It’s a sad world these days, people…

A sad, depressing, and might I even add lonely world if you really stop to think about it! War and famine, pestilence and poverty aside, I think it’s important here for us to focus on the bigger issue – I just can’t, for the life of me, seem to get a date in this city! And let me tell you, it’s certainly not for a lack of trying, that’s for sure. At this point we’re going on six months into a lull that would make the Virgin Mary proud, which is going to have to change very soon before I become unbearably irritable…so I figured that this would be just as good of a forum as any to dissect my only viable option at this point – the Internet.

When I initially started brainstorming for this column, I was intending to title it Desperation 102 with the implication that we’d be discussing the next level in the dating game, but you know, the more that I think about it, the pursuit of romantic interests online isn’t, for the most part, something that I would consider advanced by any means…in fact, it’s kind of almost a step down and anyone who’s cruised around any of the personals sites will vouch for that one! Honestly – back in the day, a guy or gal attempting to shake the idea of perpetual loneliness had to at least get up the nerve to call the hotline operator at his or her local newspaper to place an ad begging for love, but not anymore! Thanks to Al Gore and his invention of the Internet, not only can one bash movie stars and shop for pretty much anything at 2:00 AM in their underwear, they can even begin that search for love in all the wrong places without ever picking up the phone or otherwise interacting with another human being…

It seems like somebody’s going to be in for quite the surprise when it comes time to go out on an actual date!

And then again, with today’s technologies of instant messaging and text messaging and voice messaging, who’s to say that it isn’t possible for two people to have a loving relationship without ever even having met face-to-face?! It’s certainly no secret that people having been establishing “game marriages” a la EverQuest and The Sims for years now, but I think it takes it to an entirely different level altogether when somebody gets the bright idea to propose to his soul mate in front of a couple of hundred strangers in an Internet chat room…and yet it’s already happened hundreds of times this year alone!

Of course, who knows – maybe it works for somebody who fears physical contact and direct sunlight and moonlit walks along the sand, but I can tell you right now that it would never work for me because, call me crazy, I look forward to the sex, and the making of the pancakes in the morning, and the having someone to go see movies with, and did I happen to mention the sex?! There are some things that, sadly enough, just can’t be done over the Internet, so where do you draw the line when utilizing the Information Superhighway to find a mate? That, my friends, is the $64,000 question!

Some would say that a bit of flirting, or friendly banter, is acceptable, but nothing more, while others are apt to lay it all out on the table during the first nine hour, Mountain Dew-driven yak fest when everything from shoe size to flossing preference is disclosed…but that doesn’t really leave much for a first date, now does it? And then those like myself find ourselves in an even more unique situation because, as being famous on the Internet tends to result in, there’s already enough dirt floating around out there to incriminate us with such secrets as asking one’s cousin to go to the prom (…she said no…) and even actually enjoying the music of Hanson – talk about an uneven playing field! There’s nothing worse than knowing that she already knows, without actually knowing about her in return, and even with only a few hours of free time each day, there’s a lot of knowing to be known out there…

Which is why I’m sad to say that I must denounce Internet dating for the time being, be it my only hope as it is, but let it be known that simply because I’m not looking myself doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the attention of a few fan girls here and there! You know, just to tell me how funny I am and to compliment me on my grammar and spelling skills – those sorts of things, of course. Certainly one person can appreciate another without requiring dinner twice a week and expecting me to do her laundry, right?! Fortunately, none of that can be done over the Internet anyways…at least not for now…so feel free to praise to your heart’s content, ladies. I always welcome a kind word to my inbox, and if it just happens to be with an accompanying photograph, then that just means that you appreciate me all the more!

** But when you’re ready to try out some of that actual dating, and when I say dating I actually mean sex, then you can find me online as sexy_writer_42 @ match.com, Yahoo! Personals, and many other fine websites…