Tom Kruse

Recently, I've noticed that online dating sites have been advertising "free communication" trial offers to coincide with a long holiday weekend.

Sandwiched between commercials for vaginal Pine Sol and Hoverounds (the motorized strollers for people who've thrown in the towel on limb usage and dignity), these 60-second spots showcase couples engaging in adorable activities. Although these ads are nearly identical to endorsements for STD-symptom suppressants, e-dating's dynamic duos praise the miracle of the website that brought them together, rather than the cream that keeps their genital wart outbreaks apart.

Nevertheless, the promise of finding true love for free(!) sounds like a brilliant bargain. However, there are some drawbacks with subscribing to the unpaid membership...

In lieu of a profile picture of Prospective Prince Charming, there is a place-holding cartoon caricature of what my potential date could look like.
Although I possess an active imagination, I find it troublesome to fantasize about a night on the town with what looks like the chalk outline from a murder scene. Should my date appear that way at the close of the evening, is of course, a horse of a different color.

Now if I choose to upgrade my membership (for just three easy payments of $39.95) I could survey the snapshots of my future flame, posing bare-chested before a souped-up sports car, baiting a behemoth Bass, or dressed to the nine's, cuddling the carefully cropped torso of an unidentified female at a bar mitzvah.

Adjacent to the 19th century silhouette drawing of my soul mate, is a squared-off section containing "special interests".
These emoticon-laden bullet points serve as the brick and mortar base-builder of my budding romance. Unfortunately, with the costless trial, certain crucial details are omitted:

-Roger enjoys _____ his sister. :$
-One time, Roger had a ____, thankfully, no one survived ;)
-Five years ago, Roger contracted _____ from _____ :0
-Roger likes to ____ small children. :)
-The voices tell Roger to ____. :{}

Nevertheless, my membership remained at the complimentary level. I failed to connect with any of the pathetic pairings impersonally generated for me through the collaboration of a computer-buzzword matching program and a cable modem.

As time passed, I began to receive random emails from the dating site. The messages started out as gentle, hinting reminders that, "Meredith, love could still be out there waiting for you," and quickly transformed into passive-aggressive Jewish mom jeers such as, "It's okay that you don't want to find someone to spend your life with".

Once I changed my email address, I soon forgot about the time that I spent trying to sell myself on the world wide web. Although sometimes while I'm watching "The L Word" in my soiled underwear, eating a frozen dinner specially marked, "For One", a match.com ad will appear on the screen. I'll glance around the shanty of an apartment I share with my cat and various action figures, smile, shake my head and think to myself, "Tomorrow I'm going to buy a Hoveround and ride it into the Grand Canyon."