By: Kate Baggott

Sociologists will someday study the Internet and describe it as a medium that so-called Western romantics used to arrange their own marriages. First, couples I knew starting coming out of the closet and admitting that they too had met in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and on adults only sites. While these confessions did not sway my opinion that Internet dating was only for geeks, it did convince me that it was certainly for the coolest of geeks. Then my beautiful blonde sister met her fiancé over the Internet. She went on three dates with three different men and, a year later she was engaged to the third one. My much, much younger sister was engaged at 21.

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"...They’re just two geeks in love," my brother said.

While my sister had -- with the most practical of impulses -- pursued and achieved the real deal, I had been exhausting myself with the chaos of romantic adventure.

So I got practical. The now defunct Swoon personals, Match.com, and Webpersonals (now called Lavalife) all became search engines in my quest for a mate. Obviously, I am not as efficient as my sister. It took about two years and between 30 and 35 dates before I found him. No, I didn’t set aside every other Saturday night for interviews, but, when I had the time and energy, I went on up to three dates over a Sunday afternoon. Everyone, I reasoned, deserves an hour over coffee or a drink. In the process, I learned how to be charming, how to find the interesting side of everyone I meet. I became impatient with the male tendency to try to impress, often at the expense of consideration, mature conversation and good manners. I once told a compulsive talker that he wasn’t a very good date and needed to learn how to listen if he ever expected to go out with anyone a second time. Giving him that reality check is still probably the most worthwhile act of public service I have ever performed.

Meeting the one was not a sudden gush of certainty and romance. We’d done some instant messaging, he’d recognized the mythological basis of my screen name, we talked briefly on the phone and then lost touch when I was overwhelmed in a series of new business negotiations. When we finally made contact again, I had received messages from about 3 men that week and wasn’t exactly sure which one he was. Then, he called me on my cell phone right after my yearly cancer check-up. In the mood to celebrate my tenth year of remission, I asked him to dinner that night. When he walked through my office door to meet me, my first thought was that he was just too good looking for me. But everyone deserves an hour.

Our first child is almost two years old.

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Read Kate's biography here. An earlier version of this article was published on www.globetechnology.com. Used with permission of the author.

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