In no way does author take any accountability for whether this helps you get a date or not. But she is certain it will help and give you a winning edge.

For Coco

Men may come and go but soul sisters are forever.

Thank you for keeping my head above the water and suggesting I turn that essay into a book.

Part 1: Dating is a War Zone

Part 2: The Rules

#1 Meet in person as fast as you can.

#2 You don’t need fucking closure.

#3 Lack of effort tells you everything.

#4 If he doesn’t have five bucks for coffee, he might not be your next boyfriend.

#5 Even so-called, self-acclaimed nice guys can be jerks. Watch for them.

#6 Join as many dating sites as you can.

#7 Use recent pictures on your profile.

#8 Have a snappy, upbeat profile.

#9 Learn to say YES.

#10 Don’t bail after a few days online.

#11 A first date should have you doing something together.

#12 Prepare for the unexpected.

#13 Don’t stand anyone up. Ever.

#14 Know what you want.

#15 Start dating again only when you know you’re ready.

#16 If some assembly is required, do not apply.

#17 What you see is (usually) what you get.

Part 3: Where I go on about things you should know

part 1

Correction…ONLINE Dating

is a War Zone

I don’t know what it was like before online dating became the thing to do, but it’s a bit of a war zone, battlefield, troubled territory … all of that out there, girls, and I write that smiling and chuckling, because all I can do is shake my head and tell you what I know.

Tell you things I wish someone had told me before I ventured into this awkward world of maybes and might hes and why the fuck DID he?? and all the crap that comes with dating men (who act like boys sometimes!).

I wish there’d been this very book before I started. But it’s here for you, and thank you for reading and letting me give you some tips. You’re smart and savvy already. I know that. This is just going to hopefully tell you where some of the manmines (haha, get it?) might be so you can step aside and avoid as little drama and suffering as possible.

If you don’t know what you’re getting into, you’ll be ambushed. Let’s get you ready!

How do you survive?

Attract a man?

Get laid?

Find a little romance?

Figure out the men from the frogs?

I won’t lie—it’s not easy. But we’re not afraid, right?

Men look for sex and find love

One thing I want you to get in your head right from the start is this: men look for sex and find love.

Men don’t go looking for love or relationships (there is the odd guy here and there that is); they literally trip on it like a piece of Lego, hobble about screaming no! and ouch, kicking pieces of their singledom (Lego, stick with me and this analogy) about the room, and then finally realize that, hey, Lego is actually really cool, and let’s start building with it and creating something awesome.

Let’s work with this concept. Understand it. Embrace it. Does it make me crazy and frustrate the hell out of me? Fuck yeah. But I can’t change how men are wired, and neither can you, so let’s work with what’s there and make the best of it.

Suit up, grab my hand (and this book) because we’re going in, girls!

Decide to Survive!

You must make a conscious effort to decide that you will survive; it is never hopeless until you give up the fight. Once the decision to survive has been made, let the word SURVIVAL be your guide.

U.S. Military Pocket Survival Guide

2009, Rowman & Littlefield

Dating today isn’t really dating!

It’s hooking up, hanging out, Netflix and chill.

I asked one of the guys I matched with on Bumble about this idea that nobody dates anymore. Sean, 36, said this: Well, I think at our age we know what we want and when we find it we move quicker than before.

You can probably guess that Sean moved on faster than I could ask a follow-up question.

Most men look for sex and find love. Truth.

I’m a romance editor and a die-hard romantic through and through, so this cold, loveless world of dating where most people are in it to sleep with you on the first date is soul crushing. Yes, mindless sex is fantastic, but when that is all most guys want…

What the fuck happened to romance?

Do not expect to be courted or dated. Expect to be jerked around, lied to, avoided, ghosted, stood up, breadcrumbed, cancelled on… There are, of course, good men out there, but it will take some digging and meeting, and time and patience.

That’s where this book comes in. You want sex? I’ll show you how to find it. You want something more? Well, keep reading…

Go in knowing a few things.

Tinder. Bumble. POF. OkCupid.

Ghosting. Breadcrumbing

Netflix and chill.

Nobody dates anymore!

Romance is dead!

You thought dating would be fun, easy, and you’d walk around in your cute little outfits like the women do on television. Bah! Not so much, girls. It can be fun. It is fun at times. But it’s also work and involves a lot of man decoding and navigating a landscape filled with unknowns, rejection, confusion…not much has changed since your mom dated, really. It’s just packaged differently is all.

Dating comes in new forms now. Well, the ways that we get to men. One in three people meet online today, so you have to be where the men are—on a dating site and dating apps. Swiping and sore digits will be your new norm.

But that’s just how you initially connect. Nothing matches real-life experience, so you must meet and talk to men, and a lot of men (probably) until you find the one you click with and want to settle with, whatever settling means for you.

Or maybe you’ll meet him on guy number three.

And if it’s hookups you want, you’ll get tips on how to make them work for you. Nothing wrong with casual sex!

This guide will give you that heads-up so you don’t get ambushed like I did. You’ll know what the booby traps are and how to charge ahead regardless. Consider this your counterattack in your plan to survive.

A decisive victory can be yours, but you need to know the rules if you want to beat them (men) at their game.

How I Landed in the Pond

I never understood the expression felt the world tilt beneath my feet, but I did the day my now ex-husband told me our marriage was over. I mean, let’s be serious, I wasn’t totally surprised because it was a shit marriage in that last year and we just weren’t having fun anymore. I’d even dropped the D word a few times over that past year, but never had the balls to go through with it.

But I wasn’t satisfied with the reason he gave for throwing away eleven years together, so I pushed him. What was his reason you ask? It wasn’t really one. All he said was that he had a gut feeling it was over. Fair enough. Crappy reason, vague as shit, but whatever. That’s all he could muster up.

Pushing men only drives them away faster …

I knew this, but I didn’t care. I was trying to save a marriage, a family, and all by myself at that. He kept saying he didn’t know.

Did he want to be single? He wasn’t sure.

Did he have feelings for someone else? No¹.

Wanted to sleep with someone else? No.²

Nothing made sense, so I headed to Amazon and bought the Army’s Military Survival Guide. I was in good hands now. Right up front, the book dished out the advice that saved me. I pledged to live by these steps to get me through my new life as the old crumbled around me:

S U R V I V A L

It gave me a framework to navigate this new territory. And was it ever new! I hadn’t ever really dated and had no idea about courtship or anything, other than what I’d seen on Sex and the City.

But sometimes the beautiful, bitchy, glorious Universe gives us the shove (and it was a shove indeed!) we refuse to give ourselves, and that’s what happened here. I was miserable in that marriage, but didn’t want to give up on it because of the kids. Could my ex have done his dissolving of that union in a more respectful, dignified manner?

Yes.

Did he?

No.

But we’re all human, so whatever. I’m glad he had the courage to end what needed ending. We had our time and it was now time to move the fuck on. For that, I say thank you.

I am forever grateful for this fresh start. I got back to me and my purpose in life, and I have never felt so fulfilled. I got to be creative and finally start and finish a book. The feeling that fills me with cannot be described. This little baby would not be in your sweet, sexy hands, girls, if it weren’t for all of that falling apart. In losing what I thought was everything, I gained what is clearly so much more and then some.

Remember, what seems like misery now might actually be, as cliché as it sounds, a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t change anything that happened. I look at it as a gift and I embrace it as such every single day, and you should too. Embrace this new opportunity in your life to find better and do better.

Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.-Marilyn Monroe

To Find a Prince You Have to Kiss Some Toads

Back on the Block

I was curious and the solution was easy. Here were tons of potential suitors online. Just pick one, right?

Nope.

It means diving in and wading through thousands of men to hopefully come out with a few you won’t mind giving up a few hours for.

I