OUR CORNER: Dating changing with the times

Today's subject is online dating.I was hoping to do some research and write an extensive series or articles, but certain staff members think the story is too much fun for me.

Today’s subject is online dating.I was hoping to do some research and write an extensive series or articles, but certain staff members think the story is too much fun for me.Fine.The online dating issue caught my attention when a colleague told me that guys his age, in their mid-20s, are going online to find dates.I always thought the folks clicking the online dating buttons were sitting around in locked wards sipping red liquid and watching Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”Now I find out everyone is using online dating. I did a brief survey of folks in my office and found most had friends and relations of all ages using the various online dating services.No one ever tells me anything.The whole world changed and no one told me.I’ll bet God is up there in heaven saying, “Online dating? What’s that? Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? I’m God, I get to know things.”Apparently, people looking for a date fill out screening surveys online and some computer nerd matches them with a living, breathing entity who has the same answers.That scares me.There is even some quasi-scientific study I read somewhere that said most men think they look like Greek gods even though a knuckle-dragging caveman is staring back at them in the mirror. It’s a special male talent.The only thing I can figure is there must be a very good lie detector on the man side of the screening survey. I’ll bet that lie detector is a girl sitting at a terminal with a finely honed sense of humor.“Right, 150 pounds. Yeah when you were 2.”“Sure, 6 feet 2, on a ladder.”I don’t remember any screening devices from my youth – beyond a six pack of beer, which may be the best argument for online dating.The truth is every boy I have ever known was a major, fumbling, loser when it came to girls.All of us were trying to get some girl to like us and all we heard were, “not in this lifetime, dip.”I have a scientific theory that women are genetically designed to be impervious to all the dopy girl-catching tactics males try.There is one small caveat that allows for marriage.I call it women’s Achilles’ heel.Females are completely invincible except for that one moment of weakness. At the right moment, if a male specimen is lucky, he gets a girl to believe his lies for a very short time. If he doesn’t hesitate, he may find someone to share his life and there is nothing in this world like it. It has happened.Based on my observations of watching hopeless guys try to get a date, online dating may be the best way to find that special girl.It can’t be any worse.