I’m not sure how previous generations did it – met someone, fell in love, got married. But I seem to be part of the first demographic in history that requires special, advanced, electronic equipment.

That’s not how I meant it. Don’t be disgusting.

Along about when you hit your 30s and 40s, things like Internet dating services start to seem like the only way to meet people. By then, you might have a career, a busy schedule and a limited social circle consisting mainly of married couples and other single men with whom you stay friends primarily so they can help you move.

The only dating alternatives available seem like the most artificial. And here are a couple of them:

Internet Matchmaking:
Making Your Own Blind Date

People say opposites attract. I mention it because this, above all, has absolutely nothing to do with Internet matchmaking. Science has not yet broken down what constitutes the indefinable something that makes someone endlessly fascinating. All it can do is find someone who fills out a personality form exactly the same way you do. If all goes according to plan, your first date should feel like you’ve known each other for a decade, that you hardly notice each other anymore, that your sex life died off years ago and that you’re just keeping the relationship going out of habit. Granted, this does save time.

Another unnerving part of Internet dating is that, after an exchange of e-mails, phone calls and photos, you know the person’s hopes and dreams before you know if you really enjoy looking at them. I don’t mean to sound superficial (I am superficial, I just don’t mean to sound like it), but human beings and, for that matter, all other forms of life have always gotten to know each other from the outside in. First, you’d hear how a woman talks, see how she moves and get a general sense of her body. I still think you should know these things before you decide how important it is that she dresses her dog in baby clothes.

I will say, though, that one Internet date did surprise me. We were very similar except that, near the end of the second date, she said didn’t like Italian-Americans. Just plain didn’t like them. Eventually I kissed her goodnight and went back to my apartment, which I shared with one of my best friends, a gentleman with the surname Perazzo.

And I called her again. The spooky prejudice at least gave me something to work with.

Speed-Dating:
Sadnesses At The Speed Of Sound

Oh how I liked the idea of speed-dating – in principle: Ten women sit at different little tables scattered throughout a cafe. One man apiece sits down next to each of them. The couples talks for five minutes. A bell rings. The men move on to the next woman. At the end of the night, you mark yes or no for each person you meet. If a particular man and woman both mark yes for each other, the man gets the woman’s phone number. Perfect – in theory.

In theory.

In practice, it so utterly lacked romance that I felt less like I was dating than like I was negotiating the price of a condominium. One woman gurgled with a frightened smatter of hebephrenic giggles when I told her I was Jewish. Another based her entire judgment of me on what my sign was (Gemini). A conversation with one woman was just a little subdued, somewhat quiet, almost conspiratorial. But once we went out together a few nights later and had a chance to stretch out a little, it was spectacularly awkward.

But the main thing that I think makes the Internet, speed dating and so many other services feel artificial is that you share no context with the other person – no mutual friends, no regular activity that brought you together. It’s a new approach to the game and it demands we start a relationship at a base of near zero.

But some people throw themselves into it. One friend of mine went through Match.com and is now married and raising a baby – that friend being, of course, the aforementioned Mr. Perazzo. He’s brought another Italian-American into the world.