CollegeEssayII

Chapter II: SWM Seeking SWF
�I'll give you all I've got to give if you say you love me too. I may not have a lot to give but what I�ve got I�ll give to you. I don�t care too much for money. Money can�t buy my love.�-Can�t Buy Me Love, The Beatles.

The Beatles once crooned that money can�t buy love, however, that was nearly forty years ago. Ask most teenagers these days and they can not even tell you who or what the Beatles were. Not only do teenagers not know of the Beatles, but also they are not aware of the message of one of their hits, Can�t Buy Me Love. For only twenty-five dollars a month you can post your romantic profile online, complete with photos, voice samples, and video samples. You author a list of �wants� in a lover, creating a template that miraculously �matches� you with the profile of another registered user. It can be a friendship, it can be a relationship, and it could probably even be a nemesis in the making because it�s what ever you want it to be.
Gone are the days when hopeless singles search newspapers for that tagline that catches their eye. The girl riding the bus was looking at them; this person enjoys moonlit walks. Big teddy bear seeking romantic Romeo. Newspaper ads never seemed to draw the audiences that the Internet is currently drawing on singles sites around the World Wide Web. The Internet was a tool for distancing people from one another. We do our shopping on it, we pay our bills on it, and we even talk to our friends over text messages. We do not go out to bars and gatherings to socialize; instead we pick a chat room and talk to people who live right down the street through a series of wires and phone lines. However, ironically enough, a tool which has been distancing people since it�s inception is now bringing them together on dates. Twenty-five ninety-five a month can, in fact, buy a consumer love. With the proper profile that is....
Her body type is listed under �a few extra pounds� but her picture makes her look like a supermodel. Can a woman who has bred and conditioned to look like that hot young pop star in the Pepsi (registered trademark) commercials really be that modest? One way or the other something in the profile doesn�t fit. Is she the extremely desirable person in the picture or is she the modestly sketched woman with �a few extra pounds�, who, incidentally, enjoys hiking and clubbing? All you need is a credit card number to find out and open the lines of communication with user UWMCat81. Is the truth really worth those sixteen magic digits?
According to Match.com, a year after it�s inception their services were attracting nearly 500,000 users. 1996 also brought the first baby to spawn from a Match.com relationship. Currently they boast over fifty babies born that have been branded a product of Match.com as well as over 1,500 marriages. Cupid�s arrows are even trading on the stock market. Someone must be providing the business. Judging by the amount of profiles it�s looks like they have quite a few consumers. After browsing the profiles and my matches it only seemed reasonable that I become one of them.
Was I desperate? Had I lost hope in coffee shops, bookshops, and my classes? I had Three days until the trial membership ran out and then I would get billed. SexyBlonde01, SweetieGurlJ, and MochaSweet<3 seemed to be promising. Kerri likes poetry, Erin likes reading, and Stacie is transcendentalist. Any one of them had the possibility of becoming a lasting friendship, a sizzling relationship, or a connection of downright loathing. Cyndi: a red head with horn rimmed glasses, Jaime: a Latina brunette, and Breena: the tall blonde. I even saw Mandy�s picture in the profiles. Before I�m done browsing I get the e-mail.
�Dear MovieBuff83, saw your profile and thought you seem very original. We should go get coffee sometime.�, signed, your match, Katie (also known as KitKat84). Below is a link that will take my browser to her profile, I click it. She�s a witty, hopeless romantic, with her political views set towards conservative and she�s spiritual (but not religious). Her turn-ons include assertiveness, tattoos, and body piercings. She also drinks socially. Coincidentally, she claims her body type is one of a �few extra pounds� even though her included photograph makes her look like a goddess.
Our ideal date would be a coffee shop, shrouded in a cloak of cigarette smoke and the mumblings of jazz from the small quartet. She wants kids, but I�m not quite sure. Do I really want to change diapers at three in the morning? Can�t we wait about five years until we�re married and we have occupations that can secure such responsibilities? We are married on a November Sunday, our honeymoon takes us to Denver. She becomes a registered nurse and I become a film critic for the local newspaper. In the end we have two children. We retire by age fifty and take yearly excursions to either Los Angeles or New York, alternating on even and odd years. She still votes republican and we still share candle lit dinners. It�s was like your life flashing before your eyes; I closed the profile window and wrote her a response.
I could not help myself but to ask what if one of these connections becomes a relationship? Not so much in my case but in the case of a couple who live anywhere from fifty to two thousand miles apart. Long distance relationships are not for the economically struggling. You can pick your poison of having a high phone bill or communicating through e-mails, text messages, and for some video or audio chats. If the relationship isn�t working out, do you break up over the phone? Through an e-mail? Ending a relationship used to be something that was expected to be done in person but why fly from Chicago to Atlanta just to tell Norah that it isn�t working out? I still had two days left on the trail period.
Intimacy is another issue. It seems that the phobia to distance one�s self from everyone around them extends sexually. Has the fear of STDs and AIDS taken that much of a toll that we feel inclined to share our sexual encounters over a series of phone lines? Cyber sex and phone sex seem to be the condoned method of keeping one safe from the hazards of body fluids. Chat rooms and late Friday long distance minutes have become the condoms and birth control pills of the modern relationship. Again, we�re trying to make ourselves be that only person, to be alone. We are afraid of intimacy, attachment, and every other complication that goes with relationships of any kind. Adding an Internet barrier just makes rejection and the baggage that comes with relationships more manageable. After all, this matchmaking business is not about seeing people happy; it�s about making money. I had one day left on the free trail period and still no response.
Not only has the Internet become the modern day marketplace for business but it has become the same marketplace for socialization. Great amounts of money can be made and great amounts of friends can be made. I have met some of my best friends over the Internet. While this has not occurred through the medium of a dating site, it has occurred through the medium of the Internet. Some of these friends live countries away, some about an hour away. The Internet is a great tool, which is exactly what it should be opposed to an alternate reality. Too bad it only cost me twenty-five ninety-five to figure it out.