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Dating in the 21st Century
Is boy-meets-girl all that different in the internet era?

A nervous boy looks across the room, trying not to look like he's looking across the room, scoping out a girl who looks intriguing, someone he would like to get to know, someone who can carry on an interesting and entertaining conversation.

His imagination begins to run in several directions: surely she's fun, exciting, probably a great dancer, and man, she is HOT, too, and...

Well, now, let's just leave it at that. After all, these are every boy's thoughts about girls, right? People often take comfort in knowing things don't change and that boy-meets-girl scenarios are timeless -- even among the fifty-and-over set.

"My partner told me to go over and talk to her," a local businessman, 50, confided on the condition his name not be revealed. "It's hard when you've lost your confidence, as if it's ever easy. It's the whole rejection concept. Who wants to go across the room, awkwardly interrupt a total stranger's conversation, then potentially do the dead man's walk back across the room? I don't think a lot of guys ever get over that apprehension."

Not to overstate the shyness aspect, he added. In this case -- at an industry function -- he summoned up the social skills required to succeed in business, waited for an opportune time, and introduced himself.

"It actually went pretty well," he said. "We talked long enough to where I realized we'd make nice acquaintances but not be compatible enough for me to ask her out. But you don't know unless you try. It's just that the trying, for me, at times, is still terrifying. It's a relief just not to embarrass myself, that anything more is like winning the U.S. Open."

That is certainly one way to think about it, and think about it people do. Almost nothing gets a person into philosophical overdrive more than talking about dating; and new ways of thinking about dating correspond to the new ways of meeting the opposite sex, such as on the Internet, which requires its own intricacies and etiquette.

Important to know about dating someone from the Internet is to be honest, at least within a certain range. So philosophizes a local fifty-something advertising executive.

"I e-mailed a woman whose profile stated she was gorgeous -- and she may have been, in the 1950s when her picture was taken," he said of the image she'd exchanged with him. "When I met her she was at least fifteen years older than what she said. I gave her an opening and she never came clean."

So why would anyone do something that would so easily expose himself or herself and go through all that trouble and waste all that time?

"It increases your market share," he said, the comparison unsurprising. "You can shade something about yourself, but not too much because then he or she won't trust you."

The important thing, he said, is to be in the ballpark. If you respond to a personal requiring a maximum age of 52, for example, and you are 53 or 54, but the two of you have hit it off online and on the phone, it is worth getting together. If the person has a good time, he reasoned, he or she will be forgiving of a slight fudge in age or height.

Now, that is having thought the process through. Market share, indeed!

"Those of us over 50 take ourselves less seriously, which is a good thing," he said. "We're less hung up on looks and more willing to give people a chance and find out what they're all about."

A nurse, 51, would like to agree. She enlisted a dating service. Despite her 85-90 percent philosophy -- "My willingness to accept a man not quite my 100-percent ideal" -- that was not the prevailing attitude.

"Although it wasn't a speed-dating event, it was for all practical purposes. Too many people felt the pressure to impress off the bat. They'd talk to you and move on if there wasn't an instant connection, without really getting a good impression of who you were."

Others realize that as well. Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of the increasingly visible eHarmony.com., studied more than 5,000 married couples to determine the factors involved in successful and failed marriages, according to the dating service's website. He found that almost every couple has good chemistry in the beginning. Chemistry, like cologne, however, wears off and 75 percent of all couples are unhappy or divorced.

Warren believes that couples do not know each other nearly well enough, despite what they think, at the height of their infatuation. No speed-dating for Warren. This new school of thought states that compatibility of couples can be measured -- 29 measurements in all, he claims. So for those who don't mind the wait (eHarmony matches can take weeks) for a purportedly surer (and clinical?) match, maybe the good doctor is on to something.

Whether through the Internet or old-fashioned set-ups from friends, blind-dating produces at least as many solid relationships as unfortunate pairings where the date sneaks out the back door of a restaurant to escape the evening (one man claimed).

A writer friend once thought he had a blind date eating out of his hand. She was taking well to his "smart-mouth, but good-natured commentary. She laughed at almost everything I said, including jokes about myself." Then he made a "goof-ball, but complimentary comment about her butt, and all hell broke lose."

The advertising executive was philosophical about that, too: "That was a good sign because if she's that temperamental, how can you live with someone who gets upset over a simple misunderstanding?"

As often said, better to find out now. For me, though, a spontaneous, serendipitous, aleatory meeting is the tell-tale sign of a good match ? those couples always will have something to talk about. As evidence there is the truth-of-life-comes-from-fiction Seinfeld. In one episode, George tells Jerry, to wit: All the best couples have great meet stories. That's why I don't have a girlfriend. I've never had a great meet story!

A lovely young blond, smiling at me from across the floor, was the impetus for my best meet story. Walking through a thick crowd, she pulled me onto the dance floor. "What took you so long?" I asked. She beamed. A great dancer, she also spoke French and loved words, even subscribed to A Word A Day. When she asked for my all-time favorite AWAD word, I answered, "aleatory." Her expression telegraphed an instant aleatory match made in Heaven. Alas, it turned out, she was in Heidi Fleiss' line of work.

What dating philosophy covers that? Oh, yeah: "Show me the money!"

 

Full credit for story goes to: Richmond.com, VA