Lisa Skriloff - Men Are From Cyberspace: The Single Womans Guide To Flirting, Dating, & Finding Love

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contents

To my parents and sister, Leonard, Naomi, and Nina, with love.

Lisa

To my husband. Who says you cant fall in love with the boy next door?

Jodie

We would like to thank our friend and agent Linda Konner for her creativity, savvy, and perseverance. Our thanks also to Kelley Ragland of St. Martins for her editorial skills and enthusiasm, and to the following people for their invaluable assistance: Leonard Skriloff, Aliza Sherman of Webgrrls, Carol Wallace of Prodigy, Carole and Bill Hinners of Prodigy Singles, Trish McDermott of Match.com, Nora Contini of Jewish Community Online, and Daniel Bender of Cupids Network/American Singles. Finally, our heartfelt appreciation to all the cyberdaters who shared their stories with us. May romance continue to flourish on-line and off.

Were not psychologists, social workers, or celebs. Youve heard enough advice from them. (Gee, I wonder if Pamela Anderson Lee has any great tips on finding men?) Were just two twenty-first-century gals who have discovered a huge reservoir of available men and we want to share the wealth. Thats right. Men are from cyberspace!

Why is the Internet fast replacing bars, bookstores, and malls as a womans venue of choice for meeting men? There are 40 million people currently on-line from 160 countries, and 70 percent of these Internet users are men! Thats what we call great odds if youre a single woman.

Intelligent, creative, and worldly men from all over the globe are using the computer to woo single women, vying for their conversation, affection, and phone numbers. (There are also geeks and freaks, and we will tell you how to avoid them later.) No smoky rooms, loud music, or other distractions.

But how does a woman looking for more than an on-screen relationship make the transition from virtual reality to flesh-and-blood reality? Thats where Men Are from Cyberspace: The Single Womans Guide to Flirting, Dating, and Finding Love On-Line comes in. This book will show you how to navigate your way through cyberspace to a busier social life and, from there, to wherever youd like: a short-and-sweet fling or possibly an engagement ring.

Men Are from Cyberspace offers firsthand reviews of the online dating sites, success stories of dates and mates found online, dating Netiquette, a glossary of cyberterms, advice on how to avoid the perverts and scam artists, and tips on how to engage in mind-blowing cybersexa warm-up for the real thing.

We have also included the best on-line places to find single men interested in romance, the best way to join the chat rooms if youre a newbie (cybervirgin), and information on how to interpret the graphic symbols that men often use. We will tell you the funniest and sometimes embarrassing true stories about digital dating (most real and screen names have been changed, so dont try E-mailing any of the people in this book), and give you tips on how to go from E-mail to real male, from chat room to groom, from mouse to spousewell, you get the idea.

Even though the Internet may seem daunting at first, we will show you how easy it is to discover where the cyberbeaus are. For those of you who have yet to cruise the Net, imagine you just walked into a bar and are instantly surrounded by a half-dozen guys armed with their best pickup lines. You ask them each a question, and decide which one you would like to talk to. You chat for a while until youre either bored, turned off, or turned on, at which point you can go someplace a little more private with the guy you just met or choose another bachelor. By this time, three or four new guys have eagerly approached you.

Sound like a fantasy? It happens nearly every time a woman enters an on-line chat room. With a computer, a modem, and a little guidance about where to click, you too can be typeface-to-typeface with men who are looking forand dreaming aboutyou! But do keep in mind that cyberdating is not a substitute for the real thing. Cyberdating is just another way to make new friends and meet new people. If one of those new friends turns into a boyfriend or husband, all the better.

Our experience has been that you will find the same dating problems on-line that you do in the real world. There are jerks, nerds, pervs, hackers, slackers, and crazies. But there are also smart, romantic, relationship-seeking, heart-throbbing men out there. Why not use our God-given technology for the greater good of womankind?

And if youre a dyed-in-the-modem cybernymph, well give a list of some of the hottest sex sites around (at last count there were 5,000 on AOL alone). Of course, like any dating experience, women must be careful about who they meet online. The nature of this electronic beast makes it both an intimate and impersonal medium. For starters, you cant always tell if the man youre chatting with is ( a ) actually a man, ( b ) the spitting image of Brad Pitt, as he described, or ( c ) wearing a wedding ring.

We will discuss the hot-button issue of on-line fidelity. Is it really cheating if you havent actually reached out and touched someone in real life? The jury is still out about whether cybersex with someone other than your spouse is grounds for divorce. Well tell you about one husband who filed for divorce after reading his wifes sexy E-mail exchanges with a man shed been cyberdating, and another who killed his cybercheating wife in a jealous rage.

We also provide tips on how to protect yourself from stalkers and other potentially dangerous types. Although cyberdating is safe when done correctly, there have been incidents where women were physically attacked by someone they met and dated on-line. All this can put a woman at risk for her safety, not to mention a broken heart or a broken vow.

We have answered as many FAQs (cyberlingo for Frequently Asked Questions) as we can. If you have more questions after reading this book (and you will), or if you would like to share your cyberdating experiences, fe -mail us at MenRfrom@aol.com. We are forever interactive and we want to hear from you.

The bottom line is that the Internet opens up a whole new frontier for meeting men by bringing eligible bachelors from all over the world right into your bedroom or office (and you dont even have to wear makeup to entertain them)! Just sign on and let your fingers do the talking. Whether its a boyfriend, husband, or puter pal you want, Men Are from Cyberspace will be your compass as you launch into cyberspace. Happy landings!

We are going to assume that you already own a computer, so we wont go over the boring details about equipment and the PC versus Mac debate. To each her own computer. If you want to know more about the technical stuff, ask a guy when youre next on-line; guys love talking about computers and especially love to offer their opinions about what kind of computer to buy.

In the old days, guys would talk about sports and cars in the same rhapsodic way that they now discuss computers. Nowadays, the question, How big is your hard drive? has replaced, What kind of car do you drive? Many women are also into computers, which is great, because the more you know, the more fun you can have with them. (It wont hurt you professionally either.)