I like online dating. Perhaps you think that online dating is for nerds, losers, freaks, momma's boys, and all other species found in the genus Romantic Failures. You're partly right -- people who use online dating have found that traditional methods of meeting people have not worked for them. Examples of people who use online dating include:

• People who communicate better in writing than they do in person.
  
• People who are dragging around a huge dealbreaker that makes real-world dating impractical (such as: lack of desire to father children).
  
• People who lack the aggressive, type-A personality necessary to march into a crowded club and shout at attractive members of the opposite sex over the trance beats of DJ Snickers.
  
• People who were not lucky enough to meet someone in school. (My sister and all of my married friends met their spouses in high school or college.)
  
• People who have decent personalities, but find it difficult to strike up conversations with strangers.
  
• People who are so money, and don't even know it.
  
• People who have somehow failed to randomly encounter the love of their life in noisy, smoky establishments that depend on the sale of alcoholic beverages for the bulk of their revenue.

Unfortunately, other kinds of people use online dating as well:

• People who want to present photographic evidence that they own a white cat.
  
  
• People who wish to dispel any doubts that they have located the exclamation point on the keyboard:

  I never hesitate when i see something i want !!! (probably because it's so rare that someone catches my attention) Oh yeah, i am just a cool chick, all your friends will adore me, i am "one of the boys", but not!! Love Hockey, and Football. Love Dave & Busters! I am looking for someone to evolve with, someone whom i find fascinating! Nothing sexier than a man that radiates confidence, success! a man needs to wear the pants, in order to get respect! i work out seven days a week! [From an actual profile]

• People who, by some miracle, have not yet been beaten to death with a tire iron:

  There is a high probability that you will find me very appealing on the physical, mental and emotional level. Physically, I am very good looking and athletic i.e., tall/dark/handsome. Mentally, I am razor sharp and matured. Emotionally, I am secure, confident and extremely capable of love, lust and passion. I exhibit a combination of style and substance and have an outgoingly pleasant personality. I have a cosmopolitan background and am cultured, refined, well read/traveled and classy. I am extremely passionate and give everything my heart and soul; be it family, friends, work, romance, sex or anything else. I am a man's man and a sensitive soul, both at the same time. [Also from an actual profile. Thanks to Trillian for finding this guy.]

So people who use online dating don't differ much from regular folks: mostly normal people with a few jerks thrown in to season the stew. Probably you fit in with at least one of the groups I described above, or did at some time in your life.

Online dating has ridiculous advantages over real-world dating. You can look through a pool of hundreds of possible mates instead of whoever happened to stop by the bar at the same time you did. You can approach a woman without having to buy her a $6 Tanqueray and tonic. You can screen for a score of attributes, including income, religion, and childbearing preference, and avoid embarrassing conversations later. You can exchange a couple of emails so that by the time you talk on the phone or meet in person, you've already broken the ice. Some dating sites have installed personality testing so that members can assess their compatibility before meeting -- it sounds like pseudoscience, but in fact I've found the results to be eerily accurate.

If you're a guy doing online dating, you need to read Trillian's helpful and hilarious three-part series "Women, The Internet and You: Tips for Men Who Use Online Dating Sites." (See 3/19, 3/25, and 3/26.)

+posted by Lawrence @ 3/29/2004 09:19:00 PM