Woe to you if you haven’t got an internet connection!
Life would be much more exciting if you had a computer with a high speed connection. We’re referring of course to the dating life. The name of the game is all about convenience – anonymity – and the joyous process of elimination.
There are two standard methods to finding a date. The first one is the traditional way where we borrow the dating mores and customs of our grandparents and great grandparents and learn their tricks and tactics. Then there’s the non-traditional way. You can succeed in both, but you need to ask yourself which one suits you better.
Let’s review the traditional methods first which, by the way, are just as effective and yield pleasant surprises. Many people still prefer this old, graceful and not-too-obvious method of being on the prowl for a decent mate. A lot of the traditional ways actually rely on word of mouth and “referrals”.
Traditional Ways of Finding a Date
Two cousins are having dinner at a restaurant:
Jake: Hey, who you dating these days?
Melissa: Take a good hard look at me. Do I look like I’m having the time of my life? My social life is zilch. Dry and dreary.
Jake: You want to meet someone I know? I think you two might hit it off.
Melissa: He’s not one of your nerdy friends I hope. You guys are weird. You’re all stuck with your iPods and MP3s. I don’t even know if you’re aware of what’s going on around you.
Jake: This guy’s your type, Melissa. Trust me. Shall I give him your phone number?
Tell the entire clan
That’s one way. Ask your cousin, your uncle, even your godmother. They just might know of someone in the office who they think you’d like. The idea, however, is to let them know you’re looking. They may be eager to match you with someone but at the same time want to respect your privacy on the off chance you’ve suddenly decided to go celibate…
Office romance can be classy
There’s another way. Although the experts say “never in your own backyard”, the office is fertile, breeding ground for romancing even the stoniest of hearts. Sure, there’s the familiarity thing that can be a drawback – seeing each other at work everyday could rob some excitement off.
One upside though: you get to monitor every move of your beau and belle. There’s no need hire a detective. We bet top dollar that the water fountain at work and the vending machines are cool depositories of whispered ahs and ohs generated by the dating game.
Between a matchmaker and a candlestick maker…
One more for the road, and this, we believe, is the most discrete. You can engage the services of a matching agency and “book your order.” This method ensures that they deliver the goods according to “spec.” Some of them work well.
And some don’t. We actually tried it once because we wanted it not only to be right, but PERFECT. So we thought that if we detailed everything we wanted, the matchmaker would find the ONE for us.
It would have been the perfect, fail-proof strategy except for one horrible mistake: we looked for the cheapest matchmaker we could find.
We learned a valuable lesson and vowed never again to be so tight-fisted. After all, if you’re looking for a lifetime mate, you ought to pay the corresponding price. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR kept buzzing in our heads.
This is what happened.
The matchmaker had a small office just beside a psychologist’s office. It was a duplex building that was divided into tiny one-man offices so most of the businesses in that address were small, mom and pop operations. That should have been sufficient warning that we were probably dealing with a dollar store matchmaker. As we said the package fee was abominably cheap.
Next, the matchmaker asked the right questions. She had a terrific sense of humor and we enjoyed our two-hour session talking about the foibles of men and women. But two things bothered us: she had no filing cabinet. She kept all her files in a large box that must have seen better days. She also took down my answers manually. No computer! We sort of panicked. How was she going to feed in the data and come up with potential matches? This was back in 2000 when average households already had 2.5 computers.
We took a deep breath and said, “maybe she farms out the matching work to the psychologist next door who has a computer.”
Then the day of reckoning arrived. The matchmaker called and said excitedly that someone – a very respectable physician – would be ringing us that evening. Needless to say I couldn’t finish my favorite pasta dish. The phone rang at 7:45 pm just as the matchmaker said.
The man introduced himself and he said, “you got to excuse me if I sound like I’m huffing and puffing. I just came in from my two-hour bike ride.” Hmmm, an athlete, we surmised. Lookin’ good.
We chatted and he said he was a physician. He was taking time off from the hospital to work on a neurological study involving athletes. He began spewing out statistics on vitamins and minerals, longevity components, nerve endings and neuron transmitters. Very impressive. Very scholarly, we thought. It was getting better and better.
We agreed to meet downtown after work. He was athletic looking alright – slim (perhaps a little too slim for my taste). He wore blue jeans that were scruffy and torn on the knees (a non-orthodox, rich kind of hippy, we guessed). After three minutes, we realized we got what we paid for. He turned out to be a welfare recipient, never finished college, never never mind, okay? We feigned a bum tummy and left.
Back to our “so what” kind of life. Back to loneliness. But there’s a sense of safety in loneliness.
The daily grind…
And if all else fails, pick up the paper and flip to the classified personals. Or go to the singles bars downtown and cast your net.
Non-Traditional Ways of Finding a Date
The year is 2007. If you have not tried the internet (lavalife, match.com, eHarmony, U.singles.com and others) or the talk of the town – speed dating – then where, might we ask, have you been?
It’s uncanny how the Internet has become OUR life. It dictates where we should be looking for health information, what we should be buying and where, and how we should be paying for our e-commerce transactions. It also arranges dates for us – in a very convenient manner – so we can playfully engage in the process of elimination.
Cable and wireless messaging and digital photos are the way to go, you beautiful people!
Given the popularity of dating sites in the last five to ten years, memberships to most of them are now paid memberships. Fees range from $25.00 to $200.00, and those who charge at the higher end have something to show for your money. You don’t need to use your own private email address in the interest of anonymity, and you can go by your alias or user name.
There are ingenious ways of sending “silent” messages if you’re too shy about the way you write. You can send smileys and other emoticons to show your interest or lack of it. You can mix match age, hobbies, educational achievements, interests, sports, and if you prefer bohemian types or staid Wall Street/Bay Street blokes.
And it does not have to be for dating. If you just want to chat online and never meet in public, that’s your prerogative. If you want a commitment in less than six months and want to tie the knot in a hurry, you can stipulate that in your search. If you just want a traveling companion that too is possible.
Dating sites have the most sophisticated software you can benefit from. Can’t do your profile? No issue. Just provide their questionnaire, and they’ll lay out your profile very nicely. Don’t want your photograph on cyberspace? That’s fine, but just so you know, people who post their photos (or the photos of their good looking cousin) will get more replies.
After a few e-mails, you decide if you want to meet in person. It’s as easy as 1-2-3! Didn’t like what you saw or heard during the first date? That’s no problem, you go back to your keyboard and start a fresh search.
Or you can try the more adventurous way – speed dating! The way we understand it, you go into a restaurant (or a social hall) selected for the event by the organizers. It’s like musical chairs. Chairs and tables are arranged and you’re given 1-3 minutes to get to know as much information about the person sitting across you. When time is up, the bell rings, and you move to the next seat. The exercise repeats until EVERYONE has met each other.
When you’ve picked one out that you might be potentially interested in, you take down the person’s phone number and arrange to call each other!
How do you find out if there’s one in your city? Easy. Go into any search engine – MSN, Yahoo or Google, and type “speed dating” + the city you live in. You’ll also get results where certain sites give their speed dating schedules cross-country – from “New York to Los Angeles” is what they’re promising. Even tiny Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritimes had one!
Happy flirting!