Because of this site I’m getting an education – I didn’t know anything about the beauties, the perils and the wackiness of online dating sites.  Seems you can define exactly what you want in a partner, like the perfect shopping list.  And especially where the matchmaker is an algorithm rather than a human being, you get exactly what you asked for.  And if you didn’t remember to ask for it – well, tough.  Not just that – you can present yourself as the girl/guy of your fantasies, how you’ve always wanted people to see you.  And the beauty is, no-one will ever know… (manic chuckles in the background).

So at this point various areas of my brain catch up with each other, and come to this brilliant conclusion:  you present yourself the way you want others to see you, and are matched with the perfect image of someone presenting themselves as they want others to see them… Halloo, is there anyone real out there? Urgently required, some facebook therapy, but whoops!  It’s more of the same!  People presenting themselves as they want others to see them to others hiding behind their own fantasy profiles…and let’s not mention LinkedIn, oh, I just mentioned it, too bad…

So the internet has created a situation where basically lots of avatars are relating nicely (or not-so-nicely) to each others, while their core human beings stay at home and practice typing…

But there’s something more.  I didn’t intend just to write a confused piece about who is real, who isn’t, and the abyss separating them.

I think part of the problem is too much information.  Let’s face it, do we always want what we ask for?  When I was in my early twenties and into delicate, understated jewelry, my aunt brought me a ring with a huge eilat stone.  She smiled fondly as she gave me this monstrosity, saying “I remember you always liked very big jewelry”.  And being well dragged up, I couldn’t bring myself to say “duh, that was when I was, like, eight”.

Do you really think you can shop for another human being the way you’d shop for shabbat lunch?  Can you know exactly what you want?

More often than not, you can know perhaps something about what you don’t want.  But to define what you want in another person means you know everything there is to know about all the variables… and sometimes when the outlines are too sharp, too defined, there’s too much information out there.   I think a lot of people rule out possible partners because there’s too much information.  On the flip side – there’s a lot of disappointment from dates which should have been perfect – but fell far short of the mark.  Mr/Ms Perfect is not always Mr/Ms Right.

I think it must be possible to find a balance between the rather vague “looking for a mensch”, and the excessively specific “looking for a woman who’s exactly a size 8, with size 35 shoes, prefers wearing pastels, speaks french, german, finnish and hebrew, dislikes lasagne, loves rice pudding,” blah blah blah.

I suppose “blah blah blah” must look quite interesting on an internet profile.  Must try it.  Oh, forgot.  I’m married.

I think I can speak for all single people and that is we are always looking for our “soul mate”.  Whether it be at the grocery store, the gym, coffee shop, etc. we have our eyes peeled for Mr. or Ms. Right (now).  I was recently at the airport and witnessed the best airplane moment of 2009. 

I walked up to security and saw the most beautiful man in front of me, who was about 40 years old.  He was every woman’s type; tall, rugged good looks, chiseled body and he looked like a nice guy (no air of conceit).   He went through security in front of me, all the while with my eyes fixed on him.   After he got through security, he met up with his cute little Asian wife:(.   I figured someone that hot was taken, but a girl can dream can’t she?  They went on there merry way and I headed into the gate area ready to get on my flight.

Fast forward 30 minutes and I’m sitting comfortably in my seat on the plane, trying to ignore the chatty woman next to me.  Up the aisle comes this very tall woman, in her mid 30’s.  She was attractive (a tad plain – vanilla), slim and very tall.   I empathized with her height and thought it was probably difficult to meet men that were taller than her.  I’m 5′8″ and find it somewhat difficult, I can’t imagine being 5′11″ and trying to meet a guy that’s taller than you.   She had her ticket in hand looking for her row, which was the row in front of me.  She looked at the person occupying the seat next to hers and it was Mr. McDreamy (from security)!!  She lit up like a Christmas tree, probably thinking to myself, “I hit the jackpot getting to sit next to this hot guy”.  She put her bag in the overhead bin and sat in her seat.  

The next minute seemed like it happened in slow motion, only because it’s totally something that would happen to me.  Now, remember that I know this guy is married but she doesn’t.  She sat down, put on her seatbelt and took her hair out of her ponytail and puffed out her hair (classic flirt move).  She kept glancing over at Mr. Hottie but he wouldn’t return any of her glances or make eye contact.  30 seconds later he gets up, goes 3 rows ahead and instead of Mr. Fabulous coming back to the seat, it was a 90 year old woman. 

I know that he asked to change seats with the old lady to sit with his wife and new baby, but this poor woman has no clue what’s going on.  She kept looking up the rows at him to see if she could make some sense out of what just transpired.  She finally asked the old lady why she was now sitting there and she broke the news to girl that he wanted to sit with his wife.  The woman’s demeanor completely changed.  Her shoulders slumped and she put her hair back up in a ponytail – no reason to look goof for Grandma  I guess. 

All I could think of was the roller coaster of emotions this woman went through in a matter of 2 minutes.