“If you're feeling salty,then i'm your tequila
If you've got the freedom i've got the time
There ain't nothing sweeter than naked emotions
So you show me yours, hon, and i'll show you mine”…Kris Kristofferson
Lots of women reach out to me online for a hookup.
It’s not because I’m especially good looking or I’m really that social a guy. It’s because I’m the driving force behind some very high-profile, visible brands in many lucrative verticals. The image that I’ve cultivated in cyberspace is one of success and opulence and I think that draws in certain types of women.
The way they contact me is the same with few variations. First comes the Facebook friend request. Then, after I accept (which I always do because I equate the size of my social media circle with my sphere of influence as a online marketer), they email me back telling me how much they like one of my sites, or something I’ve written, etc. After I thank them for their kind words, I then hear about how they’re just passing through town / having a party / want to discuss a business idea etc. Sometimes I play along with the ruse and schedule a meetup…sometimes I don’t....it usually depends on my mood. When I do end up seeing them in person, almost always I wake up the next morning regretting the whole scene and wishing I had stayed home to work on my sites or watched a good movie instead.
So, one day, I’m going through my Facebook email inbox and I noticed that one of the women that I previously approved as a friend sent me a note with the following message.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the _______ Hotel Bar at 8:00 this evening to discuss partnership ideas between my site http://… and your site http://... I’ll see you then.”
She gave me none of the deference that I’m used to in these sorts of contacts.
I first examined her site which was in the “Bariatric Surgery” vertical. I believed I’d seen it before. It wasn’t a bad site but it was reasonably new, contained too much advertising, and lacked a critical mass of unique content.
I then clicked over to her Facebook page. It contained none of the silliness and jocularity that even most “professional” pages contained. The tone was very business-like and I couldn’t get a good feel for her personality. Most of her Facebook friends were men and an unusually high percentage of them were dressed in “business attire” in their photos. None of our “mutual friends” were real friends of mine…so we were strangers for all intensive purposes.
Well, what the hell. I’ll play along. Perhaps, I might have an interesting encounter for a change.
She was sitting in a booth facing the entrance as I walked into the bar. I smiled at her. Her eyes acknowledged my presence but my friendly expression wasn’t reciprocated. I mouthed the word “Drink?” to her and she mouthed back “Bourbon Rocks” to me. I walked to the bar to get our drinks. I brought them back to the booth and sat down.
The woman sitting across from me was a total fox and a dead ringer for a young Liv Ullman. However, much of what made Ullman so attractive was the incredible fragility and vulnerability she brought to almost every role. With this woman, under her conservative business suit, I could tell she had not only a hard body but a hard countenance as well.
After the most minimal amount of small talk, we got down to business.
“Did you examine my site?” she asked.
“I did. It has potential but is definitely immature in our vertical.” I responded. “Why tackle such a challenging market?” I asked.
“Because everyone wants to be slim and few have the discipline to get there naturally. People are willing to pay a lot of money to a doctor to prevent them from behaving badly instead of controlling their behavior themselves,” she replied.
“Agreed. That’s why many of my sites are in vanity verticals. People want wrinkle-free skin but they won’t give up their tan. People want to lose weight but won’t exercise and still want to eat what they want. People think they have to screw like a porn star in order to stay in a relationship,” I responded, curious how she’d respond to my directness. It didn’t faze her a bit.
“I asked you for this meeting because both of our sites have a lot to gain from a strategic partnership,” she said.
“What do I have to gain from your site?” I asked pretty bluntly. “I mean, your site is definitely up-and-coming. It has potential. You certainly have talent as a webmistress, though I might have played in a less competitive market in order to increase the likelihood of monetization.”
As I responded to her, she looked down at her drink, mixing the melting ice with her swizzle stick. After I finished speaking, she looked up at me. She took the stick between her index and middle finger and slowly inserted it between her lips until only a small portion of it was visible. She then slowly removed it from her mouth, puckered up her lips, and pretended to blow a smoke ring, holding the stick like a cigarette. We made eye contact and her look was simultaneously incredibly seductive and icy cold. I’d never been given such a look before.
I took a pen out of my pocket and wrote a couple sentences on a cocktail napkin and passed it to her. She read what I wrote and nodded to me.
“Here are some of the things I’m looking for from our partnership. I need a prominent link in the body of your home page. I want the opportunity to guest post on your blog once per month. I also desire your branding prominently placed my site and I'll need to be able to put out a widely-distributed press release announcing our relationship.”
I agreed. I told her we could formalize the agreement at another time and place and she was OK with that.
She then stood up. She put her purse over her shoulder, unzipped it, and handed me her room key.
“Gentlemen should always open the door for ladies,” she said.
I got up and followed her to her hotel room. I inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. We entered the room and faced each other in the foyer. I took my cell phone out of my jacket pocket, set it to vibrate, and handed it to her.