Online Dating and Diller

Is it very bad that I have more faith in match.com since I found out that Barry Diller owns it?
(Not that Diller's doing so well right now if this feature in the NYT is anything to go by: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/business/media/16diller.html?scp=2&sq=Barry+Diller&st=nyt). Perhaps I'm confusing Diller with his wife, the fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg. After all, if she can create the perfect dress for every body, surely he can do something about my missing Mr Right, right?

But back to match.com, because that's really what you want to know about. First things first: I am not going into juicy details about my dating life here. What I will say is this: I wish online dating hadn't become the norm, but in a city like New York it has. (Alternative is being a de facto nun for months and months on end). However, I do like the ego boost it supplies should a potential "thing" not reach fruition. You can literally pick yourself up, dust yourself off and be back on the dating bronco within 24 hours (not always recommended). I've periodically returned to the Internet (usually when said nun status is starting to set in). I've tried J.date, but it's too conservative for me. Nerve.com...cute guys, but not ambitious enough for me. Match.com has been the most satisfying so far (if satisfaction can be measured purely in like-mindedness...I have yet to have a relationship via match.com that actually sticks). There's an old New Yorker cartoon that sums up online dating for me, even though it has nothing to so with it: A woman is trying to read while her cat begs for attention at her ankles. Book in hand, she is looking down at the cat. She says: "You were stray once and you could be stray again." Ouch. Online etiquette does not dictate that any follow up at all is necessary. After all, there are many stray cats on the world wide web.

But hope springs eternal, especially when there's chemistry. Though chemistry also is not always enough. The last guy I dated had this to say about my DVF wrap dress:
Him: I like your dress.
Me: Thank you.
Him (reaching across the table to finger the fabric at my wrist): The pattern...it looks a bit like a Metro card. (Note to South African friends: This is not a compliment. The Metro card is badly designed and it is yellow and black. No one in their right mind would buy a dress that looked like one and no woman wants to be told that her dress looks like a ticket to the Underground. Hmmmn, just realized the Freudian double entendre here.).