We’ve all been there. It’s another lonely Friday night, you’ve had a box or two of White Zin, and all the sudden you’re crazy horny. All you want to do is log on to the Internet, cruise for an online hook-up, and then fuck the brains out of the first default photo that catches your eye.

Indiscriminate whoring, of course, can be messy — especially if you do it often. After all, a girl doesn’t want to get the wrong kind of reputation. In response to this conundrum, hooking up online has become a fine art.

It’s true that there’s a myriad of online hookup sites available for gay men. Multi-purpose sites like Gay.com and Dlist specialize in friendship and social networking, adding enough pretense to the whole affair that you don’t have to feel embarrassed about being a member. The more hardcore sites like Bareback Real Time Sex, sacrifice propriety for efficiency. At these sites, there’s no need for a song and dance. You just say you want a blowjob and then wait for a volunteer.

There are lots of ways to hook up online, but one has to wonder: what are we looking for when we go to these sites? Is it just sex or friendship, or do we have multiple motives? The game of love and sex has always been a tricky one, so perhaps it’s not fair to think that simply moving the playing field to the world wide web will suddenly provide clarity about our need to get down and dirty with each other.

Meet Leroy, a 25 year-old guy from San Francisco. He’s somewhat new to the online hook-up scene and says his favorite sites for cruising are ones like Craigslist, mostly because of the anonymity.

“It’s just easier than going out to a club and finding some drunk dude to go home with. Online, I can sit and have my pick,” he says. “Plus, the variety of people you get to meet is great – from aging benefactors/sugar daddies, actors, and models to muscle builders, dorks, and everyday joe schmo’s. You can find whatever you want if you look hard enough.”

Leroy had his wildest fling while on a business trip in Vegas a few months ago, using the ‘Casual Encounters’ section of Craigslist to find another traveler interested in a bit of 5-card stud. According to Leroy, the two agreed via e-mail to meet for drinks at the Flamingo Hilton — and the night went wild from there.

“He bought me lots of drinks and took me on a Gondola ride at The Venetian,” Leroy says. “Then he wanted me to do some freaky shit in the bushes outside Treasure Island, but I brought him back to my hotel room instead. After some nice face fucking and other activities, it was time to throw him out.”

“The best part is that we never exchanged contact information. So when he rode off in his cab, he was gone forever,” added Leroy.

Sound like fun? Sites like Adam4Adam specialize in this kind of travel-related rendezvous. Using their “plan-a-trip” feature, you can plan your entire vacation around your sex dates. And with their detailed profiles, you can mitigate any possible “surprise” factor that might come along with this type of blind-date styled bonking.

Another site that helps to provide you with “no-strings attached” fun is Men 4 Sex Now, where you can search by city for local sex parties. If you want to make sure things go as planned and that you are the one calling all the shots, you can look up escorts and masseurs instead at Men 4 Rent Now. Sites like these usually let visitors browse for free. Registered users can initiate contacts and can see who’s been looking at their profiles.

A lot of hookup sites are all about instant gratification, but it’s not just those “here and now” urges that online hookup sites can cater to. Ken, a 35 year-old, single guy from Los Angeles has been using Manhunt since it was founded in 2002 because of its low cost and extensive variety of men. He says his experience with online hook-ups has been varied.

“I’m usually not the kind of guy who gets right to asking them to hookup, unless I’m in that mood,” says Ken. “Some nights I want it really bad, but most of the time I’m just there for a little bit of conversation.” Yeah, right — and most straight men only ready Playboy for the great articles.

Ken says that he often finds the intellectual stimulation and the flirtation on Manhunt to be almost as hot as actually hooking up. The only drawback he’s found, however, is that many of the men he meets online aren’t so laidback about what they’re looking for.

“When you meet someone on a sex site, chances are that you’re just going to see them that one time,” he says. “I’ve had some of the most amazing sex in my life with guys I would totally fuck again, but they just weren’t interested in ‘repeating themselves’. That can be a real bummer.”

If you really want to get the most out of online cruising, it’s important to know not only the kind of guy you’re looking for, but also what other motives you may have. If you’re also looking for Mr. Right while cruising for sex, be aware of it so that you don’t constantly set yourself up for disappointments. Blogger Mike Mennonno has been writing about his adventures in what he calls online “Hook-up Hell” and says that one of the reasons so many gay guys are driven to the internet is because of a lack of connectivity in real life.

“Hook-up sites give you the best of both worlds,” he writes. “What I like about them is the way people put that part of themselves out there. It can be revelatory.”