Revenge. Ah, I mean, Lessons Learned #1

Dating in the age of the internet isn't just a bit of a tweak on the old scenario. It is a fundamentally different proposition. It bears no relation to its old flesh-and-blood cousin. It is the Borg.

Sure, it looks the same--and then its head twists off and reveals the nest of wires underneath.

For one thing, grammar assumes an entirely different weight in a relationship that begins online. In person no one can tell if you confuse they're, their and there until it's too late, and you have them under your spell. Online is a different matter. The near misses, Dear Readers; the ships that pass mere inches in the night, never knowing how happy they might have made each other, for want of a proper spellchecker. And, how easy it is to bewitch a writerly girl with an impressive grasp of the mechanics of ellipses and a refusal to fall prey to the lure of multiple exclamation marks!!! I've discovered a heretofore unknown weakness in myself for men who know when to use apostrophes and don't sprinkle them willy nilly throughout the text; also, a blind prejudice against this netspeak the young folk insist on using (while I'm on this, why do I keep having to fend of 25-year-olds? What is the allure? I'm older and a single mom, for crying out loud; pick on a girl your own age). Nothing is a bigger turnoff than "ur". Any men who googled "internet dating" and ended up here: "your" is only an extra two keystrokes, exert yourself.

But this, Dear Readers; this, this is a mere nothing. A drop of machine oil in the comprehensive Exxon ocean of difference between dating old-style and new.

For instance: the possibilities inherent in being dumped by dating profile!

By now you will have heard about those crazy highschoolers and their modern propensity to rid themselves of an unwanted relationship by changing their MySpace status from "in a relationship" to "single." This truly is not using the full potential of the internet. For that, one needs to look to the adults, who are using their advanced experience and social skills to truly mismanage themselves.

For instance, let's suppose you have gone out on a couple of dates with someone whose name begins with, oh I don't know, A. Over the course of these dates you have managed to exchange some information, including that you're not a big fan of television and don't have the time for it anyway, haven't been to a concert in donkey's ages, and can hardly tell the difference between a hockey stick and a baseball bat. The night before your next date with the person whose name may or may not begin with A, you notice that they have rewritten their dating profile to include a preference for girls who like TV, sports and going out to concerts a lot.

When you then express your disinterest in seeing them again via another modern means of miscommunication (ie email), A, if such he can be called, might express some surprise. Pray, whatever can you mean Andrea, what might I have done to offend you so?

In the old world of dating, that might have been that. Oh, you might have sat by the phone a little, whimpered into your diary, but in a city the size of Toronto you'd only run into them again ten years later when they'd lost all their hair and you were looking fabulous, right? Just humour me.

Imagine if your telephone, in the olden days, had a little red light that lit up whenever the person you were seeing was home.

For those of you who count yourself blessed to have moved on from that stage: if you have a blog--you know those little sidebar widgets that let you know who stopped by to read even if they didn't leave a comment? Imagine if that little widget told you whenever anyone who had ever left a comment on your blog was surfing on the internet. So that every time you were blogging and that other blogger you'd had a falling-out with eighteen months ago was on the internet, or reading your blog, you would know.

Internet dating is a little like that, because the sites? Have widgets to tell you whenever someone you spoke to previously is also on the site.

So here you are, and your diary is telling you to shape the hell up, girl; he wasn't that special anyway. You log in (not like you weren't seeing other people all the way along anyway, right?); and there that damned widget is, helpfully bleating, "A's online!"

Do you erase the messages? If you erase the messages from and to this individual, you will no longer be so helpfully informed whenever he's online. On the other hand, it could be offensive. You would like not to be aware of him without sending the message that you hate him, his entire hometown and the horses they rode in on. What's the etiquette?

You say to yourself: I am an adult. I am 32, this is not my first relationship, I refuse to be made to feel as if I am back in grade 10 and we are sitting on opposite sides of biology class. I will extend an olive branch, and see if we can coexist. I'll send an email. "No hard feelings?"

The olive branch extended and seemingly accepted, you soon see him again at your online haunt, and decide to say hello. Does he reply? Why, no; he ignores you for ten minutes and then logs off.

Forget this, you say: immaturity it is. You delete the messages, and now never need to know again that he ever existed.

I read through all of the above and the only thing I can find that might have happened thirteen years ago is:

We made plans to go see a movie.

We made (and broke) the plans by email, looked up the showtimes online, and found a review in an internet newspaper; but, we made plans to go see a movie. Well, that; and he's beginning to remind me uncomfortably of a certain boy whose name begins with R and sounds like an unpleasant bodily fluid.

The rest is all this newfangled internet dating stuff; and the best I can say about it so far is, it keeps me out of the house on weekends and provides some excellent blog fodder.*

And you there, in the back, wiping your brow in relief that you never have to deal with this? Thank goodness you're married! Yeah, I know: but remember:

Your kids are going to be dealing with this one day.

~~~~~

* OK, this is a slight exaggeration. Remember, I'm not blogging the nice ones.

Posted by Andrea at March 19, 2008 9:11 AM under Single Momming

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