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18 January 2005 - 17:10 I had lunch the other day in the Centre Eaton foodcourt - it's one of my favourite places to go and grab some solitude in amongst the throngs of people. To get lost in a sea of poeple who don't know me from Adam. Or...um... Andr� here in Qu�bec. SO people watching is one of my favourite things... How do people react in large crowds; how do work-group dynamics actually work? How do people choose their food from the plethora of options that they have in front of them? I also, from my vantage point on the lunch bar - a solitary row which sits above the tables below - I am able to eavesdrop onto conversations. So a couple of days ago I just manage to catch a couple of office women chatting about their recent dates and how the search for the perfect man was going... and it struck me that they were talking about the blind internet dating encounters had transpired. Not only that, but how their current 'portfolio' of 'potentials' was shaping up... I had to lower my newspaper which I was pretending to read to lean in a little closer... this was going to be too good to miss... Common pre-conception about internet dating? The WOMEN who are partake are strong independent women, maximizing their use of time and resources in order to find a 'safe' match without impacting their everyday, busy lives. No threats... The MEN who particpate are all letchy fakers, after a quick shag with no strings attached. They view the sites as being a catalogue of women just itching to give it away... All have the integrity of a moth. A horny moth. Misconception? I don't know... But it does ask this question... If the women are all sane and the men are all insane, why do the women subscribe? That's another question for another day! These women, both, I imagine, in their mid to late 30's were really quite animated about their findings, though. They seemed to quite revel in the fact that they could pick out the 'playas' from the 'mommas boys' and not once did they mention any positives. They seemed positively let down by this system. But Really? What did they expect? These systems are like the slot machines in Vegas... you aren't expected to succeed, but plug a lot of money into the process of doing it... People are far too egotisical to make this system work... once they get a spark of so called 'interest' from another party, it's a little like heroin (I imagine) - in that you feel derireable and 'selected'. Where no interest was being generated in the real world, it is happening in the virtual... So then the emphasis changes. It's no longer about looking for lasting 'love', but who can I get to 'wink' or 'smile' or 'message' or 'whatever' me today, and how can I judge them as a result. And so the game becomes a huge psychological challenge. Even, I imagine, for the ones that actually do meet. They find that they're not actually looking... I'm not judging anyone who does this. I did it myself for five minutes, a long time ago, until I figured out what it was all about. I 'met' and met some nice women for two minutes. I met a couple of women who were more like the preconceived men than I thought was possible. But one strand remained true. No-one really wanted to really meet someone and make any special connection. We were all FAR to much into ourselves and seeing who was clicking our profiles. If I learned anything from it all, it was that it it can't be possible to find love or connection in these sites. How can it possibly happen when the initial spark might be an ember so small that it takes a keen and focused eye to notice and blow on it, away from the distraction of yourself?
   My life is rated NC-17. What is your life rated? |
