Yes, online dating is nothing new. Adam and Eve actually met on eHarmony when Eve sent the following message: “Hey Adam, like your pic! LOL. I’m just an Eden girl who likes crossword puzzles and talking to snakes. Let’s get together and eat an apple and see what’s underneath those fig leaves! Message me l8er!” But I had never done online dating before. I looked down on those who dated online. After all, my strategy of drinking at bars and not talking to any women was working really well.* But a friend of mine finally convinced me that it was time to take a chance. Her way of convincing me? She told me that the guys who did online dating were total losers, and the girls were all very cool. While I’m not sure that this is entirely true, another friend who started online dating forwarded me the following message sent to her by a guy:

“Girl, you are burning hot! You have a great smile and you are as fine as it is possible to be. I don’t feel comfortable doing this, but I have to report your parents to the authorities because they dropped the BOMB (you).”

While he is correct that my friend is as fine as it is possible to be, she did not write him back.

So I began filling out a profile. I live in Brooklyn. I have red hair. I love the movie Joe vs. the Volcano. I like vampires. I then uploaded four pictures. Here’s me just being cool because I’m totally cool. Here’s me being totally silly and stuff. Here’s one of me being serious so you know that I have a deep, serious side. Here’s me hangin’ with my friends cuz, you know, I have friends and am not a total freakshow. Done. Once you finish your profile, the website urges you to look at other profiles and wink at people in whom you are interested. Luckily the winking is all done over the internet, because in real life people often confuse my winks with epileptic seizures (albeit sexy epileptic seizures). The first profile I saw? Someone named pItYFuck87. This did not bode well. While I was impressed with her use of misplaced capital letters, I was already confused. Is she the pity fuck? Is she looking for another person on whom to take pity during intercourse? Were there really 86 other people who took the name pItYFuck before her? Suffice it to say, I did not wink at her (or even pItYWink at her).

I kept looking. Luckily the website had much more to offer. So I went through a lot of profiles, looking at pictures, reading about their special talents (hula hooping, for some reason, is the most common), their favorite movies (The Fifth Element and Wet Hot American Summer among the most popular) and what they are doing on the average Friday night (getting drunk being the most common). It actually became quite fun. My problem was that I was still not writing to anyone or winking at anyone or even rating anyone (which just seems wrong). This was turning into the same thing as going out to bars. I was a silent observer. I was nervously sitting in the corner, afraid of rejection, anxious to go home and watch Glee and eat an ice cream sandwich.

But then something amazing happened.

Someone messaged me. It was an honest, sweet message from someone making a funny comment about my profile and asking if I’d be interested in having a beer sometime. So simple. And so, reader, I wrote her back. And we’re going out on a date next week. Yes! It’s the modern world. Women can ask men out and there is a series of tubes (that joke is so old it voted for Dukakis) created by Al Gore and Stephen Hawking that gives them a great medium to do so! Glorious.

So while I still have to go on this date, and try to act cool and be charming, I have officially taken the first step. In future posts I will either let you know how it went, or describe in detail how, when in a pinch, a frozen Oreo cookie is not nearly as good as an ice cream sandwich.

*Sarcasm