Falling in Love With (instead of on) The Internet
In the not so distant past I was a single guy living the bachelor’s life in Brooklyn. It was a fairly full existence – I had my own apartment, a good job and great friends. However, there was the obvious void of romantic companionship. I was on the hunt for a cool attractive girl to spend my time and maybe even my life with. In the process of looking for her, I established a relationship but not the one I intended to.
Phase One: Getting to Know All About You
For me, all the clichés were true. In one of the largest cities in the world it was tremendously difficult to find someone to date. While I’m outgoing and personable, picking up girls in bars was never quite my thing. Blind dates? Loosely translated a blind date is when a third party puts two singles together who have nothing in common but the fact that they’re single. The result was always a match made in Hoboken.
It eventually dawned on me the solution was in front of my eyes and beneath my fingers the whole time. Internet dating! Perhaps you’ve heard of it? I threw caution to the wind and dove into Nerve.com. I dutifully filled out my online profile and quickly realized this was going to be harder than I thought. A friend advised me “You want to look cool, but not too cool!” So I popped a few not-too-cool photos in there and was off and running.
After setting up cyber-me, I began viewing page after page of profiles. Using search criteria I could shop around to check out girls. Tall ladies? Why not! Redheads? Ooooh, fiery! I started to shoot out some emails and after some witty back and forth, I was setting up dates.
All of these first flirtations with using the site were quite similar to a first date. I found myself asking parallel questions: Am I feeling this? How is this working? Any sparks flying? It was all so new and exciting. I was hooked.
Phase Two – Love is in the Air
So I started going on some real first dates and “getting out there.” Most connections lasted for just one date. I found that I can have two drinks with just about anyone. And after dissecting a girl’s profile and photos for a while, meeting her in person was often a real trip.
But whether the date was a dud or a massive success, I found myself looking forward to going home to my cyber mistress. I would log right back onto Nerve to look through more profiles and continue conversations with girls I had already contacted. I would tweak my profile to show maybe a little more edge, maybe a bit less sensitivity. The Internet was the one constant - always waiting with the promise of more dates.
Back in reality, some of the relationships would blossom. Two dates here, five dates there. Rarely did any take hold for more than a few weeks. Was it because I had secretly fallen in love with the website itself? The initial intrigue and excitement was giving way to obsession. I was on Nerve all the time. I would show off the profiles of girls I had gone out with the night before and gather input on more potential dates. While I acknowledged that it was all consuming, I was in the moment and I was loving it!
Phase Three – Trouble in Paradise
As with a real relationship where the honeymoon phase ends, eventually things with Nerve began to wane. Maybe it was the effort of going on all those first dates. Conversation on these first dates was becoming stale: “So, have you lived in New York long?” “Any brothers or sisters?” Even the process of looking at profiles online was feeling strained. I swore that if I read the phrase “I work hard and play hard!” one more time I was going to vomit all over my keyboard.
Then there was a string of bad dates. Bad trends were developing. Girls whose profiles were exciting would fall flat in person. Outright lying in profiles was becoming more prevalent.
It all culminated with my date with the dwarf. To make a long story short I made a date with a girl we’ll call Pip. She had some obscure photos of herself on her profile but I could see nothing out of the ordinary. We met at a bar and Pip was already seated with legs under the table. After our first drink I realized something was a bit off. Sometime in the middle of my second gin gimlet, I watched closely as she excused herself and walked to the bathroom and it all came together - I was on a date with a dwarf. As we walked home Pip tried to kiss me (I was standing in the street, she on the curb) then I knew it was maybe time for a break.
The week after, I went out with a girl who, unbeknownst to me, was having a bad reaction to alcohol and her new meds. She wound up licking my face and falling off her bar stool. That didn’t help either. It was time to get out.
Phase Four – Looking for an Exit Strategy
I decided to take a refreshing break for a few weeks. Nerve and I weren’t breaking up - I just needed some space. After some much needed time apart, I slowly went back in for more online dating but the damage was done. My head was swimming - I felt like I had been on dates with half of New York City. Around town I was beginning to recognize people I had never even met simply from their online profiles! The whole thing began to feel dirty, perpetuating this myth that it was going to work out for Nerve and I. But in the interest of taking an active role in my love life, I continued to date, albeit with less and less frequency. And then a miracle happened.
Phase Five – A Happy Ending
It turns out that the answer to my relationship problems had been in front of me, just beyond my keyboard, all along. I began dating a wonderful woman whom I worked with and had been friends with for years. Things escalated quickly – we fell in love, got engaged within a year and married soon thereafter.
So I found my one true love without the help of any profile, website or broadband connection. Even with all of the bad times, I believe I gained quite a bit from my online love affair. In spending all that time online I learned a lot about who I was and who I was looking for. It helped get my confidence up and certainly forced me to update my wardrobe.
As online dating becomes more mainstream, it may become widely used by people whose intentions are not specifically to hook-up, fall in love or find “the one.” It may be a tool people use to coach themselves back into dating, online or off, or simply work on their people skills.
In this way, Internet dating can be looked at as Self-Improvement Boot camp. It forces you to get off your butt, think about some hard questions and gasp go out and meet real people in public. It’s that last piece that separates this process of personal development from that of Facebook or other social networking sites. The goal is to achieve actual face-to-face interaction, and in some cases face-on-face interaction.
