Happily Ever…

Imagine a thirty-something female working two jobs in order to support her son, whom she is raising on her own. How happy with her life do you truly expect that she is? She doesn’t have time to go bar hopping to find a good man. And let’s face it, how many good men are in a bar? Probably not many. Nope. Most of the contact she has with the outside world, let alone with the opposite sex, is through the Internet.

So she sets up a dating profile; let the games begin.

First of all, these profiles are so ridiculous with their questionnaire as long as a to-do list for an entire year! The questions are not even geared towards building a successful and cohesive relationship. The questions are more geared towards trying to perfect your “customer profile” at the end. You see, most of these questions are generating tidbits here and there so that advertisers know what to throw in your face while you are online perusing for the opposite sex.

Finally, her profile is done; or at least she thinks it is. Now it is time to find the perfect pictures that portray her as “normal” to someone else. Does she divulge that she is a mother? Does she divulge what type of work she does? She scours the background of each picture meticulously in order to remove any clues of where she may be. She read online that this helps detour the stalkers. She just prays it works.

Finally the words ‘PROFILE COMPLETE’ pop up on her screen and she is able to breathe a sigh of relief. One would not imagine that this is such a hard accomplishment, but it truly is. The questions that are asked, the background information, the pictures, and a profile characteristic has now been built. When she clicks on a button that says ‘APPROVED’ she does not realize that her entire world is going to change very shortly.

At this point, she is exhausted and decides to go to bed for the night. She figures at the very least she may wake up to two or three responses to her “personal ad”. She has been bred to not expect grandiose results in basically anything she attempts to do. So why would her mindset change here? Upon waking up the next morning she immediately gets her child off to school and boots up her laptop to find over 20 responses!

Sifting through pornographic profile pictures first she deletes over half of them. She knows immediately that is not what she is interested in, and moves on. There are a couple of profiles that are just too young, she deletes those. Left with seven, she realizes four of those are out-of-state, so she deletes those. With three profiles left, and on her 2nd cup of coffee, she is ready to throw in the towel on finding true love overnight.

Sifting through the three; one more is deleted. That brings her to two potential candidates that could be the head of her family unit and help her just ‘do life’ a bit smoother. She emails one and is shocked when she gets a message back that the email is no good. That one probably deleted his profile or changed his mind about her. And that leaves one.

She emails the last candidate on her list and within 15 minutes her laptop pings with a reply. Chatting ensues and before she knows it they are making plans for lunch. Mentally she is going down her checklist in her mind to ensure that this last one may just be ‘the one’. They have discussed children, home life, employment, and just generalities of life. Seeing as though they have so many things in common she is internally excited about their lunch.

Fast forward nearly 10 years; they will be celebrating their anniversary soon. The “step” child was never treated as such but as a biological child. She never felt as though she was in a dating relationship. He always made her feel whole and the focal point of their relationship. Even their families were shocked as to how they met and how they succeeded in every milestone that was put in front of them.

This just goes to prove that love knows no bounds. Love knows only that, love.