I match socks. You match _______. December 15, 2007

So three of my best lady friends have joined the dating website referenced in the title of this blog. I refuse to actually refer to it.
One was uniquely lucky in that she started and has continued a lasting, long-term relationship on the second of her “match dates.”
One has been uniquely unlucky in that she’s been out with at least 10 guys, sometimes more than once, but has yet to meet a “match.”
These guys are real pieces, too, if you ask me.
Which, let’s assume, you did.
One talked to her on the phone, post-date, arranging a possible next date, only to minutes later send a text that reads “I had a nice time with you but don’t think we click. Sorry.”
One, after the first date, became her friend on Myspace, started messaging one of her top friends, and then started dating that person.
One spent an entire date talking about his ex-girlfriend/soulmate with whom he has one of those “if we’re not married by 35, we’ll marry each other” pacts. He brought up this ex on the first date.
My third internet dating friend is new to this world, and seems a little wrong for it.
Sure, she’s watched one friend succeed, and one, let’s say, continue to try. She’s seen them whisked away on dates, excited by prospects, arrive home late at night with stories to tell. She wants a piece, and we all do, really.
But she can’t describe herself on a profile because she’s the kind of person who doesn’t tell you she is kind and loyal. That’s how kind and loyal she is.
She can’t e-banter with these guys because she doesn’t want to hurt feelings with a sarcast remark I suggest. She doesn’t want to have to wonder if he meant to hurt her feelings with a short response or a strange comment.
I don’t know what drives them all to this means. They all have declared, either to me or on their profiles, that they are “independent” women who don’t “need” men. I believe them. But they surely do not.
I know that things change over time and that the most successful among us will always know when, exactly, to adapt and when, exactly, to resist passing fads. I know that online dating is not a passing fad. It is too easy of an answer for the most common of questions.
But should I, you, all of us single people in the world adapt to this change? I think it’s something that would make many so intensely uncomfortable that things are doomed to fail, reinforcing our ideas that we are, perhaps, unloveable.