Some Enchanted . . . Texting?

The other day at work, one of the staff told me that another therapist had said that I was "cute": I have to say I was a bit flattered, because he isn't completely hard on the eyes himself and seems to be a deeply gifted person. Shortly afterward, yet another therapist asked me if I was currently dating anyone. "No," I said, "but Such-and-Such thinks I'm cute, apparently." "No, no," she said. "He is already older than you, and is not wealthy enough to support a woman. Forget that. I want to introduce you engineers, people like my husband works with." "So," I said, trying to change the subject as I spent a good deal of my life running from the "bird in the gilded cage" thing, "where did you meet your husband?" "Cupid.com," she replied.

Aigghh! I seem to be the only one I know who does not use the Internet as a dating tool. I only use it extensively for work and business, such as my job at Lingua Espresso. The whole Internet Dating thing has freaked me out for a long time. My first excuse is that I'm 37, old enough to remember the times when the public lacked both awareness of and access to the Mighty Internet. And when such things started really picking up popularity in the 90's, online dating was still considered by many to be the realm of the desperate and those who were looking for "kinky" partners to participate in sex with multiple piercings or monogamous fluids.

And of course, I did not consider myself desperate: from age 16 to age 32 I dated constantly, hardly ever coming up for a breath of fresh air in a quiet space by myself. Nor was I looking for especially kinky kicks. Also perhaps, I was stubborn about the fairy tales I was raised on: when the time is right, the right person will find you and you will find him. I wasn't so backward as to believe "Some Enchanted Evening" would really start playing at that exact moment, but I wasn't against the possibility either.

But in a very short time, the world has moved on. "Normal" people find dates and marriage partners using Match.com and Cupid.com and eHarmony.com and GodKnowsWhatElse.com. More than half of my friends and acquaintances have been with at least one person met in cyberspace. What happened to your friend's friends? Your co-workers? The person you accidentally trip over while searching for the perfect apple in the supermarket? I don't get it.

But then, I'm suspicious by nature and I like my privacy. My cell phone irritates me, even. And Facebook.com and MySpace.com drive me nuts: every time I try that someone I've been running from for 13 years finds me and tries to pin me down into explanations or nostalgic wallowing in things I don't really wish to claim anymore. Besides, how do you trust that someone in Miami or Des Moines is showing a current picture? Isn't lying about their addiction to painkillers? Isn't sleeping on his mom's sofa? I mean, those things can happen to the people you meet face-to-face, but you generally find out faster if they're close by and available for the kind of getting-to-know-you stuff that the Internet simply doesn't provide.

Well, I have friends who argue that for mature adults, Internet dating has it's good points, like getting to know someone's personality before you decide the outer-trappings aren't your "type." Hmmm, maybe. But these are the same people who will still rule out the Internet Hopefuls if they don't match the body-type in real life. Not to mention friends who remind me that among my many relationships, there are several less than stellar examples of "great guys."

In any case, the Universe has brought many wonderful people into my physical (not cyberspace) life, and "Some Enchanted Texting" just doesn't have the same "ring" for me. Not that I'll never do it, but . . . it still gives me goosebumps