Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

"ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE," should be legally required in 72-point type on the home page of every internet dating website. It's that famous quote from Dante's Inferno, the foreboding inscription on the gates of Hell as Virgil leads Dante into the depths of despair. But the funny thing is, it also applies equally well to internet dating. At the risk of sounding histrionic and decidedly non-midwestern, online dating websites are a contemporary version of Hell. If that seems like hyperbole, let me double-down by saying that if Dante were writing Inferno today, he would be describing the people who populate the nine circles of Internet Dating Hell.

The First Circle is Limbo, a collection of men (and women) who are stuck in a transitional state that makes them neither completely available nor completely unavailable. These are the married men with no intention of ending their marriage, and who, for various reasons, are dating on the side, often with their spouse's tacit or openly acknowledged approval. It could be the men who stay in an unhappy marriage for the sake of their children or a family-run business, but have sexual and/or emotional needs that are not being met by their wife. Rodeo Clown, the Montana businessman/rancher looking for an out-of-town cowgirl he can pay to be his once-a-month girlfriend, is one of these lost souls in Limbo.

But it's not just attached men in complicated, ambiguous relationships in this First Circle. The emotionally unavailable guy is here in droves, stuck in this limbo despite many attractive opportunities to escape. He *claims* to be looking for the love of his life with whom he can finally settle down after all these years, but she never ultimately materializes because he's simply too uncomfortable in a truly intimate committed relationship. He's that lifelong middle-aged bachelor who has never been married or had a live-in girlfriend.

The Second Circle of Internet Dating Hell is filled with all the men consumed by Lust -- which at first seems like 100% of them. The distinction is between those men who, despite their better judgment, *act* on their lust, and those men who do not let the shiny-metal distraction of lust unduly influence their dating decisions. These are the guys who have no emotional interest in you; their interest is purely physical. You're not their "relationship type," just their physical type. These are the guys who are prone to choosing a trophy wife in their first, second or third marriages, instead of an "appropriate" woman who is similar in age, smarts, and physical appearance. In LA, there seems to be an excessive amount of personal trainers biding their time in the Second Circle.

The sexual Gluttons inhabit the Third Circle of Internet Dating Hell. There are many guys in their 20s who loiter for a time in the Gluttony Circle, but many will eventually move on as they grow tired of the exhausting chase to nail new tail. But some never grow out of it, and continue to choose the short-lived pleasures of quantity over quality. To them, online dating is a cheap sexual buffet where they can stuff themselves with gigantic portions of crapass all-you-can-eat food. I am not amused when these Gluttons regard me as if I were a large tub of fettuccine alfredo at their own personal Souplantation.

Three rings down, six to go. To be continued...