THE ART OF INTERNET DATING
Dear Spirit Man, I loved
your description of yourself and laughed out loud at your story of you, your
Ex-mother-in-law, and the veal. Did you
really need surgery? I feel we have
quite a bit in common, albeit I do not resemble any member of the Flintstones
household, and the greater preponderance of my teeth are my own…Fondly, Tribal
Babe
If you are looking on the Internet for your soul mate, you
are not alone. Over 25 million people
are now using the web to search, and prescreen their potential mates. I am a 40
year old, white, divorced woman in the Holistic Health field and I have been
playing in this milieu for the past year. I do not have the time or inclination
to go cruising, and I would like to be in a new relationship. Internet dating is fun and offers a huge
playing field. After umpteen dates and a few hilarious experiences, I have some
words of wisdom for you. Following some
simple guidelines can smooth the road towards romance, and help keep you from
unnecessary pain, disappointment or even danger…
SIGNING ON
The best on-line dating services allow you to pick and choose
characteristics like age, religion, location; ethnicity, etc. so you focus in
on what you really want. Many of them
will let you choose a "“Key Word”, to further narrow your search. For instance you can key in “Tall”, or
“Spiritual” or “Monkey lover” if you really want to narrow down the playing
field. You limit your options quite a bit
when you do that though. Your computer
can not read a dating profile and magically determine that 5’8” is tall enough
for you. When you add the specific
criteria “tall”, the dating service chooses profiles that have that word in the
body of the profile text. Almost all services are free; some charge a nominal
fee.
Dear Tribal babe,
you sound quite interesting, and I found myself wondering where one goes to
study the sexual proclivities of middle management VS upper management,… gotta
go, the episode where J. Cousteau goes head to head with a manatee is on, and I
don’t think I have this one on tape.
SELECTING A PROFILE
I signed up with AOL’s on-line service because there are
pictures and a three-page, detailed member profile. I entered my criteria and 804 screen names
came up. I eliminated all the profiles
that had body parts in the screen name, i.e. Best Butt in Bakersfield, Killer
Abs in Arcadia, etc. I deleted any profile that showed a man holding either babies
or pets, and all pictures that were clearly cut in half with a female arm sporting
a new wedding band visible on the man’s waist.
Perhaps these are just my peccadilloes but there you are. That left me
with over 500 choices. I scrolled
through the pictures and eliminated all unlikely suitors. Too bald, too much back
hair, hands too little, etc. Down to 293
choices. I removed all men searching for
petit blondes, triathletes, or surrogate mothers to assist them with the
healing process that their therapist recommended. I am a tall, Jewish, pushy
woman from New York. Down to 115
choices. Now the serious work begins….
HOW TO READ THE
PROFILE
I was struck immediately by the number of men who desire
nothing more than to spoil me rotten, take moonlit walks along the ocean,
travel the world and cook me the best dinner I have ever eaten. After a while, I stopped reading what the ads
said and I started observing how they said it. Upon close inspection I noticed
that some of the ads had typos, abbreviations, slang, etc. I personally care
about those things so I eliminated the men who “lik sunsets, and the
inhabbitentes of the oceans” and who TGIF…LOL. That left 16 men. Good enough.
Spirit Man, These
past two weeks have been incredible.
Reading your emails is like going home.
I feel that you must be the soul mate I have longed for. I never thought
I would tell anyone about the fiasco in Marrakech, and I almost fainted to find
out that you had a similar experience in Peru.
Would you like to come over and review my study materials Vis a Vis
Sexual Performance in the Work Place? Perhaps
share a dinner of miso soup with baby veggies.
Bring dessert and a toothbrush. Affectionately, Tribal Babe
COMMUNICATING
Out of the remaining 19 profiles, my first choice is
Spirit Man and I respond to his ad with an email and a picture. If you do not
have a scanner go to Kinko’s with a photo and they will scan it onto a disc for
you for $9.95. Remember to send a
picture that really looks like you.
People tend to be unhappy when they feel deceived or betrayed by a 10
year-old picture of you at the beach before you had the kids.
Spirit Man writes
back and we are on our way. I had to be careful of being too intimate right
away. There is something about writing a letter to a total stranger in the
safety of my home that creates a false sense of intimacy. When I first started going on-line I sent a
pretty racy email to an Internet prospect and inadvertently sent it to the
wrong person. I had to call up my friend
and beg him not to read it, and then make him promise that if he DID read it he
would: A) Know that I do not want to lick food off his body, and B) never talk
to me about it. The problem with being intimate so early is that if Spirit Man
is not for me, do I really want him to know my favorite sexual fantasy? Also, he is still a stranger and I don’t want
to tell him anything that would allow him to show up at my work, or worse, my
house.
Dear Tribal Babe, We
MUST meet. During my weekly ritual dance
at the ocean the image of a dolphin came to me and spoke of you. A
DOLPHIN! Wisdom, kindness, and loving
incarnate. Let’s try to meet before the
next high tide. Spirit Man
MEETING
I decide Spirit Man just may be my mate and we decide to
meet. By now I have learned to follow these simple rules. 1. MEET IN A PUBLIC
PLACE. I don’t care how nice he sounds,
and how good he is to his dog, I don’t know him and I do not want to put myself
at risk. 2. Plan how long we will be together in advance. The nice thing about meeting for a drink is
that I can graciously leave in an hour if Mr. Wonderful picks his teeth with a
leaf from a nearby plant. If he turns
out to really be Mr. Wonderful, I can always stay for dinner, or have a second
date. 3. I do not have sex on my first date. Besides a personal value system
that won’t allow it, and the age of AIDS, I found out that many people use the
net as a way to meet women just for sex and I want to take myself out of that
category. 4. Even though we have emailed each other and probably spoken on the
phone it is the first time we are meeting so we treat it like any other first
date, with the caution and excitement that comes with it.
Spirit Man, what can I say…last night’s dinner
overlooking the ocean was a new experience for me. I had no idea that anyone could know so much
about algae and the ocean plates. I want
to apologize again for asking if that sculpture was for sale. I had no idea that removing coral was a “rape
of the world’s oceans”. I wish you luck finding
a woman who knows the mating rituals of otters.
Best regards…Tribal Babe….
Lastly, have fun…dating
this way opens the door to men who are actively looking. There are lots of men in the Internet sea, happy
hunting.
