Dating has changed, dramatically, and I’m glad I’m not single and looking. Gone are the days when you’d meet someone by chance at a grocery store, or be introduced to that special someone by a mutual friend. Todays busy single has to resort to on line chat rooms and dating services to screen potential applicants because it seems our busy lives make it impossible to find the time to get dates by conventional methods. What’s prompted the upsurge in this non-traditional practice of meeting that special someone(s)?

My first guess would be time. My second would be a combination of laziness and insecurity. If we do not meet our perfect match via our existing social network; work, school, and families, we have few hours left in our waking day to continue our hunt, so it’s quick and easy to just surf the net seeking our prey. You don’t have to dress up for a date only to be disappointed. And you have the advantage of ‘screening’ your victims, sparing you the awkwardness of having to let them down gently should you arrive for your date and discover they’re 4 feet tall, balding, and are missing most of their teeth. Online viewing gives you the chance to scrutinize your potential loves, dumping the rejects with a simple ‘delete’ – no apologies, no accountability, just movin’ on…to someone ‘better’.

So how do we learn from this?

We don’t. We just develop a deeper insensitivity to our fellow man. Internet dating provides us with the safety of cover. We can criticize and dissect potential partners without hurting any feelings because our screening process assures us anonymity, i.e. we don’t see the faces of our rejects. We don’t see how our rejection has affected them. And if we don’t see, how can we be to blame for any hurt feelings?

On the other side of this double edged sword, we also don’t ‘see’ the potential good of these people because we’re too busy scanning the ‘visual’ qualifications of our numerous candidates for ‘love’. Let’s face it, we are human, and given a choice, we all want ‘the looker’, ‘the hunk’, and on first meeting we’d likely overlook some shortcomings as long as they looked good.

The average guy who’s slightly balding might have a heart of gold, a good job, and the love of every Grandmother on the planet, but if you plant his Bio next to Biff Studmaster, (the hunk) his ‘hits’ will be minimal by comparison. Now I’m not saying Biff isn’t a great guy, but he doesn’t deserve any advantages on the dating sites because he likely gets them in every other aspect of his life. (Give baldy a chance already)

And what are you really learning about ‘people’ through online sites? There’s no tone, no expression,,,,no ‘personality’. It’s actually a very superficial way to meet another human being. The only advantage I see is the ability to connect with someone living in a place in which you are unlikely to be, but then maybe that’s destiny? (No wait, that’s a Penpal) If you’re meant to meet, I believe you will. Somehow fate will bring you together, where ever you are, and if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.

So how does this strategy help those looking for love? It doesn’t, but then I’m not sure anything will, and maybe not everyone is meant to be part of a couple. We do each walk a different path; not all of us are meant to marry, have 2.5 children, a cocker spaniel, and the white house with a picket fence.

I’ve seen too many people so determined to meet someone they’ll stop at nothing, i.e. they can’t ‘not be’ in a relationship. If they don’t have a ‘current’ on their arm, they don’t exist, and the sad truth about that is that they will never find love that way, because ‘love’ isn’t just the guy on your arm. It’s the person your heart connects with, the one who loves you, flaws and all, the one who’ll stand by you through anything. And if he happens to be 4 feet tall, balding, and missing some teeth, consider yourself lucky, cause by todays dating standards, you’ll have no competition to win his heart.

Here’s to traditional dating…..and long live ‘average’!