Saturday, May 17, 2014

Googling "Mr. Right"

Today a single friend was at my house and mentioned that she would really like to find a husband.  I suggested that perhaps she should go online to meet someone.  She said, "Would you do that?"  I told her that yes, if I were in her position, I would.  I have many online friends that are great people, so perhaps that has desensitized me to the idea of ending up dating someone you met online.  Quite honestly, if my husband were to die first, I would probably stay single though.  I mean, once you have owned a Mercedes, why would you want to exchange it for a Volvo?  :)  Anyway, my friend was nervous at the thought, so I walked over to the computer and did a search for an online dating site that caters to LDS people.  But when we got there, we found that you really can't see what it is like unless you make a profile.  So she agreed to make a profile right then.  But as she was filling out the information, she hit some wrong button and lost all the information she had already written.  She said she will do it again at home.

I don't know, I just think this might work for her.  I think the most important thing about meeting the right person is being in the right place.  How are you going to meet a person unless you have a way to come in contact with them?  So living here in China may not be the best opportunity for her to meet someone, unless her goal is to marry a Chinese.  But that's not her goal, so the next best thing, in my opinion, is to meet someone online.

Now, I know there are a lot of weird people out there.  Trust me, I think I dated some of them.  But just because you make an online profile, and just because you talk to someone online, doesn't mean that you have to marry them!  Think of it as "making friends" online.  A person would be crazy to hastily marry ANYONE that they didn't know very well.  And even then, sometimes you don't really know the person until you live with them.  So although online dating may seem foolish to some, I can show you people who knew someone longer in person, and still ended up finding out the person was bad.

So the key is to follow your gut feelings.  Our brain sends up caution flags when something isn't right.  We might ignore them because we want the dream romance.  But if a person is totally honest with themselves, they will see the warning signs ahead of time.

So I may have created a monster here.  I told her she couldn't blame me if she met some weirdo this way.  But I actually think her prospects are better online than off.  And who knows, maybe there is some guy out there who, just like her, just needs a chance to meet someone!


3 comments:

Rummuser said...

I have been single now for five plus years and I am not looking to find a soul mate. I have found a lot of interesting things to do on my own or in the company of like minded people and by and large am having a perfectly happy time. At least for the present, I do not see any reason to look for a volvo too.

Mike said...

We know several people who married someone they met on line. One was a young very, very liberal guy in Arkansas who met a gal living in California who was also quite liberal. Neither had ever been married, but have now been married around 20 years.

Another Arkansan guy was middle aged at the time and met a nice lady from Houston. They've been married at least 15 years.

A third Arkansan, retired, had been informed by his wife of forty years that she no longer wanted to be married to him. This one surprised me as they were both LDS. He had met her in Idaho back in the early 70s when he was in the navy stationed there for school. A couple of years after the divorce he met a Colorado lady on line and they eventually married. They now live in Pueblo, Colorado. He used to be my boss. Now, we keep in touch on facebook.

There are several others. Only one couple has broken up (very recently) and that was ten years or so after they were married.

Inklings said...

I'm not saying for her not to do this, but keep in mind that LS met her ex-husband on an LDS Singles site, and he said all the right lies. So you do have to be careful. Also, LS wrote to him for nearly 6 years before they met, but it is easy to write the right thing.