Last week, a San Francisco–based website called Flojuggler became an Internet sensation. Why? "Some people just want to know when the bleeding is going to stop so they can get busy," the site explains.
Fred Noland
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Flojuggler allows users to track the menstrual cycles of multiple women, which is apparently very important when you're dating lots of women at once.
Who would build such a thing, you ask? That would be Selino Valdes, a web designer and developer.
In his 20s, Valdes noticed that men his age were doing "a lot of thinking about rotating dates," so he yearned for a way to monitor women's cycles. (He is 39 and still single, for those who are wondering.)
Last December, he was teaching himself a web application, and needed practice. "There was no goal of changing the world," he says. "I just wanted to build something, so I chose the idea and I built it. I figured, why the hell not?"
But first, Flojuggler's users must figure out when the women are getting their periods.
"These guys register and then they say, 'Oh, I actually have to know when her flow starts?'" Valdes says. He explains to the surprised dudes, "Look, I don't go to her house."
As of last week, 3,074 people had signed up for Flojuggler, but only 2,387 menstrual cycles were being monitored. Seven belong to women Valdes himself is tracking. "If I can find out when her period is, I put her in," he says. "Whether it's somebody I'm dating or just my friends, I totally do."
To his surprise, the majority of Flojuggler's registered users are not tracking multiple women's periods. "I figured there'd be a bunch of straight, frat-boy player types," he says. He also expected lesbians to sign up, but feedback from lesbian friends suggested they just didn't care about when potential lovers were on the rag.
Instead, most users are women tracking just one period, leading Valdes to believe they are interested in simple e-mail alerts about their own cycles. Based on the advice of some female friends, Valdes is now thinking about developing a community option that would allow women to share "flo" information with each other.
In addition to helping straight men and lesbians figure out when potential dates might be less fun than usual, the site allows users to predict and circumnavigate the period-related mood swings of the women in your life. Female crankiness is something Valdes is all too familiar with.
"I was raised by women," he says. That included his mother, his grandmother, his aunt, and a slew of female cousins. "I can count the number of men in my family on one finger. ... So [PMS] was something I dealt with on a regular basis."
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