Lady Cat Lady

I suspect some people may have some interesting things they want to call me for being a part of Adult Friend Finder for the better part of twenty years given the sensitive nature of the website. However, I’d like for you all to hear me out, and then rage against the machine all you want in the comment section about how much of a bad, bad woman I am for choosing a sex dating website as my dating website of choice for so long.

Adult Friend Finder was always more than just a “casual encounter” dating site to me. Four out of the last five long term relationships I was in began on Adult Friend Finder, one still going today almost fifteen years later. Sure, I had a lot of casual sex, too. Sex is important to me, your feelings on it may be different.

I am who I am, take it or leave it.

What you may not know, what a lot of the general public doesn’t know about Adult Friend Finder, is that there was once a thriving community of like minded individuals blogging there. A group of people who gave content to a site freely, many of whom, like me, abandoned the dating part of the site long ago. Sure, some are still using the dating site, but many of the long term bloggers didn’t use it anymore for a variety of reasons not pertinent to this post.

People from many different countries creating bonds of friendship, helping disabuse new users of their beliefs that they could “get laid tonight” just by saying Hi and putting up a dick pic. Talking about a variety of subjects from sex to gardening, to politics to recipes to silly polls and fun games. One could go on the blogs and meet people from all across the world, and learn from them.

Hell, people, there’s even blogger lore. We survived two Blog Wars, and an entire change of the blogs into a different portion of the website. It was programmed by the original creator of the website, Andrew Conru. He left the company in the hands of Jonathan Buckheit who drove it into the ground with his greed.

Andrew came back and started programming the “New Community”. We went through some growing pains where many of the older bloggers didn’t want to switch, and didn’t. However, we gained new bloggers, and the community grew.

Many of us long time bloggers were rejoicing and having a good time chatting in comment sections. Telling jokes, making original content, and allowing the site to monetize our friendships in the hopes that Andrew would pull the site into the 21st century.

Then, there was a…

Should I call it a break up? I am not sure if that’s exactly what it was.

People, Andrew and Buckheit, who used to be friends were no longer friends, and Andrew was no longer in the blogs, no longer coding. And, the blogs, which used to be a fun place, started a slow descent into chaos.

Then, there was a lawsuit filed. An ongoing lawsuit between Andrew and Buckheit for Andrew to wrestle the company away from Buckheit.

And, we all guessed what happened. They disagreed on the direction of the site.

I started becoming more critical of the site in my blogs. Many of the bloggers with high follower counts were warned not to be critical, that stopped me being critical. I tried to stay in my lane after I wrote Cynicism. And, put up posts about my garden and ongoing back problem. I was unhappy with the state of the blogs, on the verge of leaving when people, the readers and my fellow bloggers asked me to stay.

Almost exactly two months later, one of my blogging friends was banned. We had no idea why. She had no idea why. Next, another friend put up a post that was a petition to reinstate the member who was banned. He was banned.

The next day, it was my turn on the chopping block. I wrote what’s contained in the content of this post. “Wanna Know Why I Was Banned?” Finally, the blogger with the highest follower count was banned for sticking up for the first blogger who was banned.

None of us have been communicating directly with the site’s leadership. Not a one of us was given a reason for their banning. Our queries to the site have been left unanswered.

Do you see how messy this is?

Andrew actually listened to our criticism when he was in charge, we may not have always liked the directions he was taking but we respected his vision. Do you think we respect Buckheit like that?

Yes, I used to date through AdultFriendFinder, just like Bernie Moreno has been accused of doing, but what the public doesn’t realize is that AdultFriendFinder was always more than just a casual dating site to many there.

Someone said to me recently that the bloggers were the soul of Adult Friend Finder, they were right.