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An attractive widow finds sudden romance under the Big Top. Within three weeks of online courting, she's engaged to a circus clown. Another woman, an English teacher, loves metaphors. So it stands to reason that she was crushed when, on her first date with a man with outrageously large ears, she learned that he was not a good listener. These are just two women I know who are part of "an estimated forty million people" who have tried online dating. With such an astounding number, it's no surprise that Virginia Vitzthum, a former sex columnist for Salon.com, set out to untangle this Web of matchmaking in "I Love You, Let's Meet."
Bars, clubs and parties, the predominant scenes of choice in which singles hook up, has now, arguably, been replaced with an electronic forum that casts the net, so to speak, of possibilities far wider than a mere room full of intoxicated people. Because the majority of us spend our time physically isolated yet attached to our BlackBerries, laptops or cell phones, it only makes sense that we use these devices to reach out to others. "Online dating gives single people a public square to find each other, using whatever criteria matter to them -- location, age, beliefs, vices, hobbies, height or income."
Typically, to enter this cyber society, a potential online dater must choose from the nearly 1,000 Internet dating sites, then put together a profile consisting of important vitals like eye color, hair color, weight, the celebrity you resemble most -- preferably with a photo to back up your claims. In turn, you include the age, ethnicity and all-around "type" of mate you're seeking. Vitzthum shares her own profile in her book, which, over six years, drummed her up 65 dates with men who were "smart, attractive, sane and reasonably close to their online representations."
The best part of online dating isn't browsing through profiles, it is the "courtly" love that transpires once you start corresponding with your top pick. Because writing is in itself an intimate act, Vitzthum warns that many online daters will bask too long in this getting-to-know-you phase. Through the feverish exchange of flirtatious and clever e-mails, there's always the opportunity to write to impress, to divulge only what sounds good and avoid topics over which you might disagree.
Not to mention the obvious, that people will, and do, lie. Whereas women subtract a couple of years from their age, men lie in order to add a couple of inches -- in height, that is. Which leads to the biggest fear in online dating: the face-to-face date.
More often than not, expectations run too high and each is disheartened when the chemistry isn't as intense (if there's any at all) as it was online. But is this disappointment due to minor fibs about one's physical appearance? No matter how perfect someone seems on the computer screen, it's only in the meeting of our eyes that a sexual spark is revealed.
Throughout this energetic narrative, Vitzthum tackles these tough issues in 16 diverse stories, along with her own, of love found and lost online. She tests the scientific theories behind costly dating sites like Match.com, eHarmony.com and the ultra-edgy Nerve.com, where Vitzthum herself sought most of her dates. She takes and then hypothesizes about the accuracy of all those compatibility profiles advertised as teasers on TV.
The funny and sometimes frightful stories alone are enough to keep anyone reading. There's the 70-year-old geriatric god among men who, at 6 feet tall and with all of his hair, is so actively pursued nationwide that he must weed out those women whom he deems "geographically undesirable." Then there's the unfortunate woman who falls for her fiance's many fictions. She uproots her life, moving to another state only to discover, among other psychological terrors, that he has a rap sheet as a Peeping Tom.
If there are any shortcomings in "I Love You, Let's Meet," it's in the scope of its research. Vitzthum limits herself primarily to the dating scene in the New York City area, where she lives. A couple of stories do take place here in the West, with brief stints in Colorado and the Southeast. As I read on, though, I kept asking about all the other states in between. What about the heartland?
Maybe it is Vitzthum's own staggering online track record that makes her such an empathetic and excellent guide into this world of high-tech dating. Whatever the reason, she makes an impassioned argument that before you find love under the sheets, if you're honest enough, you may just find it first under your fingertips on the keypad of your computer.
Paula Priamos
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