At a recent party I attended, I completed my duty as any good invitee does and began mingling with all my fellow guests.
It was the typical “How are you?” and “That’s so interesting!” sort of conversation.
Later, I ran into an old acquaintance, and, as we were catching up, a woman sauntered up to him and was introduced as his girlfriend.
Not wanting to ruin my bland streak of run-of-the-mill questions for the night, I posed the casual, “So where did you two meet?”
Now, I thought that was a simple question. But you should have seen the look of fright overtake these people’s faces.
An awkward silence emerged as the two began to look back and forth between them, puzzled as to how to answer the question.
“We met on the Internet.”
It’s funny that people are embarrassed to admit the fact that among their search for cheap textbooks and pornography, love, too, is something people are actively seeking in cyberspace.
Culturally, it seems taboo for a person to do so.
After all, what’s so wrong with this person that he can’t seem to find someone in the “real world” and must resort to Facebook and chat rooms to find a relationship?
It is my belief that this fear is generated somewhere between our stereotype of computer geeks discovering Internet romance with level 45 elves and our fear that the person on the other end of the Ethernet cable is a 52-year-old serial killer from Michigan living in his dead mother’s basement. But that was so mid-’90s.
Today, the Internet is just as valid a place as a Starbucks or any other trendy, capitalistic location where you might meet that special person.
Personally, my last two relationships were both with people I had met online, and those happened to also be the two best relationships I ever experienced.
What’s nice about the Internet is that it provides a nice window for people to meet each other without the immediate fear of rejection or having to act “cool.” All you have to do is have a majorly hot photo of yourself and be a pretty savvy typist.
Where the Internet goes awry in life is when people turn to their computers for social interaction that they cannot generate in person.
For instance, did you chat online with the coolest guy or girl, but when you finally met in person, they were completely awkward? That is because there are two types of Internet-dating people I have come across over the years in my quest for romance on the Net.
The first type is the person who isn’t socially abnormal when the two of you meet up for Pinkberry.
That is because this person doesn’t need the Internet to find a relationship. This person is perfectly capable of finding a relationship on his or her own in the real world, but just happened to meet someone online this time instead.
For safety reasons and to avoid sucking down a whole Frappuccino in two minutes out of boredom, I recommend meeting someone of this nature.
But the second type of people are the socially inept beings who turn to the clack of keys because they seek to mask their shortcomings.
These individuals are the people who are not capable of connecting with others away from a computer, which shows (trust me) when the two of you finally interact in person.
These people are products of Generation Y’s introvert nature, made possible by the cornucopia of electronic games, text messaging and AIM.
There is mass communication, but the communication is less often done in person. These people never learned basic face-to-face interaction skills and are put in a corner whenever they are forced to do so.
So for all those who have discovered or are searching for that special someone over the binary bridge of love, be proud of it.
My only advice is be wary of the types of people you chat with and always make sure you meet for the first few times in very public places.
So cast off the chains of uneasiness when people ask how the two of you know each other. Despite the fact that you saw her picture on Myspace and it started all from there, you can take comfort in the fact that just about everyone else at the party is doing the same thing, whether they admit it or not.
Nadler is a fourth-year world arts and culture student.