I signed up for Ashley Madison shortly after my last experience and I was curious to see what it was all about.  I learned that the site and app are specifically designed for people that are in relationships that are looking to cheat.  It’s supposed to be very discreet, and the users usually spell out exactly what they are looking for on their page.  I found many different types of men on there, most of them were in long marriages, some were open relationships and some closed.  Many of the married men claimed that they were not getting enough sex from their spouses. I have encountered those that said it would be as few as once a month, and some that were once in the past three years (Wow!).  There were a small handful of single men on there that were just looking to date. And I also found a few young single men that were looking for a sugar mamma.  It was all pretty interesting and new to me and I liked that the guys were emotionally unavailable.

I quickly learned just how secretive that app is. On your phone, the app shows up as a black box with the words AM listed below it. If your significant other is looking through your phone, they would most likely pass over this app and think nothing of it.  Furthermore, many of the people don’t have pictures. If they do choose to use a photo, they can opt to have their photos blurred or blackout parts of their face. I chose to create a profile and play into this secrecy; I posted a photo of me that captured right below my nose down to the middle of my neck.  It’s basically a picture of my lips and chin.

Within the first day, I had over 100 winks – essentially guys in my area that saw my profile, liked it, and were interested in having a conversation with me.  I had no idea how I was going to get back to all of them; thankfully the app has a default response that says “I currently have a lot of winks and I don’t have the time to respond to all of them. If you send me a photo and a personal message I’ll be able to decide if I’m interested.” I immediately set this feature to respond to all of my winks.

Over the next few days I got even more winks, and I began to go through them all. Most didn’t have photos as I mentioned earlier, some send me “private access” to their photos, and some responses were incredibly inappropriate.  I will say that most of these guys weren’t as attractive as those on Bumble, Tinder, etc.; there were definitely a lot of creeps, to say the least (yes, I received lots of dick pics).

I did end up having conversations with two guys.  The app has since deleted my conversation history, hence their discreetness. I’ll start with the first guy.  He was tall, decent build, very kind to me, and somewhat attractive.  We messaged back and forth for a while and I was eager and somewhat anxious to meet him. He was married and had one prior affair.  He suggested we use another app to communicate, called Kik.  This was an app that I quickly learned many cheaters on this site use. There were ways that they could hide the app from their spouses, and even hide it from their kid’s iPad.

Long story longer, me and this guy continued to talk. He shared with my that him and his wife were not having sex and hadn’t been in a while. He told me over and over how beautiful I was (after sharing photos with him), and he was eager to meet me.  We scheduled a night when we would meet at a restaurant about an hour from where I live.  In that moment of scheduling it all, it seemed exciting and anticipatory. I mean after all, I recall what it was like to be in a sexless marriage.  But after we scheduled the date, if felt calculated on his end if felt manipulative. Yes, I know I’m beautiful as he said, but there wasn’t any other connection, and yet this man was willing to cheat on his wife?! EVEN though my marriage was sexless, I NEVER cheated, and NEVER would. Marriage is bigger than all of that.  This time, in this moment, I couldn’t bring myself to hooking up with this mediocre guy.  I ghosted him. He continued to reach out to me, and I didn’t respond. I felt bad, but not as bad as I would have felt if I was the reason he cheated on his wife.

A few weeks later, I came across G-Man on AM. To be continued…