Wednesday, December 1, 2010

There May Be Something To This On-Line Thing...

On a drunken Friday night during my last year of law school, my friend Jen and I discovered that my best friend, Annette, was GASP! on Match.com.  She confessed over too many bottles of red wine that she had ordered up one of those “buy three months for the price of one” deals they try to sell you to ensnare you into the world of on-line dating.  We were stunned, to say the least.  Bear in mind that this was several years back – before Eharm and Chemistry exploded and became an acceptable “place” to meet your future spouse. 

“You did NOT do that, Netty, noooooooo!”

“Yes, I did, and I have one more month left in my subscription so there!” 

After a few more glasses of wine, someone came up with the idea to exploit Netty’s “last 30 days to find love” and turn it into a competition.  (This was probably my twisted idea.)  The rules of this scheme were as follows:  we would each launch a hostile take-over of Netty’s Profile for ten days at a time and see who could generate the most “hits” (when a guy checks out your Profile).  More specifically, we would each upload our own profile description and picture for our ten day allotment and see who got the most dates.  Netty would stay on and take the first ten days, Jen would take the second stint, and I would go last.  We drank a toast to it and pinky promised – no one was backing out, a deal was a deal. 

“I have no doubt that I will win this one, girls.  I’m going to upload my old headshot from when I was a struggling actress which was taken after eight hours in hair and make-up and looks nothing like me.”  Damn, I was confident (and tipsy). 

Netty’s ten days came and went.  As did Jen’s.  Hits and dates were accordingly calculated.  When it came my turn, the coward within just couldn’t do it:  “I’m sorry guys, I can’t… I’m too embarrassed… I mean, what if someone in our class sees me on-line????  That would be mortifying!  I’m not ready for on-line dating just yet… Sorry!”

Netty and Jen did not take my back-out well.  Jen was particularly peeved with me:  “So typical of you to back out of this, Cav, as if you’re too good for on-line dating since you still manage to meet boys in bars.”  (I did still have luck meeting men in-person.  Just sayin’!  As for the quality of men, well…)

With that, Jen took my ten days on Match and added to the ten days she had already occupied Netty’s account.  She also didn’t speak to me for about a week and, in hindsight, I don’t blame her.  My ego – which was a “single” and lonely ego, might I add – was above on-line dating.  I attached a stigma to it, as if only someone desperate would stoop to find love on a computer screen and, worse yet, pay for it.  I was, as Jen pointed out, above such things.

So, for the next ten days, as if I had something to prove, I hit the bar scene hard.  I met loser after loser and went out on plenty a disappointing date.  Jen, however, stayed in, read her law books, studied for class, and got one – and only one – date with some guy who lived across the country named Blake.

Imagine my surprise when she married him two years later.

Lesson learned:  yes, there may be something to this on-line thing.  More than that though, how would Jen have met this great guy if she hadn’t been in front of her computer?  He lived across the country so it’s not like she would’ve run into him at the local Barnes & Noble or coffee shop.  Go figure – while I was too busy trying to play it cool out and about on the town, Jen was secure enough to stay at home, be herself, and find “the one” in the process.  God, I’m starting to sound like an advertisement for Match.com, and I definitely don’t want that to happen.  But, in this high-tech electronic world that we live in where most people spend the majority of their day on their Blackberry, cell, and laptop, it makes perfect sense that on-line dating would lose its taint and gain a bunch of hopeful romantics in the process.  Me included.

Yes, there may be something to this on-line thing…

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