"I was bored and I liked his name—it was simple, it was exhilarating."

That's a quote of a quote used in a paper on online romances.

(Hey, what's the etiquette of using a quote of a quote from another source, anyway? Do I enclose the quoted quote in quotes? Do I even use quotes? Do you even care? Ah, screw it. Back to the ramble.)

The speaker met her honey bunny through AOL Instant Messenger, the famed Newbie Love Machine that has introduced gazillions of curious and lonely women with horny teenage boys.

No, seriously, the speaker did actually meet a decent guy through AIM. And apparently, they are almost to the point of marriage.

Quite an encouragement for thousands of AIM users looking for romance, huh?

Well, don't start typing in "single female with big gazoobas" in the search field just yet. Not all of these romances work out.

Let me go through that paper again to plagiarize, er, I mean, "borrow" another quote from it. Ah, here's one.

"We were headed to the movies and he gave me one of those lines. He received a page and suddenly he had to go and help his cousin out."

Ouch!

That's a classic I've-Gotta-Get-Out-Of-This-Awful-Date line. You carry a pager with you and have a friend page you halfway into the date. If you like your date, you pretend the page was nothing.

If you think your date looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, you tell your date that a car just fell on your cousin and you have to help lift it off his chest. Or something believable like that.

As a side note, I think the Internet has revolutionized lines like that. With services like MrWakeUp.com, you don't need a friend to help make the call—you just have a web site give you a call for free. How's that for bringing the I've-Gotta-Get-Out-Of-This-Awful-Date line to the 21st century?

But I digress.

Online romances are tricky business. And you can quote me on that.

"Online romances are tricky business."

Yea. That's a smart line right there. Definitely quote me on that. It'll give your papers much credibility to have my smart quote. Remember that one, boys and girls.

But I digress again.

What actually motivates people to seek romance online? Is it boredom? Is it loneliness? Is it because they are desperate geeks who can't score in real life because they haven't trimmed their nose hair for days?

I'm kidding. That was a joke. Ha ha. I'm sure you just trimmed your nose hair yesterday.

I think the need to seek romance in a seemingly impersonal medium such as the Internet is motivated by failed attempts in the real world due to the proliferation of personality facades that many feel they have to present because of deep emotional insecurities and/or societal pressures.

Wow! Now how's that for a smart line! You can definitely quote me on that one.

But seriously, that line was a serious one. The very fact that I made a joke about how people who use the Internet for romance are seen as "desperate geeks" betrays our society's disdain for using seemingly impersonal media for highly personal interaction.

(My high school English teacher would be so proud to hear me using such big words right now.)

Notice I said "seemingly" impersonal. What most of our society hasn't realized yet is that the Internet is actually highly personal.

Stripped of the physical barriers of being too short or too tall or looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Internet allows only your mind to filter through.

Which is an endlessly frightening thought, isn't it? Just imagine the filtered mind of Dan Quayle floating free and unfettered in cyberspace. The horror.

However, this also allows shy and quiet people to talk more. It allows the underdogs to become superheroes. It allows the Creature from the Black Lagoon to finally get a date.

Not only that, it allows for a more earnest discussion that wouldn't be possible in a loud, dark and crowded bar or club.

Which leads me to the second part of that really smart line that you really oughta quote me on. The "…motivated by failed attempts in the real world due to the proliferation of personal facades that many feel they have to present because of deep emotional insecurities and/or societal pressures" part, I mean.

Or, in other words, garbble fuddle boka swiki wok.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist doing that. Get it? In other words? Ha! Okay, let me get serious again.)

In other words, lots of people are growing tired of the bar and club scenes. These scenes can be fun and definitely have a purpose (like drinking until your feet go numb, scouting out for lovely young ladies through your beer goggles, getting the phone number of a girl you think is a real hottie, and then finding out that "her" name is really Butch), but they can grow tiring after a while.

And that's where the Internet comes into play for many people. They don't want to deal with the bullshit of meeting people in a bar or club.

Unfortunately, many people don't realize is that there is plenty of bullshit in the online world as well.

A case in point is the Creature from the Black Lagoon who's date had to go get a car off his cousin's chest (or something like that).

You can't escape bullshit. It will follow you anywhere you go. Maybe you're even a Bullshit Magnet and just happen to attract more metric tons of bullshit than the average person. In that case, you're shit out of luck.

"Does that mean this ramble is bullshit?" you ask?

No, you nimrod.

It means that I'm uncertain about online romances. I can understand why people use the Internet for romance, but I don't think it's necessarily a good substitute for real life.

I have a friend who met his current girlfriend of seven months from Match.com. I have another friend who met a Harvard guy from Hotmail.com's personals, only to have him hit on all of her female friends when they finally met face-to-face.

What I'm even more skeptical about (and I'll probably get lots of flames for saying this) is how the true feelings of love can blossom from only online interaction.

I believe that only with face-to-face interaction can the true chemistry of love begin to boil. Only infatuation can come from strict online interaction.

How can you truly know how a person is just from emails and chats? All you get are words. What you miss out on are the cute mannerisms, the personal nuances, odd quirks, and the annoying habits of that person. Bodily communication is very important.

A person in real life is usually different than the portrayal of him/herself online.

Let me give you an example. A friend of mine met a guy via her university's chat system. They corresponded regularly, both through chats and on the phone. He seemed like a friendly and fun enough guy.

So they decided that the next step was to meet in person. Each brought a friend along.

Here's what she had to say about the encounter: (Insert drum roll here: budda budda budda budda…)

"Ohmigosh, he was so quiet! All he did was stare at his food while [my friend] and I talked to his friend. He didn't say a word! He was so talkative on the phone. What the hell happened??"

"Did you ever see him again?"

"No way!" (Insert loser music here. Wa wa wa waaa…)

Not a very good encounter, I'd say. What does that say about online romances? Well, it tells me that they're tricky business, yes they are.

Would I ever meet a person in real life that I initially met online?

Well, I've never had any online romances. I've met a few young ladies whom I thought were very interesting and fun to chat with. However, I've never thought of them as romances. They are more like pen pals to me.

In fact, I've never met any of my online pen pals before.

Would I ever meet one of them, romance or not?

Hmmm…

. . .

Have you ever had an online romance?