i met him on the internet

while waiting for my burrito to be made, a woman, probably around 30, was talking about the guy she was seeing who she had met online. there were plenty of other people withing hearing distance, so it was obvious to me that she felt very comfortable with the idea of meeting people in cyberspace.

now in a lot of ways, i suppose that meeting people through craigslist and such makes a lot of sense. you can have a real conversation -- sort of -- and you won't have to scream so that you can be heard over the deafening roar of the bassline of some bad electronica. on the other hand, there's no room for any sort of physical chemistry, at least until you start sending pictures of your genitals to each other or you have a webcam set up. i don't know which one of those steps happens first. i will say this though, i figure anyone who owns a webcam already has picture of their apparatus saved on their computer. after all, is there any non-perverted use for the webcam -- in the real world, not theoretically.

still, i think the biggest arguments against internet dating won't even show up unless you actually end up as a couple. and everytime you guys socialize together, right after people ask what you do for a living, they ask how you guys got together. can you imagine for the rest of your life having to say we met in ther personals? how many fake looks of approval would you have to pretend not to notice?

maybe i'm just being shallow but anyone i got together with the internet would have to agree to tell a more palatable story of how we hooked up. that's a non-negotiable.