An old friend of mine posted on Facebook noting that she felt online relationships were forced and not necessarily a way to meet the person you’re going to spend either a few good months with or even the rest of your life. I went to comment my thoughts, both agreeing and disagreeing, but she removed the post before I could hit submit. :booo: … but thanks to good old copy and paste…and the thought being stuck in my head… I’ve moved it to here.
When it comes to online dating, I used to think it was the ‘meh… that’s not kosher’ way of life. I always felt there needed to be a person-to-person kind of connection in order to really find love or happiness. However, I never had that spark hit me and gave up. Now, I didn’t go looking for anyone.. life just kind of happened and maybe now I’m the exception to the rule. Sean and I have been together for 9 years, we’re engaged, we own a home together, and we’re at our happiest point of planning the rest of our lives. We met online. It wasn’t a dating site though, it was through my blog. We started going back and forth through comments and the rest kind of sparked from there. We knew each other based on our words first, not necessarily our pictures. Though, he is a cutie and he knows it.
For the most part though, we were pictureless people. We only spoke through email and instant messenger but we both have similar personalities and sarcasm coming out the wahzoo. It went comments to chat to phone, and eventually we met in person.
So yes, it could really go both ways. I’m not saying her way of thinking is wrong, far from it because I also believed that the old fashion ‘love and first sight’ thing needed to be more than just a profile picture and random duckface selfies going back and forth.
Her and I both had the benefit of growing up in a time where computers were just getting started so social media had no bearing on our everyday life (unfortunately it does now, but that’s a different issue). AOL was one of my first instances of being online and it, nationwide, became the ‘norm’ but I don’t believe any single person knew things would take off and advance the ways that they have. The general population didn’t see the bigger picture. If you went back to my 13 year old self and told me about Facebook I probably would have said “Hm… that’s nice, let me get back to my book”. Now? I’m unfortunately on it every single day – and not just for seeing what’s going on with the rest of my corner of the world, I’m managing like 60 different pages for my job..but I digress.
We knew based on all of those horrible 70’s, 80’s and 90’s movies that you dated people within your town or you met them at a party that X Y or Z was throwing as they did every Friday night. Or in those flash forward instances of walking into a coffee shop with your 22 year old self and bumping into a person where the angelic “”Ahhhh”” kind of music came into play and the persons face had a fresh 100 watt bulb shining into it for a halo effect. This wasn’t freaking normal either, it’s what Hollywood wanted us to believe. Actually meeting someone for the first time (depending on personalities) is the most awkward experience in the world. Body language changes, side smiles, giggles, awkward silence. Alcohol curbs most of these, not necessarily for the better, but I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know.
In the world we live in now – you have the option to swipe them left or right, you can follow a celebrity on all of their social media accounts and maybe they’ll notice you so to fulfill some long running fantasy of what you’d actually do with them if you had the chance. Then people go the complete opposite way and find someone who’s confident and comfortable with their body and jump on the hater bandwagon because they’re too fat, skinny, tall or purple. Log into your accounts and have to remove/deny numerous ‘friend’ requests from people you’ve never met and have no interest in but they found your profile pic and started to fap all over it. Or you can spend $40 a month and have a computer generate a match for you based on algorithms that were literally built by a programmer in the middle east for 50 cents an hour.
There’s a big difference between living behind a screen name and living in the real world. I think that’s where the ‘online dating’ thing gets misconstrued. The fantasy world of having everything you could ever want in a significant other with just the click of a button takes the priority over making a real connection based more on words and less on pictures.
Everyone wants a hot boyfriend or hot girlfriend, but everyone also has a different description of ‘hot’. There are people who look like her (a downright gorgeous girl with a good heart and soul) who get swiped over for someone with bluer eyes or darker hair. Then there’s people like me who would get swiped over by just about everyone unless they want their BBW fix. It’s just a matter of preference, it’s just easier to swipe on the phone than it is to do in person.
It’s all based on preference and everyone is too busy spending the day looking at their phones and not the people around them. Friends are hanging out in the same living room, none are talking but they’re having a great conversation on Twitter and Instagram. Hell, Sean and I wind up on google hangouts for most of the day because we work in two completely different areas of the house. My office is up stairs, his is in the basement but we always meet in the middle. When it comes to meeting someone online the ‘forced’ aspect is having to look up from your phone long enough to speak to them in person. It’s easier to like a pic or a status and move on than it is to have a proper conversation with someone.
As long as you are actually happy though, I don’t think it really matters how you meet someone. Now the Internet is the new ‘ladies night’ at the local bar. It’s unfortunately been added to the list of acceptable means of conversation. However, there is a level of ‘tradition’ that dating sites are trying to bring back in order to take some of the anonymity off of social media and put people face to face. Such as the theme night / bar nights that Match is hosting now. The flip side of that is the fact that people are actually paying monthly to utilize a service that’s telling them to go bowling. And that literally makes me laugh.
While that can get a little annoying, it also worked to our benefit this year. All family members were well taken care of for Christmas, Sean and I did spend quite a bit of money on ourselves but it was on things that we both wanted (for a while) and desperately needed. We know the difference between Wants and Needs – unlike anyone under the age of 16 these days. We both were in desperate need of new desks. I had my Mac sitting on a Rubbermaid folding table and being as the 27-inch iMac (2011) weighs about 40 pounds, it was starting to sink down in the middle. To avoid it completely caving in, we went out and got me a new desk. It’s a super nice one, with plenty of storage and it’s even a little bigger than the previous folding table so I actually got the chance to organize things where I can still completely function without any issues at all. Obviously after Sean spent 7 hours putting this thing together (one warped piece was throwing EVERYTHING off) he gladly took a little nap. I decorated the drawers with dollar store shelf liner so that they can list a super long time without getting destroyed. There’s more than enough room for the work phone so my boss can stay on my butt too heh. I had it across the room next to the TV because we didn’t have a long enough Ethernet chord, but that was taken care of with the addition of a ZyXEL wireless switch that now sits behind my monitor. It supposedly boosts the Wifi in the house, but turns the Wifi into an actual plugged in connection as well, so I’ve got the phone plugged into it and if I needed to I could plug a printer in to it. It was actually strong enough of a feed to handle Sean’s XBOX 360 for a few weeks as well, so obviously it works how it’s supposed to.
Sean, after my desk was put together, began increasingly becoming annoyed with his desk. After drilling into him that he spends way too much time at his desk and needs a new one…. we headed back to Staples a little over a week later (this past weekend actually) to pick up a new desk for him. The one he’s been using for years was a typical students desk with the metal legs, the pull-out keyboard and the thin table top. One you’d see in college students dorm, basically. So it was creaking like all holy hell and we wound up replacing that one as well. He found a nice wide desk that he was in love with, but it unfortunately was not going to fit in the room so he went with one that was closer to size (in comparison to mine). He’s in love with it as well. It’s very nice dark wood with a nice sturdy base, some drawers – finito.
Either way, we both were playing with the Tablet for a little while and found out when browsing through the Settings to get all of the stats that it was now possible (with Android – Ice Cream) to have multiple users. This sparked our interest almost instantly, and we both looked at eachother and I was like “I want”, he said “Go get it” (cause he’s fricken awesome) and while I was pulling the car around (cause he was picking up his desk the same day) he paid for both. Turned into an expensive shopping trip on our parts, but we walked out of there with a want, and a need. 
While he was in the Bedroom for a few hours setting up his new desk, I was prepping the house for Christmas. I did more baking in the past few days than I ever thought possible. Everything from cookies, to breads, to brownies – you name it, I probably baked it. I went all out for Christmas this year, because I actually had more room to do it. I know that sounds a little weird but it’s true. A huge living room and a big footprint in reference to the front end of the house, things just kind of happened. The baking was really just phase two, we’d spent quite some time decorating prior to my even pulling the flour out of the cabinet. So the tree was decorated, the bulk of the outdoors was draped in white lights and the rest of the house had random little touches here and there. Thankfully, minus today, there was really no wet weather going on outside so my garland didn’t get all mucky and was nice and clean for Christmas. I was also really happy with the tree in the living room. With the combination of Karen’s ornaments and mine everything kind of came together that worked out really nicely.
I also got him some new Happy Feet, this is a brand that we were in love with long before Snooki put it on MTV. I’ve always had a pair, and so has he and his were worn to the point that his toes were going to start popping through the bottom. Knowing how comfy they are I changed it up a little bit and got him the “All Around” ones, they look like real sneakers and there’s about an inch-thick rubber sole on the bottom of them. They’re better than my usual outdoor slippers so of course I’ll have to pick up a pair for myself in the future but for now this was all about him and that’s what he got. So that was one pair, and instead of getting him the standard color variations I decided to take a look under the “Animals” section and got him the most ridiculous ones I could find – and his favorite animal – the Penguins. Watching him walk around in these is more amusing than the slippers themselves, but they bring a smile to just about everyone’s face so it was more than worth it.
The thing I was surprised about, however, was the ViewSonic 24-inch Monitor that was under the tree. I’ve been using a 17-inch monitor as my “Email Screen” for the past couple of months and it was working out pretty well for me. I kept my email completely on that window and when I was actually in Photoshop or Dreamweaver I would just load project free TV and watch television right on the desk, no complaints at all. So you can imagine my surprise when Sean upgraded me to a much larger screen. This was one of those items that wasn’t on my wants, or my needs – which then turns into a complete and total surprise. And that wraps up Christmas Eve.
To the food stealers,
