You've got mail

Online Dating discuss...That was the subject up for debate among a group of my friends recently.
Well, it wasn't  that formal, there was no sign of an audience or David Dimbleby presiding over the proceedings, nevertheless a colourful debate ensued.

Now, having not being a singleton for manys a moon, I couldn't reallly offer much in the way of an opinion although I have to admit that when the subject came up I did the whole 'cough cough lonely weirdos cough cough'. 

However the girl in question who has signed herself up to the most popular site de jour isn't an anorak wearing, bunny boiling loner with an unnecessary collection of porcelain dolls. She is successful, pretty, has all her own teeth and as far as I know has a clean criminal record.
Although, if rumours are true, because of a teenage obssession with Take That she's not allowed within a hundred yards of Gary Barlow, well, having seen how dashing he looks these days I'm sure shes not alone.

So why then you might ponder would she feel the need to sign up to a (snigger) online dating site?
Well she clocks up almost 50 hours a week in work and always has something lined up at the weekend so she literally has no time to meet anyone.
Couple that with the fact that everyone around her is betrothed or wed (I recently watched Jane Eyre and have come over all Charlotte Bronte) and that when she goes to visit her parents her beleaguered mother tells her she has taken to saying novenas in the hope that she will get a grandchild.

So she bit the bullet and found that many online female singletons were in the same boat. Fed up of meeting people in bars and hearing slurred chat up lines 'sheeriously you look, hiccup, like a film shtaar' or meeting someone at the gym 'yeah so I just bench pressed my own body weight, feel my bicep, isn't that amazing' she signed up.

Now she admits that her only experience of this sort of thing is having watched 'You've got mail' nevertheless she (bravely) decided to take the risk of having to date Meg Ryan. As with everything there are minefields and she has come across the odd oddball. There was the guy who posted a profile photo himself...from ten years ago. The bloke who joined the site because he hoped 'all women weren't as evil as his demon ex girlfriend' and the dude who shared a bedroom with 8 lizards and four snakes.

Being the (nosey girls) helpful friends that we all are we convinced her to sign on so we could filter through the profiles and the most shocking aspect of the whole thing was how 'normal' the majority of people were. Granted anybody can come across as normal wihen you only have a stamp sized profile photo and a description in less than 140 characters to go on, but for every person you would cross the street to avoid there were five that seemed your average Joe looking for an average Josephine. She's going on her first 'date' this week. Coffee, during daytime hours, in a busy place, with several exits, just incase it does turn out to be Meg Ryan.