Valentine's Day: the most romantic holiday of the year, with the possible exception of Talk Like A Pirate Day (Sept. 19) for those of us whose first love is the sea. Today is a day when many young men choose to 'pop the question' to their significant others, and I am no different. Here goes:
Honey, have you seen my blue socks? I can't find them in the hamper or the drawer, and they're not still in the dryer. Anyway, if you could get back to me as soon as possible, that'd be great, because I really need some clean socks.
Of course, Valentine's Day isn't full of such sweeping romantic gestures for everyone. Many singles are depressed by the romantic hoopla. It doesn't help that this holiday is smack in the middle of February'that most gloomy of months'and we lose more decent, regular people to the emo subculture around this time than at any other point in the year.
But this is the 21st century! It's the future, and trailblazing troubleshooters like Dr. Neil Clark Warren'founder of eHarmony.com and horrifying doppelg??nger of Don Knotts'are trying to eradicate the problem of loneliness via Internet dating. Now, Internet dating gets a bad rap, but I think it's merely a modern-day version of the romantic practice of two lovers exchanging letters from afar. Jane Austen would approve, I'm sure.
Facebooking is another matter altogether and just seems like a bad idea to me. I often overhear people complaining about having a 'Facebook stalker.' However, I feel that complaining about having a stalker when you've put your name, phone number, e-mail address, home address and class schedule on a public website is about on par with jumping into the lion pen at the zoo wearing trousers made out of beef and complaining that you don't have legs anymore.
More questionable than Facebook, however, is a service I've heard advertised on the radio called It's Just Lunch. The company bills itself as a dating service for busy professionals and runs a quote from the Wall Street Journal on their website which sums the operation up quite nicely: 'The firm does all the work, making reservations, clearing the matches with customers. All couples have to do is show up.'
As an awkward and shy fellow myself, I can empathize with a desire for low-pressure dating, but doesn't it seem like dating should at least involve some effort? This sounds very much like a playdate arranged by one's parents, except that preschoolers sometimes take off their clothes and run through the sprinkler, whereas business professionals tend to be more inhibited than this.
Really though, I can understand meeting people through a service, but it occurs to me that if you're so busy with your job that you have to hire an assistant to schedule dates and make reservations for you, you may not have time to commit to a serious human relationship anyway. Perhaps a goldfish is more your speed.
I am somewhat bothered by this attempt to make the dating world more automated and efficient when love is nothing of the sort, but perhaps I am merely being old-fashioned and insensitive to working singles. In a bag of those candy hearts with romantic sentiments printed on them, I recently found one that said 'FAX ME.' Maybe love is becoming more businesslike after all.
Either that or I accidentally ate a bag of candy from 1987.
