Laura Schreffler - Internet Dating 101: Its Complicated . . . But It Doesnt Have To Be: The Digital Age Guide to Navigating Your Relationship Through Social Media and Online Dating Sites

Internet Dating 101.. Its Complicated, But It Doesnt Have To Be: A Guide To Dating In The Digital Age by Laura Schreffler (aka Laura Love) is published by New Chapter Press (www.NewChapterMedia.com) and is distributed by the Independent Publishers Group (www.IPGBook.com). All Rights reserved by Laura Schreffler and New Chapter Press.

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ISBN 978-1-937559-00-7

Printed In the United States

Im sorry, I cant hang out tonight. Ive got a hot date.

This wasnt a shocking revelation from my friend Alexandra, and I was willing to bet that her date a) wouldnt be hot and b) wouldnt last longer than an hour. Shes one of those girls who fantasizes that each and every man is the one only to realize that her dreams dont match up with reality. Then again, she also scores most of her dates online.

True to form, her latest love interest was one of her online finds. Though she had been talking to him for a mere two days before they decided to meet, she was optimistic.

OKCupid is amazing, she enthused. Ive been talking to the greatest, cutest guy on there. He likes Paris and he wants kids, too. Tonight is going to be a blast!

Sounds like youre a match made in heaven, I deadpanned. I was skeptical, as most of the men Ive met that appear to be perfect on paper rarely are.

Naturally, Alex didnt call to discuss her date the next day or the day after that. My dear friend has a habit of avoiding thinking about unpleasant things. I get it, I really do. If you never mention something, its almost as if the incident never existed. She subscribes to the If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? school of thought.

So, how did it go? I asked her quite casually when we met up for coffee a week later. How did what go?

I knew it avoidance!

Careful not to sound condescending, I reminded her, Your great date. Was it amazing? What did you do? Where did he take you?

She raised her eyebrows, made a face and gazed into her coffee cup as if it was a crystal ball and could predict her future (or erase her past).

He turned out to be crazy, she admitted.

Crazy how? I was curious. I had never been out on an online date before, you see.

Crazy like five feet tall instead of six, had bad breath and tried to suck my face on the way out of the bar even though we had zero chemistry. Crazy like when I wouldnt kiss him, he started screaming at me in the middle of the street. I had to call a car service. There was no way I was driving back home with him, she responded.

As an afterthought she added indignantly, And he made me go Dutch! Can you believe it?

I made some kind sympathetic tut-tut here-here noise Ive heard my grandmother make and remained silent. For the record, I am almost never completely quiet. Ive been through every sort of cruddy relationship situation you can imagine and learned life lessons from them all, might I add but there was nothing I could say to make her feel better about this tale of cyber woe. I was still reeling from the fact that she had gotten into a car with a virtual stranger.

It wasnt like I hadnt heard this story before, though. Like most of us, Alex has a pattern. She would go out with a guy she had started speaking to only days before on OKCupid, Match or eHarmony (she belonged to all three), decide it was her perfect partner after a few hours of chatting, be crestfallen after meeting in person and discovering his real life self wasnt as cool as his online persona and end the date quickly. Stir and repeat. The only thing that ever changed was the guy in questions user name (and even those all blended together after awhile).

How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days? I think not. Alexs life was way more How To Lose a Guy in 24 Hours. Kate Hudson, watch out youve got competition!

As Alex began to gush about yet another potential online love interest, I tuned out and realized that the sound I was hearing wasnt the humming of her voice, but the rusty cogs of my brain slowly turning. I began to think (damn cobwebs made it hard though).

Why do so many smart women become complete idiots when it comes to men? Why would my intelligent, beautiful, city savvy friend potentially risk her life by getting in some dudes car when she didnt even know his full name? Was online dating really like shopping for a partner? Did anyone really and truly have any success looking for love on the Internet? I vowed to find out for myself.

But first, I needed to check my Facebook page.

I admit it, I was a huge Facebooker. I was one of those people who left her page up all day and checked to see if anybody had commented on my page from my mobile phone. I was obsessed.

Unfortunately, I was also obsessed with constantly checking my exs page to see what he was up to. Yeah, sad and pathetic I know. Im not proud of myself, but Im not going to apologize for it, either.

I had just broken up with Jake, and, while I was mostly over him, I was still into the bad habit of checking his Facebook page as regularly as I had when we were a couple. However, unlike when we were still together, this voyeuristic peek into his private life was painful.

I quickly clicked off his page after seeing that hed befriended a pretty new girl. Bastard, I thought, as I also silently berated myself for the compulsive need to look at his page. I applied the terms fool and dumbass to myself, for my failure to suppress the need to check up on him in the first place.

Needing a distraction, I scrolled through my news feed, and saw that an acquaintance had changed her relationship status to Its complicated. The woman in question was a semi-public figure in her thirties. Sharing her very personal details with friends including moi a person shed met twice didnt seem like a smart or strategic move.

I realized that I didnt want to know if her relationship was complicated. If she were having problems with her boyfriend, surely airing her dirty laundry to all 2,063 of her friends wouldnt help the situation any. What would come next? A fluctuating scale of relationship status updates ranging from Single to In a Relationship and back again until one of her real friends finally told her enough was enough and causing her to delete her account?

Though we werent real friends (as opposed to just Facebook friends), I wanted to tell her to wise up. I wanted to tell Alex to get with the program, too, and avoid getting into cars with men who might by serial killers or rapists. Most of all, I wanted to yell at me and say Stop checking up on your ex! Its over, and its just making you unhappy. Its time to get the hell on with your life!

Poof! There went the last of my cobwebs as an idea began to take shape. I was going to write a book on the ups and downs to looking for, keeping and talking about love online. I would become a champion of the online and social media arenas, like Cupid with a bigger body, longer hair, less nudity and far fewer arrows (I shouldnt be trusted with those things, seriously).

I decided that, not only would I would master the online dating game, but I would teach others to beat it, as well.

Want to know how well I did? Well, lets put it this way: I said sayonara to both my ex and his Facebook page, and I have never, ever looked back. On that note, now its time for