02 May 2007

Modern dating: A parallel

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I was thinking the other day about the phenomenon of online dating. Since I haven't dated since my early 20's (which was - officially - about two million years ago), I haven't been privy to the evolutionary nuances of online dating. Apparently, since my early 20's, the population of online singles has 'Darwined' from the genus "weird, anti-social geeky dudes" to "everyone on the planet". And that's fine, I have no issues with that, except that it's taken me a little while to let that sift through to the recesses of my 30-something cortex. But I'm all good now.

What I do like about online dating is that the usual email correspondence to kick off the flirting is akin to the letter-writing of the days of yore. When a boy liked a girl, he would write her love letters, and hope for a return post. Similar in spirit to the email, I suppose. After all, in both scenarios, you choose your words and write your letter and send them off, hoping that you don't write anything so strange, weird, off-putting or otherwise lame that the other party will be suddenly uninterested. On the flip side, to return the sentiment with a response, you need to be thoughtful, funny, responsive, and interested... but not overreaching or overly eager. Overall, an interesting parallel to the old-time wooing of old. Sure, it's a new technology paired with new terminology and a penchant for informality and strange acronyms (LOL, TTYL, etc)... but the spirit of the gesture is the same. And I love it.

Why? Most of you know that I hate the phone. I use it as a tool - a function primarily of setting up further means of communication, preferably in person. Sure, if there's a distance between two people who like to communicate, then the phone is a necessary intermediary. But on a day-to-day basis, I generally hate calling people. (In fact, I disconnected my land line the other day, and now the only way to reach me is to call my cell. Besides the need to be suddenly more descriptive if I ever have to call 911, I have only experienced one down-side: If you misplace your cell phone in your apartment, there's nothing to call it with in order to echo-locate the sucker. A minor, yet surprisingly annoying side effect.)

Since I'm not a phone lover, and long-hand is far too difficult and not immediately gratifying, I'm officially addicted to emails. If it's not obvious from the 27 blog postings I put up in the 30-day month of April (gads, I hope I'm not boring to read), I have recently found a love of writing. And these postings are nothing compared to the number of ramblings that are too personal, strange, embarrassing, or obscene to post. And since I'm a bit of a romantic at heart (no, that part of me wasn't completely killed), the idea of the email being a means to express oneself a la the hand-written posts of old is rather... well... sweet.

So here's to emailing... and the romantic spirit of Times New Roman 10-point.

p.s. to the boys who call and I don't call back: don't take it personally... it's the means I'm adverse to, not necessarily the message.

p.p.s. It's amazing what I'll resort to when I'm desperate. Lack of mouthwash made me turn to a hydrogen peroxide mouth rinse this evening. Surprisingly tasteless, the only bizarre side effect was the bubbling that didn't stop for 30 seconds after I stopped rinsing. Bletch. And I have lost about 50% of the sensation on my tongue. Hope that goes away soon.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear B-NYC-2000,

Gosh, this internet thing is crazy, isn't it?!

Anyways, my name is Sven, and I am the asistant manager of The Android's Dungeon, whcich is an AWESOME comic book (though we really do prefer Graphic Novel) store in Astoria. I saw your profile and just had to say HI!

Gosh, you sure are pretty. My mom says so, and I have to agree with her (Mother is ALWAYS right, don't you think?)

Mother says I need to get out of the basement and meet a girl, which is why I am trying this new internet dating thing, and so here we are.

I am 47 years old, 5'8" tall and still have most of the hair on back of my head.

I must confess that I already sort of have a wife, her name is Frances, and she's my cat. OK OK, she's not REALLY my WIFE, but gosh, she sure treats me like I'm her lazy ass husband! It's always MEOW this and MEOW that. Gosh I'd sure like to meet a pretty girl like you Beth. how do you feel about marraige? I'm all for it, espcecially if I can meet a girl just like mom.

Do you jam out on XBox Live? Perhaps we can meet up there? Or I have some coupons for Sbarro, maybe we can have some pizza?

Can't wait to meet you!

XXOO
Sven

Beth said...

I'd rather meet on WoW...

(See? Doesn't online romance just sweep you off your feet? And you have to love a guy who loves his mom... (*swoon*) )