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Dan Bayse of Birmingham, Ala., read my July 31 column about Internet dating and said we'd had some similar experiences.
Bayse, 58, had come to Salem to take a turn caring for his ailing father. He's a minister and professional counselor who divorced eight years ago after 28 years of marriage.
About three years ago he started looking online for a mate -- someone who shared his traditional values.
One woman said she was a manager with a transportation company and a strong Christian. On their only date, she turned out to be much older than she appeared in her picture. She hadn't been to church in years, and she was not a transportation manager, but a tractor-jockey in the trailer yard.
Been there.
Bayse later met a woman he considered the love of his life. Seven months later, she dumped him for her old boyfriend.
"I was used to make him jealous," Bayse said.
Comfort zone
After switching online services, he went out with a lot of good people, but no one he'd spend his life with.
"Then Jane came along," he said. "It was not love at first sight, no heart-stopping, sweaty-palmed emotional glue. ... Just a genuine attraction that grew and grew."
He proposed to her 10 months later. They took premarital counseling and have been married for more than a year. And they are happy.
Bayse is all for online dating, at least on the service he switched to, though he sees the negatives -- the feast or famine sensation, the high school attitudes that can crop up, the liars, the players.
He found his partner 10 miles from his home in Birmingham.
It takes work
Older people like him -- and, uh, me -- have turned to the Internet for the convenience and the number of potential mates to be found there. Like fishermen in search of trophy bass, we've discovered that you don't catch the big one without putting in a lot of time.
The frustrations and disappointments will come, but even if you don't find the perfect person, you can make a lot of friends, including some whom you probably will never meet.
I correspond with a woman who is a health care manager near Charlotte, N.C., and another who is a student and mother of five grown children in Greensboro, N.C.
They tell me about their misadventures online and in everyday life, and I share mine. The stories make the downside seem funny, at times.
Kate Monroe, 47, sent me an e-mail saying she recently started dating online. Prior to that she had been "old school -- you know, you had to be a desperate nerd to have to use the personals."
Then she realized she had lived in Roanoke for 18 months and had no dates, which she said qualified her as desperate. And she works in the electronics field, which, she said, makes her a nerd.
She told her friends she was thinking about going online, and expected them to be shocked and appalled.
They were shocked, but only by her reluctance. Most of them either were dating people they'd met online or knew others who had.
Monroe spent time with a man whose profile and photo she especially liked. It didn't last, but they had fun and she met a lot of interesting people.
I have discovered that it's probably wise to keep close watch on the time and energy you spend online and on dates.
You may not be ready for anything serious, but that doesn't mean you can't have good times, even without leaving home.
Just ask Monroe.
"I've recently expanded to a second online site and am having a ball!" she wrote. "Although, I must admit, I DO stay away from guys with screen names like Mongo and Weewee."
Joe Kennedy's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
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