yo, want 2 swing dance 2nite?

Everyone loves a good “how we met” story. You know, the kind that makes movies like Must Love Dogs (uggh, it kills me to think that I’ll never get those two hours of my life back) seem normal. I love it when my parents tell theirs. If you have ever read wedding announcements/seen 27 Dresses or care about that sort of stuff at all, you know the “how we met” story is the icing on the wedding cake.

But with all of the chick flicks out there to let us know how it should be, you know when a “how we met” story is really bad.

Ex- “Well, I was at one end of the bar and he was at the other. After all of his friends had tried with me, I finally agreed when he asked to buy me a drink because he seemed like the nicest and I wanted to have enough money left over for a cab. We ended up making out at the bar and he Facebooked me later that night.”

Here is my favorite though-this one truly takes the, err, wedding cake. An old friend recently got engaged. Out of pure obligation and a touch of nosiness, one of my BFFLs (LYLAS) asked his fiancée how they met. To this the fiancée responded:

“We met on MySpace. You got a problem with that?”

YES, I DO. But that’s because I hate MySpace with the passion of 18 million angry Hillary voters.

Obviously this girl was on the defensive. She knew that her story was anything but cute. She knows how it is perceived, so she lied to her parents. She told her parents they met swing dancing. SWING DANCING. Yup. Just off the top of my head, I can name a few trillion things more believable and plausible than that. But this brings to mind the question: where do you go to meet someone swing dancing? Plus, I don’t know many single dudes that would go to a swing dancing event. But whatev. If that’s the fantasy she wants, let her have it.

When we spend most of our time online and plugged in, it’s no shock (sadly) that it becomes the dating arena. The biggest step you need to make is Facebooking them. From their Facebook you can get a phone number. And then, you can send a text: hey what r u doing tonight.

I don’t condemn it, but I don’t like it. I will condemn it, however, if it has anything to do with MySpace. Is your engagement photo going to be a longarm style black and white pouty face with added sparkles? If that happens to you, lie to me. Because deep down I still have faith that true “how we met” stories can be cute. I, of course, expect to meet the love of my life at a political rally, realize we love the same Disney movies and old movie musicals, talk about Barack, eat lots of ice cream and live happily ever after. But that’s just me.

[Posted by Kathleen]