In Her Words

Online Dating: Tales from the Front Lines

Love's greatest cynic gambles her heart online

-Nicole Christie

I said I would never do it. Never would I sink so low. Never would I throw myself into the tureen of desperation bouillabaisse, lie prone on the Singles Smorgasbord, and dish myself up for a taste - all in the pedestrian hope of living happily ever after with my personal Prince Charming.

Never, never would I try online dating.

But in the four years since my divorce, I've been a drunk driver on the Singleton Highway, making wrong turns and veering off course en route to Spinsterville. Having subscribed to a supposedly infallible strategy - devised through grilling countless people about how they'd met their true love - I've dated people I met while pursuing my passions, at my job, and through trusted friends. But this has only brought me into contact with the emotionally unavailable, socially retarded, and potentially gay. (Sometimes all three.) After four consecutive head-on collisions, it dawned on me that I was embodying the definition of insanity: pursuing the same course of action over and over, and expecting different results.

So I surrendered and said "Enchanté" to eHarmony and its "29 Dimensions of Compatibility." The mission: One month. Sixty bucks. Two dates.