Sex & The City

Hey, you're hot! Wanna hang out?



I cannot log into any of my various Web sites without having at least one eager guy shoot me a "wow, we live in the same city, what a lucky coincidence" e-mail. Seriously now, I am flattered that you enjoy my Photoshop-enhanced cleavage and Crest white-stripped smile, but give it a rest! I am not on MySpace sharing information about my hobbies to get you excited, nor am I posting travel tips on Virtual Tourist to get laid. Did I fall into a time warp and land in Match.com? There is a reason people pay for online dating services--to find other people ALSO willing to pay for online dating services. These people are (how to put this gently?) very "eager" to meet their match. Match.com. Get it?

So here is the deal: I can get you in and out of the Louvre in under an hour, through traffic in Milan, and on a boat to Corfu faster than you can type Orbitz.com. I can tell you who's playing the House of Blues in San Diego on Friday night, and I can probably get you into On Broadway afterward as a VIP, if you ask nicely. But the only way you are scoring a date with me is to meet me, in person (and even then you still have to ask nicely).

Whatever happened to meeting someone while drinking in a bar, the way God and nature intended? I blame it on the Baby Boomers. Mom and Dad met in college, fell in love, and were on the road to marital bliss before the last bars of Pomp and Circumstance stopped playing. They had kids, and instilled in us the belief that "You can do anything you put your mind to" and "There is limitless possibility, unlike when we were growing up." All well and good to have that kind of support system, don't get me wrong, but has it made us, Generation X, too picky? Too "the grass is always greener?" Too "there are bigger fish in the sea?"

In this age of cyber-enlightenment, I think that many Gen Xers have come to the ultimate conclusion that there is just too little time to run into your one true love. Solution? Cast your hook into the Cyber Sea and see who bites.

I too am chained to a computer chair 40+ hours a week. I feel your pain. But I still won't reply to your online advances. However, if you recognize me at a holiday party in the coming weeks, feel free to introduce yourself. I'll be the one standing under the mistletoe.