rekkidblogga

How do I love thee? Let me count the clicks

My friend D. is e-dating. Sort of. Well, the process of finding e-love and e-happiness with her e-soulmate has begun, anyway. She signed up for the most recent eHarmony.com "Free Communication Weekend" promotion and now she can't beat the e-boys off with a virtual stick.

Since submitting her personality profile, D. is like the prom queen of eHarmony High. Swarthy e-dudes looking for That Special Someone are cruising her gmail account, hoping for at least one fleeting e-glimpse into her e-bedroom window to see if she's virtually silhouetted there -- maybe virtually brushing her long virtual hair as the plaintive virtual strains of Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" virtually play on her virtual stereo -- before they virtually peel out in their virtual Jeeps to see if REI.com has slashed prices on three-season sleeping bags from The North Face or whatever they posted that they enjoy doing in their personality profiles. It's all pretty involved, the compatibility levels and whatnot. When I asked D. if sines, cosines and tangents were part of the process at any time she gave me the internet chat equivalent of the slow burn by not replying for, well, minutes. It was a humbling experience to say the least.

D. enjoys running, hiking and doing stuff that, unlike me, generally doesn't involve slacking it on the sofa watching classic "Soul Train" reruns while testing out her scientific theories on how many Pringles will fit into her mouth at one time so the e-guys she's been "matched" with are urban Brawny Man types, sans paper towels and cheesy plaid lumberjack shirts. OK, really? No. They're not. I made that last part up. Truth is, the e-fellahs she showed me look like a bit like hipster professionals instead of cleverly-repurposed advertising logo characters, and the one e-hottie D. showed me -- his e-profile included a photo; we assumed it was of him -- was about as virtually handsome as they come. Maybe he's the e-One. He has a Jeep and that's a plus with D. Who doesn't love Jeeps? Besides people who've been hit by them, perhaps, or anyone who's been caught in a sudden downpour with the takedown canvas top off the thing. They might have issues.

"He e-mailed me back," D. told me via gmail chat the other day. "I just hope he doesn't close my profile. That would suck." Since I'm not bold enough to dive into the deep end of the e-dating pool, I had to ask her what in the name of God she was talking about. Also, I was downloading as much free music by Marvin Gaye as I could. You really can't beat the classics, you know. Anyway, she messaged back that when your potential e-true love closes your profile, it's the online dating equivalent of never being called again, of being told "Uh... I'm washing my hair tonight" when everyone knows you're balder than Britney Spears, of hearing "It's not you, it's ME" even though you know that yes, it IS you. If your profile is closed, you've been dissed. No e-lovin' for you. So has D. closed any profiles? "Lots, especially if the guys have kids already." It works both ways.

Question-and-answer is big in e-dating. When I suggested to D. that maybe she and e-honey should agree to meet up for a totally casual run at a local park she gmailed me that "We're not anywhere near the meeting-up stage." The reason why is that they haven't yet Q&Aed each other enough to find out if they've reached their target deep level of compatibility to meet as humans offline. "What should I ask him?" she asked me this past week in chat mode. I replied that I would ask a probing question like "What kind of music do you listen to?" because that's important if you think about it. Your e-baby may look like Patrick Dempsey but if every trip to the grocery store involves Josh Groban at full blast, the divorce papers may be signed, sealed and delivered in your head before you've even skedded the trip to Cabo for the first anniversary. "We're shopping for ME here," D. said. So I'm not sure what the next round of questions e-stud is facing but I bet "If I took your Josh Groban CDs, smeared them with raw hamburger meat and started using them to play a spirited match of Frisbee Go Fetch with a pack of ravenous wolves, would you be way pissed?" was not among them. I'll have to ping D. and get the scoop on what was asked and how much closer she is to getting e-hunk to agree to chatting live or whatever since hitting Starbucks isn't yet an option. Of course, if they've agreed that it would be best to end it all and mutually close out each other's profiles, that's that.

But who knows? Maybe D. will find her soulmate aimlessly pushing his shopping cart along the deli aisle or something. He'll casually ask her opinion on whether he should pick up regular old salsa and chips for the party he's attending that night or should he splurge for the pricey hummus and flatbread? It's a question that she won't mind answering right then and there, person-to-person, with no fear of point-and-click rejection. And should he follow up with "I don't know if all this will fit in my Jeep," I just hope she chooses cool-looking bridesmaid dresses. Because otherwise, that would suck.

posted by rekkidbraka @ 10:35 AM