Internet Dating – Poison for the Terminally Shy
People are going out less and less and staying in more and more. With the advent of Reality TV and the Internet as a dating tool, our lives have become more surreal and our reality is interwoven with a fantasy world in which everybody is hiding behind computer screens instead of interfacing in real time.
A typical ‘getting to know you’ dance might go something like this…Boy and girl meet on matchmaking website…both have posted detailed profiles which lay out everything that daters used to find out about each other in the first ten dates. Then, boy and girl do a ‘pic exchange’ as in ‘mine gets yours’ a newer version of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’…If it escalates from here, there may be a few phone calls, a coffee date or two, and then and only then does anything remotely resembling ‘normal’ courtship begin.
It’s a frustrating process and on top of that–you get tired of going to family events alone where your mother is round eyed and telling you that her friend’s daughter met a ‘nice guy’ on one of those sites and after dating for 6 months they are engaged! Hint, hint.
If you want to know the truth–there are plenty of successful online dating stories that end in marriage or longterm relationships. But the reason why they got from A-Z is that EVENTUALLY THEY MET FACE TO FACE! Sometimes, the cyber dance can drag on for months—you can get into a ‘holding pattern’ where one or the other (or both) of you becomes seized with insecurity that what if when we meet in person he/she doesn’t like me? So you put it off…and put it off…and by the time you meet you know everything about this other person and there’s not a whole lot of mystry left to uncover.
There IS such a thing as waiting too long and letting the sizzle fizzle—computer screens can give a sexy anonymity initially but that will not keep your toes toasty at night.
Cyberspace is a great place to visit but you don’t want to live there. Rejoin the real world—remember fresh air, remember sunshine? Remember other people? They are out there and among them there may just even be your Mr. or Ms. Right…Get off the bench and into the game! You can always IM your friend about the date later if you really need your technofix.
Blackberries, cellphones and MP3 players seem to keep people’s ear(s) permanently occupied…so if your soulmate strolled up and bit you on the nose—you might staunch the bleeding long enough to say–I’ll call you right back’ or take your headphones out long enough for a good loud ‘OUCH!’
But most likely these tools of technology make you more unapproachable…Who wants to interrupt someone else’s conversation to try and start a new one–especially with a random attractive stranger…Not your best pick-up scenario. “Excuse me…hate to interrupt you but I just wanted to tell you that you have a beautiful smi–RING RING–oh sorry gotta take this…”
Get back to basics—go squeeze the produce in the grocery store and ask the cute guy/girl next to you if they think it’s ripe. Go back to the laundromat and get clarification on high heat vs. medium heat. MAKE EYE CONTACT! People have forgotten this most basic rule in life…We are too distracted, need to slow down. If you had to choose between your blackberry and your future wife/husband which would you pick? Become more aware of your surroundings and be present rather than a million miles away. Your unborn grandkids will thank you for it.
