Internet Dating: Is Anybody Virtually Home?

By Amy Cohen

      In on-line dating speak, I was already on third base: I had given out my digits, and now I was only a phone-call away from a home run (that is, actually going out on a 'real' date).

I landed on first base only two weeks prior, when my potential date had instant messaged me at work, marveling, as I was talking with a coworker about printing out our annual financial reports, at the mystery of green Ketchup. Of course, being a die-hard red Ketchup purist myself, I was instantly intrigued, and wrote back that, "Indeed, trying to sell a green condiment oozing its snotty way onto a hotdog or hamburger for human consumption must have been a marketing nightmare." And soon after, we were well on our way onto second base, emailing each other back and forth daily, both equally mesmerized at the success of Carrot Top, and dumbfounded that despite having never had a frontal lobotomy (that we know of), Jessica Simpson believes that buffalo wings come from actual buffalo.

Eventually, after a couple of weeks of sharing our pop culture opinions, my electronic boy toy asked me for my phone number, which I very naively assumed meant that he must actually want to call me. In retrospect, I can plainly see that this was just an ingenious ruse by a virtual hope-dasher to make me fantasize about our future wedding together and two clever kids who would avoid green Ketchup and its evil blue twin like the plague.

In fact, my potential on-line date never called. He virtually vanished into thin air, leaving me to wonder, "Was it something I didn't say?" I didn't write to him again after giving him my number, figuring we could ditch the time-consuming, finger-blistering, eye-destroying pains of typing our conversations for the easier and more personal luxury of speaking into a phone. So I know I didn't screw anything up by sending out an email that may have sent out more warning signals than a forty-year old man wearing make-up and playing with monkeys named Bubbles.

So why didn't he call? After speaking with other single women dating on-line with similar experiences, I've come to a simple conclusion: men are idiots. OK, well maybe it's a bit more complicated than that, but not by much. I think that many of the men who use these on-line services feel safe behind the relative anonymity of the written word. When I'm talking through a computer screen, I don't have to worry about the tone of my voice or whether there's a bit of broccoli stuck between my teeth. I can plan out every word that I say, taking my time to come back with a witty remark to something he had said in a previous email. I don't have to concern myself with awkward pauses or an errant strand of hair; I can be myself, only better.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. It is possible that we weren't connecting as much as I thought we were, or he was just being lazy and let the time lapse to the point where he was too embarrassed to call. Perhaps I should've gotten his number. It is the 21st century after all. And to get ahead (and get the guy) in this technological day and age, you have to be quick on your feet if you want to make it around all the bases.