Clown Dating vs Dating Clowns

Life in the Boomer Lane worries a lot about all the singles out there, bouncing around, trying to find True Love. In this era of frequent relocations, reduced church attendance, and global warming resulting in antiperspirant failure, it isn’t easy to connect with others. To make matters worse, humans are finding more and more niche categories into which to plunk themselves. It’s tough for a profusely sweating, nasal dripping, lactose and gluten-intolerant individual to find a kindred spirit.

An alert reader has sent Life in the Boomer Lane an article from AlterNet, detailing alternative dating sites that cover some choices not usually afforded by Match.com.  She happily presents these to you:

1. Dating with Allergies 

There has probably been no time in history in which people have had so many varieties of foods available to them. Entire supermarket aisles are devoted just to condiments, and there are unlimited choices of noodles, soups, and popcorn-in-a-bag.  Food allergies have kept pace. Lots of people can now claim any number of scary experiences from ingesting products made from peanuts, milk, wheat, meat, or any food product that is either naturally green or has an “r” in it.

Food allergies and the people who belong to them have become a highly visible subset of society, causing gluten to have been recently named the Number 1 Menace to Human Evolution” displacing the position long-held by rural Wal-Marts.

It’s tough for these allergy-prone folks to walk by restaurants, let alone sit inside them and try to develop meaningful relationships with singles who can order any number of items from menus without risking their lives. Singles with Food Allergies caters specifically to these singles. According to AlterNet,  “They’ve even come out with some prize taglines, like ‘Dairy-free and dynamic,’ ‘Celiac and sexy and ‘Water Only and wet.'”

2. STD Dating

There is no doubt that there is stigma surrounding sexually transmitted diseases.  But folks whose sexual habits resulted in an STD shouldn’t be prevented from finding true love, especially when outbreaks can be shared. Positive Singles is where people living with STDs can look for romance without ridicule and sex without shame. The site’s “unique features” include information on STDs, STD treatment stories, support forums, success stories, and “inspirational stories.”  Their tag line is “Find herpes, love, and support.”  LBL hasn’t read any inspirational stories, but she has no doubt that there are lots of them and that anyone looking for herpes will find it on that site.

3. Supernatural Dating

If you are one of a growing number of singles who would like to give alien love a try, you are out of luck. The best you can do is to drive dark roads at night and hope for a nearby spaceship landing and subsequent kidnapping by those little big-eyed greys.

The Supernatural Dating Society is for those whose interests include aliens, haunted houses, contacting the dead, and a firm belief that every single early human achievement was actually caused by aliens coming down from space with advanced technology and silly hats. SDS was founded by The Amazing Kreskin, an 80-year-old mentalist whose astonishing powers have included predicting severe weather patterns, idiotic behavior on the part of Kim Jung Un, continued stalemates in Congress, and 50% of Americans being unable to identify either the Atlantic nor the Pacific Ocean.

4. Clown Dating

LBL knows what many of you are thinking.  Why go to the trouble of joining a special clown dating site when it is easy to find an unlimited number of clowns on regular dating sites?  LBL is here to tell you that Clown Dating is for actual clowns (think face paint, wigs, baggy clothes, tiny cars). According to AlterNet, “Clowns tend to freak a lot of people out. So it’s understandable that the idea of going to bed with one could be downright terrifying. ”

Let us stop here and think about these last two sentences. If clowns do, indeed, freak a lot of people out, one can only imagine what going to bed with a clown would involve. Whatever the clown would have in store for his partner would put Christian Grey’s  Red Room to shame. Whips, blindfolds, and handcuffs would certainly pale in comparison to rubber chickens, tiny dogs, and multi-colored curly wigs.

One has to feel sorry for clowns, in much the same way that one would feel sorry for cannibals. They are expressing themselves in the only way they know how to, and the price they pay is difficulty meeting eligible singles.

According to AlterNet, “Clown Dating offers clowns, clown wannabes and clown lovers a place to chat, have fun and arrange dates. Being on the road all the time can make it hard to find someone close by, but with members from towns and cities all over the world, hooking up has never been easier.”

As one might suspect (You did, didn’t you?), clown porn is one of the industry’s most popular niches. Because LBL is nothing, if not thorough, she Googled “clown porn.” Several hours later, she was able to tear herself away from the laptop screen and get back to her container of now completely-melted coffee Haagen Dazs. .

5. Amish Dating

You thought Amish didn’t go online, right? Wrong. Amish Dating, a Canadian-based site, promises users the opportunity to “get in touch with devoted, diligent and caring singles from the Amish community.”  LBL was unable to get past the home page, showing a young couple in one of those black, horse-drawn carriages, without signing up. But, in spit of the fact that she does have an extensive black wardrobe and would love to have a reason to keep her hair covered all the time, she decided not to join the site.

6. Ugly dating

Again, many of you are wondering why you would go to the trouble of going to a special website in order to find ugly people to date, when you can find them on regular dating sites. Ugly Schmucks isn’t for people who are looking for ugly people to date.  It’s for people who consider themselves unattractive. Members can even vote other members out of the site if they feel that the members aren’t really ugly. The downside to the popularity of the site has been a growing number of singles who are seeking out reverse plastic surgery in order to try out the site.

7. Tall Dating

This site confirms what LBL has always believed: Tall people are smug and self-righteous and have no idea what havoc they wreak to make the lives of short people as miserable as possible.  Date Tall People “makes it easy for taller guys to find taller girlfriends.” The site explains, “if you’re a tall person and have always felt awkward about dating someone who isn’t the right size for you, come chat with tall ladies and tall handsome gentleman at the biggest tall dating website on the web.”  LBL wanted to research the website but couldn’t reach the keyboard.

8. Prison Dating

No surprise, here. LBL is well aware of the vast numbers of women who believe that true love can only be found with someone you can only spend time with while on opposite sides of a glass partition. The advantages are endless:   In addition to not being subjected to non-stop sports viewing or ball-scratching, you don’t have to worry about having to wear clean underwear when you are with your man.

Meet-An-Inmate has been ranked a leading website in helping set prisoners up with pen pals. AlterNet reports that “Though it’s an online service, prisoners aren’t given access to the Internet. All correspondence takes place via the United States Postal Service.”  So how do these inmates even find you to begin with?  And how do they post profiles?  Does the prison post their entry photos, the ones with them holding those signs with their names and IDs?  LBL was so exhausted from her exploration of clown porn, she had no energy left to solve this conundrum.

9. Furry Dating

LBL will refrain from intimating that this site is for folks who are looking to find sexual congress with animals. Rather, this is for people who believe themselves to be animals. At least, they dress as animals, have animal names, and may occasionally eat from bowls on the floor and ask neighbors to walk them.

“Pounced has over 63,000 members, and provides a space for furry fanatics to find love. One user describes herself as ‘a pink geeky stubby bunny.’  Another is a ‘bat eared fox’ looking for a trustworthy friend.” LBL believes this would be a tough possibility to pass up.