Finding love online

 

By: Nathan Downey — The Muse

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. (CUP) —

hen Facebook first attained
what was to become its
enormous popularity and

market share, groups like “Six Degrees of
Separation” and “I Wipe Front to Back!”
swelled to memberships of hundreds

of thousands of like-minded souls. As
time went on, groups like this tended to
dwindle, replaced by smaller, more useful
assemblages designed to co-ordinate study
groups or discuss “Deep Space 9”, or
whatever.

This trend of moving from the general
to the specific seems to have spread to the
Internet’s other great social tool — dating
sites.

Instead of LavaLife being the
Internet’s only source for initiating
that spark between lovelorn strangers,
nowadays there are dating (or hook-up)
sites for nearly every sub-culture and
sexual bent.

Bearing this in mind, I set out to
explore the world of specialty dating sites.
I hopped onto CougarLife and, with a few
nimble keystrokes; my cub dating profile
“r_u_mrs_robinson” was ready to go.
Within minutes, I had described myself
as an Ultimate Frisbee-loving, frat-boy
type, uploaded a photo of myself (from
my halcyon days as a carefree, 19-year-old
lifeguard) and was browsing through a
surfeit of cougar-licious profile pages.

There was one message waiting for
me in my inbox —a note from Claudia
Opdenkelder, president of CougarLife.
com, welcoming me to the site (which she
claimed was recently voted the wildest
dating site in North America).

According to Opdenkelder, “Cougars
can take many forms — recent divorcées
looking to date, yummy mummies looking
to let loose or sexy singles like me . . .
but we have one thing in common — we
are sexually charged, independent and
interested in meeting young, virile men.”

I admit, up to this point I hadn’t really
taken the site seriously at all, but there they
were: profiles of earnest, genuinely sexy
35 to 65-year-old cougars, lots of whom
apparently wanted my bird. Amazed by my
results (and unwilling to lead Cinnamon40,

 

Pinklady, and Cupcake_1980 on), I aborted
the experiment.

Back in the earlier parts of this
decade, there was a bit of a stigma
attached to relationships made possible
by the wonders of the internet, but that’s
no longer the case, it seems. The more
we become dependent on the internet, the
more common meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right
on one of these dating sites is going to
be. According to the Online Publisher’s
Association, the projected spending on
online dating services will approach $1
billion in the U.S. alone by 2011.

I can think of a few reasons why
it’s such booming business. The first
reason, obviously, is that online dating is
convenient. A person can sit at home and
weed out potential toads, all the while
wrapped in a Snuggie and munching on
Ritz Crackers. Who they meet is up to
them.

Another huge advantage is being able
to screen a potential partner’s kinks and
match them up with your own. Without
places like bdsmsingles.com, would-be
kinksters would have a much tougher
time meeting people with the same sexual
inclinations as themselves.

It makes you wonder what we all did
before the internet, right?

I can think of a few drawbacks, too.
As more and more of our relationships
begin online, it follows that our real-life
interaction skills become rustier. And
since, unfortunately, there’s no choice but
to interact with people in real life, this is
kind of a bummer.

Another thing is the safety factor. It’s
impossible to be sure whom you’re talking
to online. Even if you’re chatting with
a person over webcam, there could be a
partially eaten corpse mouldering just off
camera.

Running the risk of sounding like
a net nanny, it’s really important to trust
your instincts when it comes to people
you talk to online. And all the usual
precautions apply if the person seems fit
enough to meet in person.

Since the internet is the biggest .
communication revolution since the -
inception of the telephone, we might as
well get used it.

 

ARTon

 

}

Have you hugged you family lately?

   

By Matthew Visser

his Wednesday, November 24,
will mark three years since my

dad passed away. He would
probably tell you today if you’re able
to talk to him that he died from the ass
cancer, probably to make the irony of it
make it seem bearable for the listener
and himself. So this is what I say when a
person asks me how my dad died: “well
he died from the ass cancer.”

He was extremely stubborn and
humble if this makes any sense when he
died and I want to think that this is how
my dad lived his life. Stubborn about
how he was going to die and how soon
his death was coming and humble about
how at the end he knew he fought a good
fight. You might think I am crazy about
this but I want to think that during the
night when his died he felt at peace with
his world. He was not longer in pain and
he longer had that angry, stubborn look
on his face. He was ready to die and
leave this life comfortably.

One thing I will always remember
about dad was the way his face would
squeeze together and thick deep wrinkles
would form when he got mad or
frustrated or just did not understand the
things his children did. I guess I too will
have this face when I am older and have
kids and I can teach the things to them
that my dad taught me. If my dad was
anything in life for me and my siblings it
was that he was a teacher. And is that not
what parents are supposed to be? They’re
there to teach their kids the ways of the
world and how life works. I guess I can
say my dad was a pretty good teacher
then, one of the best that I have known.

A day does not go by when I don’t
think about him. If you had the luxury
of meeting and knowing my dad, John,
then I say you are a lucky person. John

himself would probably have a story

of how he knew you or where you and
he had met. He had this uncanny ability
to know someone wherever he went.
Maybe this is where I get it from, being
able to know someone from somewhere,
wherever I go. And having this uncanny
ability I like to think about what parts
of my dad I had taken from him and use
today in my own life. It’s a funny thing
if you think about it; what little things
we have taken from our parents to make
who we are as people today.

I have been told by multiple people
that I look just like my dad; I even have
his smile, dimples and all. And if this
is something that I get to carry for my
whole life, to have and hold onto to make
me see my dad when I look in the mirror
or when I see myself in the reflection of
a window, than I am happy to have my
dad’s smile.

The point of this story that I am
trying to get across is that there is
not a person that I know if who has
not had their life affected by cancer.
Cancer has now become this kind of
terrible neighbour that has come into
everyone’s family community and has
given so much pain to everyone in that
community. So if you know someone
who has been affected by cancer, the ass
kind or not, give that person a hug for
me and for them and for the thousands of
others who are in pain from this terrible
disease.

So, on the 24" I will be thinking
about my dad and other people who I
have known and who have died from
cancer. I will give my mom and my
sibling a great long hug and reminisce
about dad. Most of all I will look at the
pictures of him on the walls of my house
and think about the dad I had, the man he
used to be.

15