Milan Kundera discusses fortuitous love in his philosophical novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. To Kundera, we must chide he who ignores life’s mysterious coincidences, because doing so, “thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.” But in the world of online dating, there are no mysterious coincidences. There are databases with search engines and parameters. There is, as one Onion date of mine called it, “window shopping.”
Met online last week
Romantic notions of romance seem quaint and unfashionable these days. Not that online dating is a fashionable remedy. A friend of mine with a distinguished appearance has refused to include his photo on his OkCupid profile. He fears people from his real life, where he is a bit of a scenester, will instantly recognize him. But it’s like running into someone at Hard Rock Café, whether you’re gussying it up in irony, or for the sake of a blog, you are both there in that shit hole. And if you’re both gems, maybe that is all the fortuity your post-post modern hearts and minds can handle.
Happy 2010.
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It's cliched, but the least cool thing to do is worry about being cool. Besides, pioneers like us are making online dating trendy, not lame!
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