I have gone through the exercise of picturing how Bridgie could implement the advice given on the thread. Some of the advice, that is. For the purposes of the hypothetical, I will assume that she has recently had 5 casual sex encounters with guys A, B, C, D, and E.

Scenario 1.

Bridgie cooks a large dinner and invites all the guys at once.

"A, B, C, D, and E! I wanted to have you all come together because I have an important announcement to make. I no longer do casual sex. Only sex within a long term relationship which should be exclusive on both sides. I do very much thank you for the wonderful times we shared, and for the favor of cooking for me, but times have changed - place your bids in the envelopes that I put near your plates, indicating how long a relationship you are ready to commit to. I will choose the guy who proposes the longest term. To make the selection process blind so as to assure you that I have no bias for or against any of you, but rather like you all and simply want to choose one of you based on purely objective criteria, I have hired an independent response processing company that will look at and tabulate your answers. They don't know your handwriting and the envelopes have your names encodex and encrypted. "

2) Scenario 2. Bridgie tells the news to the guy E from the most recent casual sex encounter, hoping that he would be amenable to the new arrangement. She is surprised that he is amenable, and they move in together. He stops cooking for her and she has to do his laundry. She starts missing the old days when many guys were happy to cook for her and all did their own laundry. She even becomes worried that being a gf is not all it's cracked up to be. Finally, she remembers guy A from awhile ago. Perhaps it was not a good idea to simply move in with E. Maybe A would have been more fun to be with, and possibly he would have done not only his own but also her laundry. No, she rushed to move in...

3) Scenario 3. Bridgie discards the 5 men and decides to start from scratch. The first guy she meets quickly agrees to her plan. They move in together promptly. In the beginning, the guy is nice, but little by little, disturbing news would start to come in: the guy is a former federal prison inmate etc.

The morale of the first two scenarios is that Bridgie does not have any tools for selecting one guy over others if she gets multiple offers. The morale of the third scenario is that Bridgie does not have tools to discern why a guy is so eager.

Scenario 3 is an exaggerated example from my life. Last year, I contacted a former friend from many years ago. He was eager to have a relationship. His emails and conversations with him revealed that he was a boring, lonely man - in other words, he was desperate. I was old enough and experienced/intuitive enough to see that, plus, my older friend who kind of pledged to give me motherly advice when I need it (my mom died), read some of his emails and opined that he is bored out of his mind.

I can tell when a guy is so smitten that he proposes right away (which still does not guarantee good results), and I won't confuse that kind of guy with one who is desperate. Plus, a wise older woman is ready to help if I am unsure. How would Bridgie given that all she has experienced is casual sex figure out why a guy agrees to her terms - out of desperation or not?

Bridgie, I suggest you relax about it and not rush to settle down with anybody. You are probably well fed and clearly do have internet access, so the basics are taken care of. Guys like you enough to cook for and entertain you. It is not so bad, really. You do not report any attachment to any of the guys, I.e. nobody is really special to you. Likewise, they do not seem to have developed any attachment to you. So your situation is symmetrical - you are not attached to them and they are. Not attached to you, but there is some mutual entertainment. It really is not so bad. When you start getting attached, you will feel it. Then it will be time for a change, but now you can keep the status quo and do some fun things for yourself outside of sex.