Im about to make myself feel really old, very nerdy, or both. Think back 20 years ago relative to your Internet World then versus now. Yes, that means no Facebook, Google, Etsy, Pinterest and other social media. It was one year before the first online dating service (match dot com ... Edited to remove the link, ugh). registered as a potential business and two years before Yahoo! was opened as a directory of services available on this thing we now know as the Web. In fact, we still had a dial-up modem, and our computers were huge and clunky. It would be three years before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and 7 years before the first iPod. Back then -- now 20 years ago to the day -- I posted a note on a Prodigy (computer service) Bulletin Board asking that eligible men living within my local (land-line) area code describe for me what might be our perfect first date. Several bachelors responded, including a man who described himself as a romantic whod sweep me off my feet with flowers and a home-cooked meal. His name, he said, is John and hed been separated from his wife for 10 months, and he was lonely. Likewise, Id been separated from my husband, and didnt know where to begin to re-enter the dating world. After exchanging e-mails for a bit, I took the bold step of giving John my phone number. We chatted for hours! We seemed to have so much in common, though my daughter was only 9 then, and his son was 19 and out of the house already. We made plans to meet on the night before Thanksgiving, for our first date. Meeting a guy on the computer? Preposterous! my parents exclaimed. My therapist warned me against the dangers of blind dating. Online dating was in such infancy that Oprah Winfrey did a show on it (she had a daily talk show then), and I was invited to appear. I declined because my boss had already written a note in my personnel file about this lack of personal discretion I exhibited when I put my heart out over the computer. Yes, I was a Pioneer Woman of sorts -- back when we only knew that WWW stood for Wild, Wild West. This weekend, John is sweeping me off my feet to celebrate our 20 years together. Well go not for a home-cooked meal -- we get plenty of those -- but for a stay in a suite, a dinner at a steakhouse, and, like we did 20 years ago when we took that chance on love, well do a little gambling. Roll the dice, spin the wheel, play our cards right and just hang out together. Happy date-a-versary to my King of Hearts.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 02:46:52 +0000