Drift’s Guide to Digital Dating

By Paulette Perhach

Sometimes it seems like nothing’s changed. It’s just a bunch of people in a bar, eyeing the crowd and laughing with their friends. Drinks are bought and conversations are had.
Then a guy pulls out his cell phone and reads “Where r u?”
He thumbs in: “JPs. its packed.”
Behind him, some girls rally around a friend lamenting that her boyfriend and best friend have been poking on Facebook for weeks.
“And I just bought him his own ring tone,” she says.
Across the room, a PDA flashes in a girl’s purse and she checks the alert: The bartender she met last weekend posted on her MySpace that he’ll be working tonight. She closes her purse and leaps for the door.
A guy rests his elbows on the bar with his iPhone under his eyes. He sends a mass booty bulletin of texts to four potentials. Then he sets it back on the bar, takes a sip of his draft and waits.
“Everybody does it,” laughed one of many locals we interviewed to confirm a hunch we had: that dating has gone digital.
“Oh, I totally try to check out a guy online before I get too involved,” said Beth. “I usually have my friends on the phone looking at him too.”
Full Disclosure: All these names are totally fake, because that’s the only way you can get people to admit that they have gotten sucked in to the world of quasi-online dating.
Forget the box of love notes you have, creased with age and rereadings. That’s now your inbox. Instant messages are the new conversation. Emails the new love letters. Text messages are the lovey post-its you leave on the fridge.
Boy still meets girl, but then he finds her on MySpace and checks her profile before actually asking her on a date.
Some people shun the entire ordeal. But we predict that sooner or later they’ll cave, like so many who used to snub the cell phone.
Like any kind of communication, these messages are fraught with misperceptions and shortcomings. For that reason, and because this technology thing probably isn’t going away any time soon, we thought we’d learn from your trials and tribulations and gather our collective knowledge into a guide to dating in the new millennium.

MEETING PEOPLE:
Used to be: Hanging out in bars, chatting at parties, meeting friends of friends
Now: You can online shop for a partner like a pair of pants, sorting by size, shape and color. You can input the coordinates for your perfect mate — from height to religion to income to sexual orientation — click search, and find that there are zero results. Then, just like in real life, you loosen your standards.
Tales from the field: “Sometimes it’s fun to just sit there and look at who’s in town,” said Josh. “And if you see someone who looks like a nice girl, but you just haven’t happened to be in the same bar at the same time, what’s wrong with saying hi?”

GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER:
Used to be: Hours of tedious conversation
Now: The basics can be found on social networking profiles. There’s body type for the shallow people, income for the gold diggers and maybe a blog in case you actually want to know anything about his or her personality.
Tales from the field: “What’s really scary is when you know someone is a psycho,” said one frightened man we’ll call Pablo. “Then you see their MySpace, and they look normal. Like you would totally think it might be cool to hang out with them if you’d just seen that.”

FLIRTING:
Used to be: A toss of the hair, a wink, or an offered drink
Now: All those old staples still work. However, new technologies offer other choices. You can “friend” the person on MySpace, virtually poke them on Facebook, or chat with them on instant messenger.
Tales from the field: “Some girl sent me nudie pictures on my cell phone one time. That was pretty cool,” said Tom. “I was like, oh, sweet, let me show all my roommates.”

ASKING SOMEONE OUT:
Used to be: A face-to-face conversation, starting with, “So, um…”
Now: A text: “Wht u up to grl”
Tales from the field: “I’ve had guys ask me out on text messages and on Facebook,” said Lucy. “Those are fine for getting cutesy little compliments and stuff, but it feels cheesy to reply back to a date invitation. I always end up feeling weird when we finally talk face-to-face. Like, ‘Oh, it’s you. That guy from the internet.’”

MAKING IT OFFICIAL:
Used to be: Top speed-dial ranking
Now: Changing your status in your online profile from ‘Single’ to ‘In A Relationship’ Some take it up a notch and create a combo profile with a happy couple photo, which we forgive them for.
Tales from the field: Brian didn’t realize he’d forgotten to change his online relationship status until his new girlfriend freaked out on him about it.
“It’s obviously important to some people,” he said. “But it’s weird that someone that you’re supposed to be talking to in real life is checking some online profile.”
He dumped her and changed his mind about online profiles.
“You’re being forced to categorize everything.”

FIGHTING:
Used to be: Screaming in each other’s face, throwing breakables, slamming doors
Now: Furiously texting until your thumbs ache, scoffing at emails, expressing your anger with acronyms, exclamation points and emoticons
Tales from the field: “Some of it is more thought out, but it’s also left up to interpretation. And now people don’t say things to your face,” said Lisa, whose cell phone beeps about every five minutes when she’s in a tiff with her boyfried. “It’s also bad because it’s documented. You can’t say, ‘No, I didn’t say that.’ They’re like, ‘Um, let me print this for you.’”

ONE-NIGHT STAND:
Used to be: A drunken night of rolling around in a strange bed.
Now: A drunken night of rolling around in a strange bed.
Tales from the field: “I had a one-night stand with this guy, then he friended me on MySpace,” said Suzy. “That was like two years ago, and now I hate seeing his stupid face every time I look through my friends. But I don’t want to defriend him. That would be immature.”

BREAKING UP:
Used to be: The brave did it face-to-face, in private, tissue box held out.
Now: In-person is still best, unless you’re convinced the situation will involve sharp objects flying at your head or excessive sobbing. Then, for your own safety, go for the phone. Breaking up with a text message could result in an iPhone being smashed on your face.
Tales from the field: Anne’s vocabulary took a creative turn once she was broken up with over the phone (at least she didn’t get a text). Her former beloved soon became known as —-face and —- nugget.
“I feel like technology just extends a plank for cowards to walk across,” said Anne. “Technology is a crutch for (w)ussies.”

TAKING THE PLUNGE:
Unless you and your sweetie are full-on Second Life computer dorks and proud of it, the old staples like saying “I love you” for the first time or proposing marriage should still be done the old-fashioned way.

IN CONCLUSION:
Is this what the world is coming to – the messages of our hearts being beamed bytes at a time via satellite?
Alas, it seems that way.
But that doesn’t mean the romance is gone.
“I think it’s sexy,” said Shannon, who likes to get a text to know someone’s thinking about her.
Turns out no matter how we get the message, it’s still the thought that counts.