The Village Idiot: Mr. Right is just an e-mail away

At first I thought she was kidding.

“You met someone on the Internet?” Here was an intelligent, attractive, accomplished woman telling me she was dating online. Doesn’t she know about all the scams out there? All the imposters, all the poseurs, all the psycho-killers?

Melanie rolled her eyes and looked at me as if I was the last one in my class to figure out where babies come from. I was, but she couldn’t know that, could she?

“You’re right, the Internet’s a cesspool. I’m going to stop looking for love online and go to that seedy bar down the road where all the smart, intelligent, good-looking single men hang out. Oh yeah, I forgot, all the men in there are drunk. And married. And not that intelligent. The only thing I know about them is that they’re at a bar, not on the Internet.

“Online I can Google them, I can do a background check, I can see their picture,” she continued. “Try that in a bar. Yes, guys can lie online. But guess what? Guys can lie to you offline, too. I dated a guy named Gus I met at a traditional Christmas party for three weeks before I found out his real name was Allen and his wife’s name was Maureen.

“People say why can’t you meet people the old-fashioned way? They act as if the old-fashioned way worked. Half the people who met each other the old-fashioned way are divorced. The other half hates each other, but is staying together for the sake of the kids. If that’s the success rate for the old-fashioned way, I’ll take my chances on the Internet, thank you very much.

“Besides,” she added, “the old-fashioned way only works when you’re young. Now I’m 55 years old. I don’t live in my hometown. All the guys my age are married. And if they’re not, there’s a good reason why.

“Why do you think a man is single at 55?” she asked. “Because he’s so rich and good looking? Because he really knows how to show a girl a good time? Because he was faithful and monogamous? Because he was selfless and mature? I’m not saying I don’t have my own baggage, I’m divorced, too. Myron needed his own ‘space.’ Well, he’s got it. And I hear he’s sharing it with a woman half his age.

“It’s hard enough to find Mister Right when you’re young, at my age it’s ‘Mission: Impossible.’ You can laugh all you want about Internet dating, but it’s working for me, without all the hassle of dating. I don’t even have to dress up or put on make-up.

“I tell the service what kind of guy I would like to meet – his age, his hobbies, his likes, his dislikes, his politics, his religion – and a few pictures pop up. If I like the way they look I can see what they have to say about themselves.

“You learn to read between the lines to see if someone is serious or not,” she explained. “I hate it when guys say they are looking for a woman younger than they are. What is that all about? They’re 60 and they’re looking for a date that’s 30? Who do you think you are? Clint Eastwood? Well, you get the drift. I just X them off.

“There’s no way they can find out who I am without my permission, and if I find someone interesting we can e-mail each other to find out more. After a few e-mails we usually decide to go our separate ways. It’s politics or he’s got young kids or he likes bass fishing or we don’t have the same sense of humor or a hundred other things. I’ve been doing this for three months now and last week was the first time I talked to a guy I’d been e-mailing on the phone. We had a great time, we talked for three hours. We’re trying to find a restaurant in neutral territory to have dinner next week.

“I know, you think I’m crazy. The guy could be a crazy-wacko-nut. Like my ex-husband wasn’t? I met Myron at a friend’s wedding. No one thought that was crazy. How did I know that he’d turn out to be the world’s most egotistical, faithless, demanding, slob? The only thing that would turn me off to Internet dating is to find out that’s how he found the woman he’s living with now.”

Jim Mullen can be reached by e-mail at jim_mullen@myway.com.