The 15 Minute Dating Blog

by Jana Schreiber

Online dating is a great invention for those who don’t want to get all dolled up for an evening of getting-to-know-you small talk, or pay for an uncomfortable encounter where the only sparks are the ones coming from the restaurant stovetops. Online dating lets you set up shop in front of the computer screen in the comfort of your home where you can look through potential candidates for your next relationship. There are no awkward silences or panic attacks because you have run out of things to say. You just float along picking and choosing people who you click with- the ones who leave you interesting messages and ask you thoughtful questions. The catch with this seemingly perfect dating alternative is that no matter how long you talk online, or how much you seem to know about this person, you really can never be sure that who you see on the computer screen is who you get in the flesh.

I was not expecting to meet a guy over the internet, but a two-month conversation led to an actual relationship that has lasted a year and a half so far. He was one of the many cute guys I “friended” on Facebook the summer before my freshman year in college. Even though our two-month long conversation was entertaining, and he seemed like an awesome guy who I could really get along with, I did not even think about meeting up in person-there are just too many horror stories of people meeting on the internet and one turns out to be a wacko or it turns out that they were using a very deceiving user pic. When we both came to campus he asked for my number, and even though the horror stories freaked me out, I had to admit I was a bit intrigued. I agreed to meet with him, but in a public place- because if he was a wacko, liar, or just plain old scary at least there would be other people around. I was thinking about bringing a friend along so she could watch my back, but I decided to take a chance instead and just let my roommate be on-call in case anything went wrong.

After the precautionary measures were taken, the only thing that troubled me was whether we could find things to talk about that hadn’t been covered already in our Facebook messages, well that and the worry of whether I looked better in my picture than I did in the flesh- would he recognize me? Would he be disappointed? Well, if he was going to be disappointed, screw ‘em I was going to go through with this anyways!

We greeted each other with a big hug and twin smiles from ear-to-ear. It was a smooth transition from Facebook to flesh, although I probably did do most of the talking- but that is my nervous nature. The second time we met; we sat on the grass area near the freshman dorms and talked for a few hours non-stop about everything. It felt like I was already friends with him, and technically, according to Facebook I was. Looking back on the two-month long conversation we had on Facebook, I realized that starting our relationship online allowed us to cover the basics: favorite color, favorite movie, family make-up, etc., pretty much all of the subjects that are eventually covered when first dating. Our first meeting was more like a third date- still kind of nervous, still wanting to hide the bad habits and emphasize the good attributes, but generally comfortable and able to converse without having a mental list in your head of what questions to ask. I was lucky that this random guy I met on Facebook (aka my best friend and boyfriend) was fantastic in the flesh.

So take it from a former-reluctant online dater, it doesn’t hurt to be open minded! Just make sure that you are careful.

About the author: Jana is a second year Literary Journalism major at the University of California, Irvine with aspirations of someday writing for a major Women’s magazine. She’s written several articles for her school newspaper and hopes to continue writing for any and all publications. She loves the Food Network, especially her favorite Rachael Ray, Glamor, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan, and her guilty pleasure is reading tabloids in between classes. Here’s the link to her blog. Here’s the link to her blog.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Happily Ever After. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.