I remember my first time hearing about Adam4Adam. I was a sophomore in college and as naïve as Rose Nylund. I didn’t know a single thing about the internet fucking “dating” culture and if I did I would’ve exited stage left – way left. I only had one sexual partner at the time; my first boyfriend, “Nolan“. He was pretty much my first everything. He was my first kiss, my first jerk-off session, and my first bottoming. After we broke up, I eventually met someone who would execute my first real orgasm. Nevertheless, I still felt like the biggest late bloomer in the Delaware Valley! I knew it was time for me to get out there; especially when there were club kids younger than me power-bottoming beyond my league. I wanted to make a connection somehow with somebody who would share the same desires I had (still waiting… by the way).

“Just try it. Everybody’s doing it,” a friend of a friend suggested to me. The splendors of queer peer pressure, it can easily lead to other risky trends like: ecstasy, snuff porn or worst – Madonna’s Hard Candy. To be honest, I really did not know what to expect. I just wanted to find a guy and date him. Oh, if it were only that simple. What seemed like something I would causally get into for just a couple of months came to be synonymous with my dating and sex life. I had sadly turned into another gay male statistic – I was now an “Adam”. Over the years, the online exchanges were more absurd as the idealism of establishing a “first date” was downright laughable. When a guy was present and accounted for, the profile I kept would go inactive for months. As my account went into a state of remission, I could sense it patiently waiting for the demise of another shot at romance. It was only a matter of time before I would log back on, starting up ridiculous rapports with “Mattieboi1684” or “HungNLoaded32” again.

Communicating with men online was as effortless as ordering Chinese takeout. The pursuit of Dick-Lo Mein was as hassle free and convenient as ever. Most men I talk to have admitted how they find the online interaction more simplistic and alluring than going into a bar for the next big thrill. You can create your own online alter ego and be more confident, more reckless and more straight-forward about what you want. We as a gender don’t have the patience or competence to really persuade another man into sleeping with us. Nowadays, guys don’t even attempt a friendly ice breaker towards the really hot guy at the Brew Ha Ha, when they can easily stalk him later on Grindr. Are we so desensitized to sex that it has become the instant step “B” after step “A” rather than the momentous experience that it used to be?

When the expression: “horny top here, want to fuck?” became the most common approach for a potential mate-date-whatchamacallit to greet me, I knew my mingling with the sinister “Adams” had gone too far. If I’m really going to spend the next hour and a half with your dick inside me then I want to know the real you. Not all of you, but enough to say: “Wow, he tops like a linebacker and he’s a Chuck Norris aficionado!” To me, a phallus is just a phallus (yes, size queens, I said it!). The best left impressions are the genuine and personal ones, not the over-the-top sexual ones… well if you play your cards right, it could possibly be both.

So the elephant in the room isn’t really being ignored anymore. Eighty-nine percent of Philadelphia’s gay male population is – or were – an “Adam”. Some are sane, most are extremely fucked up, and all are generally looking for the same sweet deal: a connection. Perhaps the whole online craze puts everything in perspective. A culture that used to be subjected to discreet rendezvous at bathhouses and secluded meet-ups at piers can now freely log on and hope their fantasies will be requited within ten minutes flat. It’s another step of integrating into a more mainstream society and fitting into the westernized, easy access standards. As for me, I’m no longer an “Adam”. I got so bored of being bored by a website that generally bored me. It was time to interact with real men at real places. Sure the outcome will probably be the same; however, I’m more willing to take that chance now more than ever. That’s what makes the City of Brotherly Love sort of whimsical. For a town that can seem too overcrowded and redundant, it knows how to surprise you every once in a while. Who knows? We might even cross paths with one another and interact just as fabulously as our online counterparts would.