Electronic dating has been around for years. Huge numbers of men and women create Personal Ads on the Internet in search of, well, just about anything. There are ads for dominatrices as well as your basic “couples seeking couples” liberally sprinkled among the homo/hetero/ bi-sexual seekers. It’s fun to cruise the Personals. It can actually become hysterically funny if you’re not taking it too seriously and not desperately seeking a mate.

 A friend, Brittany, coerced me into posting a Personal Ad on Love@AOL when it was a hot topic—and free. The two of us ended up going out on twenty-three dates within eleven months. Britt tagged along as my chaperone. If a man wouldn’t agree to meet the two of us, the deal, I mean, the date was off.  

Let me state that no one got hurt during our little Personal Ad rampage. While there may have been a bent nose or two along the way; it was usually the guy’s overblown ego or expectations that caused it. Take William, whom I dubbed as “Will-Tongue”.

Will-Tongue was a really nice guy from Texas. He even got the dubious distinction of being the first man I met in person sans chaperone. Britt had something else come up that same evening. I decided to tough it out and meet Will-Tongue at one of my favorite restaurants. He had good intentions right from the start.

When we were shown to our table there were a dozen beautiful white roses awaiting me. Nice touch!   The man was so earnest in his endeavors to impress me that it was almost endearing.  However, he had an annoying habit of jumping up every time the waiter came near. He would rush over to my side of the table and try to stick his tongue in my mouth. The key word here is “try”.

 For some forgotten reason, I decided to invite him over to my house the next night for a barbeque. Chaperoned, of course. This move, unfortunately, turned out to be his undoing.  Britt swears it was the ensemble; the bright pink-checkered shirt, the blood-red leather belt, the rose-tinted pants and… the shoes. Personally, I never made it as far as the shoes, but Britt insists they matched his outfit.

Fashion felony aside, I knew well before end of the evening it was time to put poor Will-Tongue out of my misery. I knew he was a good ole country boy. I innocently asked him if he would like me to play his favorite song on the karaoke. Being such a nice guy, he insisted I play one of my favorites first. So I did. "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie. That was it for Will-Tongue. He politely made his excuses and left. 

He emailed me broken-heartedly the next day. He had seriously thought we were in “love”. He’d come out West with every intent to carry me and all that I am off into the sunset. He just couldn’t compete with the Zombie, I guess. 

What amazed me is the amount of not self-perception, but self-deception running rampant in Personal Ads. While trolling the ads, I would end up rolling on the floor. “Tall, handsome prince” would turn out to be short, dumpy troglodyte. Take the guy who only wants “onisty” in a relationship, he loves dinning out at fine restaurants and he loves to wright. He also wants someone with a college or graduate school degree…hmmm.   

I was equally unprepared for how many men wanted women who can “conversate.” I’m still trying to figure that one out. Sated with converse?  Being adept at putting things in reverse order?  Whatever it means it certainly has an oral ring to it. 

A guy that I dated once or twice (amazingly I did not meet him online) ran an ad with a profile so doctored I would never have recognized him. According to what he wrote he had grown at least two inches, quit smoking, and taken up scaling the Himalayas. 

A local artist I know wouldn’t be living in Vegas if she hadn’t fallen in love with a man on the Internet. After over one hundred emails, she came from back east to the wild, Wild West to meet the man she was convinced was her soul mate. She was greeted by a man, not ten, not twenty, but thirty years older than he had led her to believe.  She stayed. He went. 

This brings us to the obvious: What are people thinking when they sign themselves up for online dating? On the upper end of dating services you have Great Expectations. They charge a princely fee but are thorough in their evaluation/compatibility process. Then, you have the match.coms, where you are charged a nominal fee to sample the clientele. It is here at the lower end where you run into the self-deceivers, the game players and even some stalkers. You get what you pay for.  

I spent two months surfing personals on the Internet as research. Just for the heck of it, I jumped back into the Internet dating game. I made it clear that I wasn’t looking for a mate. I stated plainly that I wanted a nice, intelligent male companion to go out with a couple of times a month. I posted a new picture with my profile and waited to see what kind of response I would get. All modesty aside, the response was immediate and overwhelming. But, the men?  Oh, the men!  

There were two I decided were worth meeting in person. One of the two had the bright idea that after one date I should be thrilled at the prospect of driving clear across town on a Saturday morning to bring him his Starbucks, then “play around some.” Sure, dude, let me provide you all services and for free, no strings attached.  

There were scores of married men who live out of state but who were looking for “a good time” while in Las Vegas. When confronted, most of them were honest about being married, but there were plenty who thought I was the screwball for objecting to their marital status.  I guess they can’t spell. D-a-t-e does not spell f-r-e-e e-s-c-o-r-t s-e-r-v-i-c-e. 

Soul mate or playmate-seeking aside, my impression of most of the males I encountered online is this: A lot of these guys are surfing the Personal Ads because they are sorely lacking in dating skills and that lack of skill can be easily hidden behind the computer screen. These guys aren’t out there mingling with women because they don’t know how to mingle with women.

These are the guys who proclaim in their profiles that they are sensuous and deeply into massage. They love to cuddle in bed or in front of a fireplace. They enjoy long walks on the beach at sunset, and barbequing. Yeah, right. What I read into these ads is the guy is horny and wants to give you a full-on body massage with a happy ending.  And on top of that, he’s too cheap or inept to take you out to dinner or a show. 

The Internet provides an excellent masking device for men and women. Anyone can be a smooth operator in print. In print you can pump yourself up or even leave out a few minor details; like the second guy I met for a drink. He doesn’t drive and he doesn’t own a car. A minor detail, that. (Call me a cab?) That may work in the Big Apple but not here in Las Vegas. 

Other men give way too much information in their ads. Not only about themselves but about what they are expecting from the women. Most of them are looking for a wife or full-time companion. I want a wife after reading about some of these guys’ criteria.  

There are nice people out there on the match-dot-coms of the world. I mean, I was out there. It is a private and comfortable way to go cruising for a date, or a mate. Britt, who started me on internet dating, met a guy through a personal ad. They are now married and have a darling little boy.  

Precautionary measures are always a must when dealing with strangers, whether you’re at a bar, in a chat room or making a date via your computer. If you’re interested in cruising the personals on the Internet, use prudence and good ole common sense. Don’t be like one woman I know who wired $40,000 to an Internet “lover” in Nigeria whom she had never met. There are so many equally as gullible (and pitifully lonely) women like her out there, the FBI can’t even keep up with the scams. 

Always meet a prospective date in a public place (or take a friend with you). Never give out your home address or phone number. NEVER EVER NEVER tell a stranger about your children or where they go to school.  

Be as frank and honest as possible when you fill out the profile section of your ad.  It will save you from getting a lot of needless responses. Also, you just might learn something about yourself. After all, the truth is in there…