Letters to the Editor
-
Cary Hits the Nail on the Head....then smashes his thumb
cary's right about the "make it a story" bit. People do like a story - precisely because the other bit he ays is NOT true ("people ask you these questions because they want to peg you and move on.")
USUALLY people ask you questions like "what do you do?" because you obviously don't know each other and they're feeling for things in common or topics of conversation. Sadly, Cary encourages you to be suspicious of people who try to show interest in you, tells you to deepen and expand your defensiveness, which is the last thing you need!
I understand LW feeling a little awkward about it. I think online dating is a great, useful invention...but I'd be hesitant to admit to it myself. I too would fear like it admits desperation (even though I don't myself believe those dating online are desperate!) Anyhow, I say tell your story - and *laugh* about it. Don't assume people are "prying" as Cary would have you believe. Assume they want to give you an opportuntiy to share about your newfound joy. Yes admit you're a little embarassed and use that to draw the listener into your world. When you laugh, they will laugh. Your story will be one of "can you believe that this strange new online world has yielded such an unstrange, wonderful thing? Aren't I silly for feeling awkward about it?!" and their laugh will say "and wouldn't I be silly to judge that? Boy, you showed me!" ha ha ha!
-
Don't be embarrassed!!!
It's just another way to meet people.
My best friend met his wife online. I met my wife through a personal ad.
At the time, I was still in college and I'd just given up drinking. Unfortunately, not drinking in college will kill your social life and most of your dating prospects.
At the time, my wife was just getting out of a relationship with an alcoholic, so my teetotaling was a very pleasant surprise for her.
I believe it was something that was meant to be. Those who truly care about you and know you will appreciate your choice and support you.
-
You think you get funny looks
I had a guy say he wasn't gonna see me any more because he couldn't tell our future kids that we met in the psych ward. I think he really was nuts.
-
no big deal
a recently-married coworker met her new husband in a bar -- she's always embarrassed to admit it b/c there's such a stigma with that these days.
When i ask people how they met it's b/c I want to meet someone, too. When they say 'online' (as often happens) frankly i'm just jealous!
-
I BOUGHT My Husband - For $200
We met through an actual dating service about 25 years ago. I paid $200 to sign up. There were far more men than women, so I would get introduction/referral slips (everybody who was signed up got these, which listed a few basic facts about your potential mate and provided contact information,) in the mail by the handful. I swear, I went out on a hundred dates over 3 months with a hundred different men. We eventually married some years later and have been married 21 years...Oddly enough, we have never discussed with each other why we signed up with a dating service! And when anyone asks how we met, we ALWAYS say, "through friends" and leave it at that, no further details provided.
-
simple solution
Did you first meet for coffee? Say, "We met in a café." Met for much? "We met in a diner."
This solution works for people who you don't "owe" a more thoroughgoing answer--for them, I agree with others who say: get over it. You lucked out completely and it could hearten others who are still casting about for their person.
We are inculcated with this BS about how it has to be some fairytale meeting--the more authentic and accepting we are of how people really do find a good mate, the better off we'll all be. Good luck and enjoy this guy.
-
There is a stigma, even from younger people
While most on here are saying no one cares, millions do it, etc., I know many people who will think there is something wrong with you if you meet online. Especially from those who aren't familiar with the process, and think it is "desperate, pathetic or dangerous." Those eHarmony tv ads don't help - those couples all look odd and loser-ish.
Try just saying you used a "professional matchmaker" - it is true, and then you can talk about Fiddler on the Roof or something.
-
To: LW
Dear LW -
There are already forty comments posted here at the moment I log in. I'm in a bit of a happy rush this morning and -- with heartfelt apologies to Cary [;-)] -- I didn't even take time to read more than the beginning of his reply, cuz I was taken by your topic and wanted to send you a "happy rush" comment of my own.
I'm only about two-and-a-half-years short of eighty years old (hard for me to believe!!) and often feel like a freak here. But hey, it's spring (and April Fool's Day "to boot"!) so even though my ... er um ... ?"frame of reference"? is different from most anyone else's around here -- a couple of off-the-cuff remarks/responses.
First, I was reminded of a conversation I had some thirty (gasp!) years ago with a woman who was happily ensconced with the new man-in-her-life. When I asked her how they'd met she prefaced her answer by "promise not to tell". [So, hey, I never did, till right this minute!! ;-)]. They'd met through postings in the "personals" section of the New York Review of Books.
So????
Next, I was thinking of a time when I was working with recovering alcoholics and one of them was bemused what to tell an airlines stewardess who for whatever-all reasons apparently wanted to know why he was declining the drink[s] she was offering him. At an earlier time -- for reasons that now, mercifully [?! ;-)], escape my aging memory -- I was in the home of a woman who was trying to navigate something about a plane reservation that for reasons I can even less by now conjure up, she felt the need to explain her alcoholism as it related to whatever piece of business she was trying to transact. So I offered her up some fancy medical euphemism. Out of that experience, I'd previously tossed out a suggestion in one of the group meetings that this guy remembered, and he told the stewardess he was "allergic to alcohol".
[The next part of that "story" (as he told it to the group) was that the stewardess ... having never heard this line before ... wanted to know what the consequences/effects of this "allergy" were, and he kind of stammered something like "er um, I break things".]
So yes, I agree with Cary about "story" ... in part.
But if you're not feeling inventive at the moment someone asks you that question, why not also rehearse a "one-liner" (known among the puritanical generation as "a little white lie"). Not a direct MYOB, but a way of at least temporarily deflecting the questioner's question to the happier stuff of your "Good News"?! Something, maybe, along such lines as -- well how we met is maybe a little weird but look, this is what's happening now!
You get my drift?
Happy April Fool's Day, everyone.
salonmarte
[After posting this I'll go back when I can to read the full article and the other posts! ;-)]