Paul's Perambulations a personal blog

February 10, 2010

Demystifying Online Dating (NYTimes 2/13/10)

Filed under: Love — admin @ 8:47 pm

This article was a Valentine’s Day offering by the NYTimes. Click Comments for my posted responses.

3 Comments »

  1. Met my wife eight years ago on match.com. It was findhappiness meets serendipityrules. Think I started with “If you’re looking for Tom Cruise, keep looking.” Key thing is we each brought energy to our first meeting, which was for a hike in the woods one rainy night. Now we’re back from backpacking in the Blizzard of 2010. Other women often seemed dull and unhappy, while she is brilliant and happy. Previously I had met three good women through an ad that began “Quaker pacifist, revolutionary socialist seeks girlfriend.” Don’t start off with particular expectations – Fran was different from all expectations and from anyone else I had ever met. We’re both in our sixties now, and my motto is “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

    Comment by admin — February 13, 2010 @ 8:49 pm

  2. A young lady of 18, wealthy, pretty and agreeable, wants a husband. Not finding any one of her acquaintance who suits her, she has concluded to take this method of discovering one. The happy gentleman must be wealthy, stylish, handsome and fascinating. None other need apply. Address within three days, giving name and full particulars, and enclosing carte de visite, Carrie Howard, Station D, New York.
    Published June 5, 1863

    Well, maybe (?) I could have made the “fascinating” part.

    Incidentally, an aunt of mine met and married her love through such a personal about 1930.

    Comment by admin — February 14, 2010 @ 4:37 pm

  3. Here are two additional posts on this article. I note that my first post recieved more recommendations than any other post on the article.

    In response to other prior posts (I’m #4), my wife-to-be contacted me on match.com. It’s immaterial to me who contacts whom first. Before our first “date” for a night hike in the woods three days after our initial online contact, Fran had checked out my web site, credit record, that I owned my home, and that there was not a woman’s name on the title. She also called a likely mutual contact, who indeed could vouch for me. We’re romantic, but not stupid. This was after two days of intensive phone calls (get offline as fast as possible – it goes nowhere). I was delving into her self-description of “Risk Taking but not Thrill Seeking,” while she was considering the implications of my “Age is irrelevant, as long as you can keep up with me.” To repeat my earlier post “Chance favors the prepared mind (and body).”

    p.s to my most recent post. Don’t waste your time with half-way relationships, unless that is an acceptable status (which is an option). One should get rather efficient at recognizing folks who may be nice but not likely possibilities, and (very) politely speak honestly about how nice they are but that the two of you do not seem a likely match. The great thing about the online approach is the large number of possibilities it can generate, however with the expectation that very few of these (one is the right number) will turn out right for the two of you.

    Comment by admin — February 21, 2010 @ 4:48 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress