The world of online dating is now the most common way to date. But wasn’t it our parents who met by “chance”? Their relationships have lasted without compatibility quizzes and personality profiles. Shouldn’t we be able to find that certain someone the “old-fashioned” way? I stayed in one Friday night, and yes, “Say Yes To the Dress” was on in the background, with my debit card in hand wondering if I should click on that little green continue button. Is it worth fifty bucks a month to take some quizzes and be matched up by, God knows who? Well, I did click that button and there’s been no luck so far. I keep thinking though, it wasn’t too long ago that our parents met through work, friends, church, school, and other social events. Whatever happened to courting, chivalry, and what we now call, good “old-fashioned” dating? Now it’s been replaced with winking, poking, smiling, and icebreaking. There is just something to that unpredictable, awkward, exhausting, exciting, dating that online sites just can’t compete with. Have you ever seen a drop dead gorgeous man at a bar and just thought, I am going to go up to that guy and ask him out. You don’t have send an icebreaker or wait for an e-mail response to a question you sent 3 days ago. You just went up to that good-looking man and said, “Hey, let me buy you a drink because you’re attractive, I’m attractive, and I think we should hang out”. Granted, those guys never panned out and probably for a good reason.
One issue that I can’t get past with online dating is that you can basically order off a menu of men. How tall would you like your potential partner to be? What color hair would you like? What level of education would you prefer? Of course these are things that matter in some way or another, but actually clicking buttons to order up your man just seems, well, too good to be true. That is just my opinion. Now, I have plenty of friends who have met their boyfriends, fiance's, and husbands on different online dating sites and I don’t think they could have found a more perfect person, but is that the online dating site, or is it something that is beyond the Internet? I think that if there is a person out there for everyone, it really doesn’t matter how you meet them, as long as you make each other happy. I’ll end with a message to my Mr. Right: if you are out there, I think I’m ready. Just let me get a few more Vegas trips in with my girlfriends before you find me!
