“This is gonna suck,” I told my sister on the phone as I sped down the highway toward the next town. “There’s no way I’m going to like him, and it’s going to be a waste of my time.” I was truly convinced that I was hurtling towards disaster on the way to this date. This date with a man I had never met and never even spoken to on the phone. I “met” him on Match.com, and we had emailed back and forth for almost a month before we finally decided to meet in person. He seemed nice enough, but surely that was just his online persona.
Right?
When I pulled into the restaurant, my phone jingled at me. I picked it up to see his name emblazoned across the LED screen, and my stomach scrunched into itself. Oh, crap, this is the part where I find out he has a terrible voice. (I can’t help it, a guy’s gotta have a good voice.) “Hello?”
“Hey, Ashley,” came a pleasant rumble. “I was just wondering what your time frame was on being here.”
Wow. Okay, score one point for Internet Boy.
We were meeting for lunch, so I figured we’d spend an hour or so together, and I would escape to my sister’s to blather about how there were no good men left in the world. An hour was plenty of time for a crappy date. We ordered our drinks, and drank them. We ordered our salads, and ate them. We ordered our entrees, and ate them. We ordered more drinks, drank them, fiddled with the napkin rings and our straws as we talked and talked and talked. Somewhere between three and four hours later, we finally left the restaurant.
So here I am, two and a half years later, and still with him. If anybody needs a success story for online dating, we are a great example! I realize there’s still a lot of stigma against online dating. There’s the idea that the only people out there in Internet Land looking for dates are blobby geeks that live in their mother’s basements. I’m quite sure there are a few of those, and a few other crazies as well, but the ratio’s the same as what you would find in any other dating scene.
As a single mother who really didn’t like going out much, I turned to online dating after my divorce. At first, it was really just pure fun. I didn’t meet up with anyone, I just emailed back and forth a lot and got back into the swing of talking to the opposite sex again. Now, I love to tell people that I met the love of my life online, if for no other reason than to see the look of shock on their faces.
photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net, by Salvatore Vuono
Ashley O'Melia, Author 
I’m trying to get my sister into online dating but she is stuck on that stigma of wierdos and crazies! any advice?
Sites that charge tend to have a better selection than the freebies. Monthly subscription fees act as an inherent filter: people that are serious about finding a relationship are going to spend the money. The free sites, like Plenty of Fish, seem to be full of people that are looking for short physical relationships. For most of us, that’s probably not what we’re looking for.
Also, Match allows you to block contact from someone that you find creepy or offensive. I did get a few of those, and I simply blocked them and moved on.
Very nicely written!
Thank you very much!