The safe old-fashioned way
A very good friend of mine fell in love recently, I’m happy to report. It happened out of the blue, with a beautiful Canadian who is now visiting Iceland for the summer.
“Eep!” I said to them, two absolutely gorgeous women all happy and shiny in love with each other. “This is great news, where did you meet?”
“Well, we don’t really tell anybody this,” said my friend, her cheeks turning red. “But we, uh, first met last year on the internet...”
Bjarni — who usually does absolutely everything on the internet — laughed, and pointed out that he and I met the safe, old-fashioned way. The safe, old-fashioned way being that I let a drunken man feel my left breast in Kaffibarinn and then went back to his place for drunken sex.
Why is meeting people online still considered such a taboo? Tsk, these days I wouldn’t let a guy anywhere near me unless I knew beforehand what his top five favourite films are and where he puts his apostrophes.
38 comments:
In the past year, I have met THREE couples who have met online. One of them is buying a house, and another is getting married.
It's getting better, but most people's reactions are still quizzical, eyebrow raised with cynicism.
Do you mean people still fall in love without knowing if the beloved can spell and punctuate? How quaint.
I can't remember the last time I gobbled without googling first.
The internet is the last hiding place of the virilously repressed. If John Wayne walked like a goat - would you google it? Uh huh. Ok, if the internet was a dog would it fetch a paper. I think you know what I mean
The Spouse Sparrow and I met on-line, 7 years ago. Of course, we were both married to other people, and agreed to get divorces and marry each other, all before we ever met in person. Everyone thought we were insane. I'm not saying we aren't, but it seems to have worked out all right.
You really can get anything on the Internet, you know, and it's especially good for imports.
Really?! That's amazing. I didn't even realise people used the internet for dating 7 years ago, so yes, I can see how everybody back then thought you were completely insane. Although you seem very happy so I guess they are all laughing on the other sides of their faces now.
Hang on, 7 years ago was only actually 2000 wasn't it? God it sounds like it should be 1994 or something.
Heh heh! Fly you sparrows!
Bean and I met online last year and it was love at first byte. We copped so much crap from people both online and in real life. My mother reckons it's so "low class"! WTF? Would it be preferable if we all met in bars or at book club meetings or something?
We might be crazy too, but we're living together now and we've never been happier...
From what I know of Internet dating...(never having done it due to being married) is that men and women frequently exagerrate and lie about themselves (false advertising) and post pics of themselves years old and often when people meet in real life it is a disappointment even if there has been a 'rapport' online. Most who have done it find it a bit of a waste of time, although of course some people do strike gold. It shouldn't be a taboo though.
The lovely Mr Blue Cat and I met on a chat forum, then progressed to blog commenting, then emailing, then meeting up in real life, then snogging on my sofa. Mind you, this process did take two years.
*Does sums in head*
Oh dear god... the last four people I slept with were people I met online. I really need to get out more.
I know three couples who've met online and subsequently married - so all in favour. But you're right, there are still quite a lot of people (even, surprisingly, people under 30) who are weird about it. I remind them about apostrophes and that usually shuts them up.
A friend of my wife met her now husband online almost 10 years ago! They are married with 2 kids now, and both of their family still think they met at a college event!
Here in San Francisco, almost all of my 30 something friends used online dating, and it is seen as perfectly acceptable.My brother in law is about to marry a women he met online. My wifes business partner also met her husband online. Despite those successes most people I know state that you have to sift through a LOT of people to find someone, and the comments above about people exaggerating themselves are true.
Well done those two.More power to them is what I say.
A lot of my single friends use online dating and think nothing of it.
Now I've not been myself but I'm sure John Mc is right when he says you have to do a lot of sifting.
So how does that differ from real life? Apart from the drunken breast groping that is?
I also met my occasionally better half on the net and that was over six years ago now. I think it's more common in the gay world - it's harder to meet people in 'normal' ways being gay -whatever normal ways might mean.
I don't know what it's like in Iceland, but around here, if you aren't using the internet, you aren't getting dates. I'm going on month three of dating a great guy I never would have met otherwise.
But that's not to say that our first date didn't end in drunken sex.
I met somebody quite a few years back an even more removed way than the ould internet.
We then skipped all the in-between bits including reality and went straight to the end part, or hell as some people know it.
And then we both got computers so we could at least break up online.
That is the safe old-fashioned way?!!! Criminy! Now I really do feel like a stone-age mom!
I met my darling on the internet, met her in person a couple of weeks later, went round to supper a couple of weeks after that and kind of stayed. That was in April last year. And you're right, it's to do with the correct use of apostrophes.
T'internet is responsible for a multitude of mishaps these days, like that Texan who turned out to be 20 years older than his pic, with bad skin, a nose stuffed with blackheads and, erm, a wife. My visit to TX lasted exactly 48 hours. Urgh. I flew back home to my boyfriend.
...my wife and I recently spent a week-end at a nice B&B- all the other couples there had met on the internet!
Oh dear is apostrophes is part of the new criteria I am in deep shit. Back to getting drunk in pubs for me.
I guess asking bloggers about this is a bit redundant because we're all about the meeting people online. I should really have posed the question on my show on Radio 1, where everybody would've called in to say "those people aren't who they say they are!".
Oh hang on, I don't have a show on Radio 1.
But Ariel... that's hilarious. Sorry.
I agree with Conortje about it making gay dating easier. Because online you can wear a little sticker saying "hey I'm gay" to immediately filter out all the straights. But if you wore one of those in real life it's be really... gay.
The same goes for other things too, like on Facebook, where you can declare exactly what you want from the very start (Interested in: A Serious Relationship). You just can't say that straight away to a guy you meet in a bar.
I met my boyfriend online and we've been together eight months now. I've written about online dating in my newspaper column and get loads of emails back from people saying they'd done the Net dating thing too. Though there still is a 'taboo' around the whole issue as most of the people who mail me say things like 'please don't use my name in your column no-one knows we met online, we keep it a secret'. It's a pity but people still find it hard to talk about.
Good question. I think it has to do with the stigma of "needing" to place an ad to meet people.
I've met lots of people online. I've only had 2 dates from that - but I've had them.
What the fuck else can a girl do when she's stuck in a foreign country and wants to meet native english speakers?
Annie, I've tried it that way. Most blokes put their apostrophes all over the place.
Since I met my husband in the dark ages, I have no personal experience of this internet dating malarkey, but I've met so many nice people over the last year due to a certain common interest (OK, Green Wing) that it must be the way to go. And of course this blogging thing! Have only discovered what fun it is!
Erm, I suppose I should have mentioned that the Spouse Sparrow and I weren't actually scoping out potential shags whilst we were married to other people, we just happened to meet on an e-mail list, instantly clicked (like soul-mates do, and all that blah blah blah) and things went from there.... I suppose it's a bit late for my reputation at this point, but I'm not a complete whore.
Hahaaaaa Sparrah,,yer too late.
Alright then..I just went and signed up for a certain on-line personals service.
Who wants to see what/who happens?
Dear Annie
I am still not your daddy
It is a bit difficult to internet date in Ireland as everybody is either your ex boyfriend or your cousin. I went on one internet date and it turned out I'd been to a party in the gentleman's house ten years previously. I thought it was funnier than he did, I think. Speaking of funny, but the other kind, the only person who took GRAVE offence at the thought of my internet dating was my ex boyfriend, who was aghast. Go figure.
I believe that if you can't punctuate, you must be lousy in bed. Oh, is that a little judgmental?
Not judgmental at all. It's all about punctuating things the appropriate way based on contact and some antics.
(Insert joke about avoiding periods here)
Are you kidding? Periods are great.You need to be worried when they DON'T show up.
"Periods are great."
...and there you give away your original gender.
Heh,...I still maintain their greatness as in "Thank fuck you're here.I was all set to nip down to Mothercare but now...."
Yeah... fair enough. But that relief lasts exactly 1.2 seconds, then it's just a week of moaning and groaning.
Hi Annie, I linked to your blog from Sweary's, like to visit every now and again.
Anyhoo, I met my bloke online, we emailed a bit, then met for tea, (imagine, a yank drinking tea?!?!), and we just celebrated 4 really good years together. Yay!
Hello Orfhlaith and welcome. And congrats! I can't get my American to drink tea at all.
My American drank tea before he met me, just not Irish tea. Now he is a Barry's Tea convert and won't drink anything else!
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