Getting Wooed by ‘WooMe’

Okay, I’m not the type of girl who’s ever really had a problem getting date.

Getting the right date is the catch. But where do you find these sorts of guys? Clean-cut, good-smelling, goal-oriented. The kind you can bring home to momma.

In my mind, online dating sites are usually home to creepers and lame-o’s with the odd average Joe thrown in. The good ones are still out there in the world, worse yet, they’re usually taken.

But what the heck? I’m bored, and slightly desperate, and ashamedly curious. So I give it a try. The site that catches my eye is www.WooMe.com. Its non-committal attitude somehow makes it seem less serious. I’m not really looking for a husband here. Just potentials. That I could maybe have a stimulating conversation with.

Within my first five minutes on the site, I’ve already got three nudges and invitations to sessions keep annoyingly popping up while I’m in the middle of trying to figure out how the darn thing works. The lack of real, “How-To” instructions means I have to jump right in, which is actually rather intimidating, being as it’s a live video or voice chat and I’m just trying to make a web connection at the moment. No way am I ready to actually talk to anyone. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being online?

It turns out that the whole system ends up being really low-pressure until the moment I agree to “join a session”, basically speed dating via your webcam. Then I find myself running to adjust my hair, dab on a little more blush, brush on some mascara, and breathing softly to calm the little critters flapping around in my stomach.

Turns out I’m not the only nervous one. It’s actually kind of cute to hear the guy on the other side of the screen keep saying “Umm” or watch him keep distractedly tapping his chin while he’s typing. I’m just gluing a smile to my face and barreling through as many of the standard questions as I can fit into a 90-second conversation with a response delay. Apparently it worked. I have two new matches. Then it moves into the normal process of messaging and talking.

Armed with a new boost of confidence from my recent success, I initiate a session myself, and it starts all over again. I end up talking to a couple of guys in Jersey, one from California, another in Canada, and one who actually went to a dance at my high school. Some of them are just not what I’m looking for, but I was actually surprised at the normality of the guys, and I even found one or two that piqued my interest…

I haven’t found true love yet, but I am far from disappointed with my foray into the world of cyber romance. Maybe it isn’t just for losers.