Is it just my imagination or do all straight, post-millennial males now sport bodies pumped, buffed and ripped to a maniacal fervor that would rival even an 18-year-old gay Navy grunt trapped in a submarine with six months more yet to go before shore leave? I mean, have any of you taken a stroll just along the Katy Trail of late?
Granted, we’ve now entered summertime’s deepest hellhole nadir. But it used to be that the only shirtless men one saw flaunting their gleaming guns of August were exclusively gay. Gold-star gay, no less! Who could have ever guessed that it would become near impossible to decipher anyone’s sexuality upon a first impression?
Let’s just get Catch-25 right to it, shall we?
Dear Howard: I think it’s time I throw in the towel with online dating. Hookup apps tease you to the very point where it’s about to happen — you’re almost there — and then nothing ever comes of it. You’re ghosted before having even met! What the heck’s up with this blue-balls’ torture? — Cerulean Agony
Dear Blue: Okay, guys, may I have your attention, please? I need y’all to take a few moments here to just absorb what I’m about to reveal: All dating apps—as in 100 percent of them—are now either partly or even fully AI “enhanced.” Understand? Compare it, say, to sending out your resume for a job application. Human beings no longer read resumes. AI reads them and either rejects yours or accepts it, based upon coded algorithms. If specific words are not included, you’re automatically rejected. Problem is, unless AI writes your resume, AI ain’t gonna accept it, either.
Welcome to finding gainful employment, circa 2025!
Anyhow, back to your Catch-25 dating predicament: Be very wary of depending on your computer to determine who’ll be the best date. Chances are good that your dating app’s selection won’t even be human. Seriously.
Take a good long gander at, oh, Secret Meet (spelled online as one word). Every one of Secret Meet’s bios read exactly alike. Every man is handsome — or at least fuckable. Every photo dazzles soullessly, for not a one of these perma-grinning hunks intends to meet up with you for sex. The only talent these fine robo-studs are programmed to enjoy is spending down your free chat tokens. Secret Meet is the deepfake, Stepford-glossed version of Grindr.
These sites are far too milquetoast-polite to ever speak their fake minds in any way that could err on the side of human-like motivations, or possibly in any way be misinterpreted as lasciviously improper. To quote Abe Lincoln: “Show me a man without vices, and I’ll show you a man without virtues.”
AI dating is, assuredly, always vice-free.
Dear Howard: My son married a man who abuses him emotionally, mentally, and physically. Two years ago, I’d just finished putting my son through dental school, when he suddenly met “the love of his.” Within six months they were walking down the aisle together.
From the very start, something about his spouse just seemed a bit off. On the surface my new son-in-law appeared likable enough, though, at 54, a bit long in the tooth for a man 20 years younger. But my son always had a thing for Daddy types. I shrugged off the red flags.
They seemed happy.
But 10 months ago, an apartment came up for sale in my building. My husband and I immediately purchased it, intending to turn it into a large office. As it just so happened, my son and his husband were seeking new rental digs. What a stroke of luck for all four of us! My husband and I even gave the newlywed lovebirds a “family discount” rental rate.
And that’s when I first it. Almost immediately began a gradual “dimming” of my son. The light in his eyes began flickering out; his aura refracted gray. He looked like a kicked puppy. My worst fears proved true, when one night he came to my door, eyes welling tears and arms covered in bruises. What a truism it is that no matter how sordid you thin a situation is, the reality is always 10 times worse.
I instantly put my son on a plane to; his mother. But my son-in-law immediately hopped another in pursuit to argue his innocence. During this interim, I took the opportunity to have a locksmith rekey their door, impounded my son-in-law’s car from the parking garage and requested management deactivate his entrance fob into the building.
At the same time, I found out my son-in-law’s true age to be 64 — 30 years older than my son! I also discovered he’d been paying no rent to us, at all! Then came the mysterious incident of my son’s car getting totaled, and him having no memory whatsoever of how it happened. It became only too apparent that my son-in-law made his living as a two-bit con man, his scams running the gamut from auto insurance fraud to pawnshop profiteering to swindling 87-year-old women out of their life’s retirement savings.
But what was my son’s response? Against all logic and reasoning, my son flew straight back and they both took another apartment together.
What should a good father do, Howard? — Heart of Glass
Dear Heart-Shattered: Ain’t it just a bitch, stumbling through the desert wastelands, year after year, trying everything within your power to somehow get you and your horse hydrated again before it’s too late; then, at last a glorious oasis appears, and it’s not a mirage. It’s real! OMG, you did it! You’ve finally led your horse to water, but… Well, y’all know how it ends.
One last thing, Glass Heart: It’s all but inevitable that you’ll accidentally run across your estranged son-in-law at some point. I suggest going all-out-gutter when he starts lighting into you: “Why don’t you try getting your dick surgically extended again? Pperhaps they won’t botch it this time.” Trust me, it shuts down any conversation cold.
For any of y’all feeling those post-Labor Day blues next month, send your September sorrows to AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.
I think we’ll close now with a quote from Shakespeare: “How much sharper than a serpent’s tooth is to have a thankless child?”
—Howard Lewis Russell
For any of y’all feeling those post-Labor Day blues next month, send your September sorrows to AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.