Want to date me? Fill out this form

Recently, a sex worker named Aella posted a link on Twitter to a “date me” survey she’d made. She wrote, “I’ve met, had sex with, and dated people from my previous date-me surveys. It doesn’t work all the time, but when it works it’s great, and causes me to fall for guys I never would have considered otherwise.” My interest was fuckin’ piqued, dude. It was piqued as hell.

See, for ages I’ve been wanting to date someone new, and ideally someone local – but it’s been tough. It seems like the dating apps are a hellscape for just about everyone, and I’ve found it especially challenging to meet people who are chill about my job – by which I mean, people who neither sexually harass me nor slut-shame me about it, and people who are actually open to dating a woman who talks about her sex life on the internet. I also just find that most people seem really boring on dating apps, even if they’re far from boring IRL, and that conversations on these apps tend to devolve into silence pretty quickly because nobody wants to put any damn effort into anything anymore. (Myself included, don’t get me wrong…)

So, the more that I thought about making a “date me” survey of my own, the more it seemed like a fantastic idea. I could ask the questions that matter to me most, and filter out the people who aren’t a good fit. I’d also be selecting for 1) people who already know about my work and are fine with it, and 2) people who are willing and able to put effort into their connections. When I assessed my dating frustrations of the last several years, all of the issues seemed to be more-or-less solvable by switching from the apps to a survey, at least in theory.

So, next, I had to decide what questions to ask. Some are multiple-choice and some are writing-based; some are marked as mandatory and some are not, though my preference is for folks to answer as many of the questions as possible, since each one gives me different information that is useful to me in my decision-making. I won’t reveal all of the questions here – there are 29 in total! – but I’ll talk you through most of them and why I felt they were important enough to include.

(NOTE: If you are thinking about filling out the form yourself, I’d strongly encourage you to do so before reading any of the following! The information in your form will be much more useful to me if you answer it as truthfully as possible, rather than giving the answers you think I’m looking for – and I worry that knowing the inner machinations of how I chose these questions would influence how you answer them, which would defeat the purpose for us both. Thanks, babes!)

Basics – I asked folks for their name, age, location, contact info, and a social media link I could creep them at, ideally with photos. I also asked if we’d ever met in-person before.

A little bit deeper now – I gave respondents open text fields in which to tell me about their gender, relationship status, monogamy vs. non-monogamy status, job/field of study, and ambitions. Later there’s also a separate question about respondents’ comfort level and experience level with non-hierarchical polyamory, because, uh, I am married as fuck and have no intention of changing that.

Politics – Having once dated a non-feminist by accident because I made the stupid mistake of assuming a guy who seemed “nice” would also believe that systemic misogyny is bad, I’ve made leftist politics a mandatory criteria for anyone I date. And not just because I’m a woman who loathes bigots (though I sure fuckin’ do), but because many of my loved ones are female and/or queer and/or trans, and I would never knowingly expose those people to someone who hates their guts or votes against their safety.

(In the past, I’ve sometimes asked guys, “Are you a feminist?” and had them quibble with me about semantics, so I’ve helpfully provided a working definition of feminism right below the question, for the purposes of this survey: “Are you a feminist? i.e. Do you believe that women have, in the past and present, been oppressed by misogynist, patriarchal structures, and that this is a bad thing that should be fixed?” It’s so stupid that I even have to ask this, but like, the world sucks; do you blame me?)

Dating a sex writer – I completely understand why someone wouldn’t want to have me write publicly about our sex life; that’s a very reasonable boundary to have! But I’ve learned over the years that it’s an incompatible boundary with being my partner, mostly because it makes me miserable. I’m happy to fully anonymize anything I write/say about a partner if that’s their preference, but what I won’t do is date someone who’s against this type of sharing altogether, so I included a question to gauge respondents’ comfort level on this issue. (It’s not binding, obviously. This is the kind of thing I’d negotiate with someone in much greater detail if we actually started dating.)

The most important question – I put this one in the middle, so respondents would be “warmed up” a little before answering it. It’s actually two questions mashed into one: “Why are you interested in dating ME, specifically? Why do you think we might potentially be a good fit?”

One of my big pet peeves in dating is when I feel like the person just wanted to go on a date, or just wanted to fuck; they didn’t want to go on a date with me or fuck me in particular. That’s fine for people who are fine with that, but I’m not!

I also thought this would be an interesting question given that many people filling it out will have followed me on social media for a while, so even if we don’t “know each other,” they probably have a sense of who I am and what we might be like together.

Stuff about art – I went back and forth on whether to include these two questions, but ultimately I felt they were important for what I’m looking for. The first one is, “What’s your favorite thing I’ve written/made, and why?”

This question is marked as optional, so if someone isn’t familiar with my work, they don’t have to answer it (although I’d find it confusing why they were filling it out at all in that case!). But I asked this question because it’s essentially another way of asking “Why are you into me?” If someone likes qualities of mine that I also like about myself, I think we’re likelier to get along. (Like, if someone said one of my porn clips is their favorite thing I’ve ever made, I’d be glad they enjoyed it, but that’s not a person who really “gets” me, or what my deal is, or why it’s fun to date me, IMO.)

The second question in this category is, “What do you think would be MY favorite thing that YOU’VE made, and why?” My spouse and I debated the merits of this question, especially since not everybody “makes stuff” – but ultimately, I feel like anyone who’s a good match for me will have made some stuff. It doesn’t even have to be conventional art, like a painting, song, or poem – it could be a loaf of bread, a piece of furniture, a meticulous organizational system for your spice rack. This question essentially measures whether someone sees the world the way a creative does (which is important to me, even if they’re not a creative “by trade”), and also gives respondents an opportunity to brag a little about something impressive they’ve done.

More about you – I originally was going to ask respondents to tell me their best and worst qualities as partners/dates, but upon reflection, I remembered that most people aren’t very good at describing themselves accurately. So I stole a trick utilized by the cast of the improv show Hookup when they’re getting to know an audience volunteer – I asked how their friends would describe them. Specifically, I asked for 3 words that they think their friends might use about them. It’s not guaranteed to be accurate or anything, but I think it’s good information to have.

The second question in this section is similar: “What are 3 words that your ex-partner(s) might use to describe you (if applicable)?” I marked this one as optional, both because not everyone has exes and because some people may find it upsetting to think about their exes – but I think it’s a useful question in that it hopefully forces respondents to reflect upon their flaws and disclose some of them. 

I concluded this section by asking, “What’s a quirky hobby/interest/passion of yours?” because I’m a sucker for enthusiastic nerds. This is kind of a demisexuality life-hack: ask questions whose answers you’re likely to find hot. This also provides me with a great conversation-starter for if we go on a date.

Sex stuff – I put this near the end, because I knew a lot of people would click on the survey link because they’re curious about what kinds of salacious questions I’m asking, and I wanted them to have to wade through the other stuff before getting to the pervy shit 😂

This section is a few multiple-choice questions gauging respondents’ interest level in giving oral, receiving oral, giving spankings, and having period sex – all things that would deeply bum me out if they were missing from a relationship, with the exception of spanking; I love it, but it isn’t a must-have for me in every relationship, because I’m polyamorous and can get it elsewhere if need be. (Would it be nice, though? I mean, yeah.)

Then I left open fields in which respondents are invited to describe how dommy vs. subby they are, and how toppy vs. bottomy they are. I asked about their favorite sex toy, either for themselves or to use on a partner. (I previously had a separate question to gauge how comfy they are with frequently incorporating sex toys into sex, but figured that this question might give me the info I need on that front.) And then I asked “What’s a sex act you think is underrated and why?” because it’s been one of my favorite vetting questions for a long time. I think you can learn a lot about how somebody thinks about sex from how they answer this question.

The final question – I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but its function is basically to gauge whether someone is enough of a sex nerd for us to be a decent match.

And that’s the “date me” survey! Feel free to fill it out if you’re interested in potentially dating me. I’m mostly looking for people who live in Toronto or New York, but I would be open to long-distance in some form if the right person came along. I also travel sometimes, so if you live in/near a city like Portland, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, etc., then I might hit you up for drinks the next time I’ll be in town, and we can see how it goes.

I’ve gotten more responses than I was expecting already, which is exciting. It remains to be seen whether this is actually a solution to the dating problems I’ve had, but it’s certainly a new and thrilling strategy, and I’ll be interested to see whether it works better than responding to yet another dry “hi, how r u” on Tinder.

(P.S. I sent this out to my entire mailing list, including unpaid subscribers – hi! – but if you want to receive a little diary entry like this one from me every week, you can subscribe for $5/month here! Your support allows me to keep writing. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that the newsletter contains the most juicy/personal/intimate stuff I publish anywhere these days, plus you get YEARS’ worth of archival essays when you sign up. They’re some of the best writing I’ve ever done. Okay, I’ll stop now. Love you! Thanks!)