I've gotten a lot of exposure for my writing. My writing blog has gotten over 1000 unique hits since the Observer piece (quite a lot as before it was something like 20 people a day if I was lucky.) But more importantly the coverage exposed me to and so has allowed me to connect with a lot of new people I really enjoy interacting with.

What i'm trying to get at is that to me nothing felt glamorous or exciting or sexually liberating about it. I also think the amount of money you can make escorting is exaggerated (it wasn't uncommon for me to see ads for escorts for 40-60$/hr where I live.)

I feel like few things are more successful at portraying honest emotions/experiences. There also just seems to be a certain feeling/mood that I respond well to. I feel similarly about the artist Kahimi Karie and the films "An Education" and "Marie Antoinette." Anything with a strongly and unapologetically feminine point of view I tend to be interested in.

The second guy I met on the Internet was Tom, who I dated for around 6 months, which is by far the longest relationship I've ever had as an adult. We long distance dated mostly, chatting everyday for a long time on FB chat and Skype. It's hard to imagine a more genuinely caring and kind individual. I owe a lot to him.

I admire self-awareness more than probably any other quality, and I think in terms of what qualities are "good" in a person, it's a mostly subjective opinion, so I can't see a reason to think that self-absorption is inherently a bad thing.

I've never written about a situation involving real people that I haven't directly taken part in. I've never made things up about other people. None of my stories were written with ill-intent towards the other people in them, even though I doubt people will believe that about "Adrien Brody."

I think I would have been a lot more miserable and discovered a lot less of things I liked if I hadn't had LiveJournal in high school. I think it's interesting how blogging seems to be shaping a new generation of writers. I feel like growing up with the Internet/blogging/other structures seems to be a reason for the similarities people see in Tao Lin's writing and other young writers, rather than direct.