Dating on the internet is both impossible and absurdly easy. As Zetgeisty noted, it's the simplest way in the world to create the illusion of a social life for yourself. It's something that's fundamentally unfulfilling because it makes something unquantifiable fit into a query boxes. Even in the best of circumstances, there is always a vague sense of disappointment when you meet someone you've been talking to on a dating site.
All the time and energy spent exchanging emails and phone calls in the buildup to going on a date can be fun and alluring, but it's tantamount to shadowboxing. It's two strangers talking to themselves willfully consenting to let the other to use the vagaries of their lives as a psychic swank rag.
When you finally get to meet in real life and realize that the magically sensitive and charming person who was such a delight in your inbox on Tuesday mornings has now become a slouching mouth-breather with just a few too many freckles, how can you not feel disappointed? I've accumulated some simple tactics you can use to stop delegating the ups and downs of your romantic life to relative strangers over the internet.
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