Letters to the Editor
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In case no one else said this....
LW, there's a misconception you have, and once you clear it up, you may be able to forget all this stigma stuff. And really, the sooner the better.
You said: "...my decision to use an online dating service was like admitting that I'm unable to meet men on my own.."
There's your problem! Using an online service *is* meeting men on your own. Did the service come to you? Did someone force you to use it? You wanted a particular change in your life, and you did something about it. *YOU* did it! Well done.
Congratulations, and good luck.
(I apologize if 85 others have said this already...no time to read the other letters)
p.s. At our wedding last summer, my wife and I put our old personal ads up on a poster board for all to see. I had forgotten, or never noticed, how much of the text fit together so well. It was hard to believe we wrote them independently, but we did.
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I have a great story about how I met my husband
It involves strange and chancy connections, art, music, theater, bizarro dancing and a plane crash.
And sometimes I tell it.
And sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just say: "At a play."
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"How did you two meet?"
Here's the thing: most of the time, when people ask you how you met your sweetheart, it's not just small talk. Either they're happily coupled up themselves and want to swap stories of how your respective romances got off the ground, or they're single and looking and hoping that you can give them some kind of guidance.
By the way, I fall into that second category, and I'm doing the online dating thing, too. And it's as ordinary as dirt these days. Once you're out of college, and you don't want to be "getting your honey where you get your bread" (i.e. dating your co-workers), if you're not into the bar pickups, what else are you supposed to do? When you want groceries, you go to the supermarket. When you want to date, you go to where the boys are. Nothing to be embarrassed about.
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Just lie
We met at an internet cafe. There.
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Yay online dating!
Please chill out, LW. Meeting online is just part of your story. Now, if you had met, say, helping a mutual friend shove a body into the trunk of a car, then maybe you would have to think of something else to tell people. Meeting online is actually kinda cute. My BF of seven months loves to tell people we met online and the responses have always been positive. Good luck!
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and you make this YOUR problem?
Good heavens - what a long, complicated solution to what is basically a non-problem. Am I wrong in feeling that a snooty response to your "we met on-line" says a heck of a lot more about the snooty responder than it does about you? Isn't the snooty-responder basically saying "well, I'm decidedly behind the times, and I like things done the old-fashioned way... I think you hould have met in a bar where you saw one another - somewhat drunk - and found each other hot enough to hook up, then or later. THAT's the way these things should be done." Do you feel that this type of position is one from which a snooty response is appropriate? I certainly don't. Additionally, when you meet someone through an on-line service - don't you first get some idea of how that person's BRAIN works (after probably sorting for age and location, and then for 'looks' within your own acceptable range)? Can't we agree that this is a better method for connecting two personalities than almost any that has come before? Seems that way to me.
I had a string of great experiences dating on-line, and am now pratically married to the last man I met that way (we have to wait until after our planned move to Norway to actually get hitched, since THIS government doesn't allow it) - so I'm a strong advocate for on-line-dating.
Tell everyone! And then let your listeners display their hipness or lack thereof!
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This isn't the movies
Luckily, here in the real world we're not obligated to "meet cute."
Work on building something real with your guy, and stop worrying about this nonsense.
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I can relate
My husband and I met the same way about 4 years ago. It is hard to tell the older generation, I concur, buy I find that younger people consider that the "normal" way people meet. Or at least one of the "normal" ways.
You can also take other's advice and just say you met "online" and not mention a dating service.
One more thing, and please don't take this as degrading you, but you need to pride in yourself and not care what people think about how you met. Stand above it and tell yourself it doesnt matter what they think. There will always be those that judge. But then again there will always be those that understand because as 30-somethings, we all have had a hard time meeting people like ourselves.
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You've misunderstood yourself
LW says "I think part of me feels like my decision to use an online dating service was like admitting that I'm unable to meet men on my own, that I need some kind of remedial help."
Uh, LW, using an online dating service IS meeting men on your own. You needed to meet men who were good candidates for you, and the available venues were not working out, so you found another way to solve the problem. Good for you. Was it remedial help? Nope. It was high-tech help. Again, good for you!
And if knowing that doesn't resolve this issue for you, I can assure you that an overwhelming number of people who ask "How did you two meet?" will be more than satisfied if you say "Just lucky, I guess" (even though I think your own cleverness, not luck, was at work here, and it's a pity if you don't give yourself proper credit for that).
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I met my BF online, and he's HOT
I met my fabulous boyfriend of five years on Match.com. He's hot, and I have no problem at all telling people how we met! Most often their response is, as another writer suggested, a desire to get online themselves and find a great relationship like mine.
For what it's worth, I'm in my mid 30s, and I met plenty of guys via "normal" avenues before we got together (i.e. bars, the grocery store, etc.); really, online dating sites are just another venue.