By Bridgette Williams MCT

Regular readers may have noticed that in our attempt to address all the legal and non-disgusting forms of getting together, we’ve ignored online dating.

On the surface, online dating makes perfect sense. Lines like, “I’m tired of the bar scene, so I thought this might be a better way to meet people,” are a shout-out to the logic of it all.

No one up and decides to meet their match on the dot-com without some reason why.

Now comes the hard part. Start with Recon. The objective is to see if anyone catches your eye while surfing a few sites. If there are no hotties currently in stock, what’s the point of shopping there? Remember that. It’s going to be your rationale for being shallow enough to search only for profiles with photos. After all, you can’t see brains and a sparkling wit from across a crowded room, am I right?

Your next worry is the whole making-a-move thing – breaking the ice, sending a smile, winking and whatnot. You have to find the best way to show your interest without actually paying for anything. Or making any commitment. Or giving your real name. Or leaving any contact trail.

The final phase of Recon is dropping the, “I’m dating online,” bombshell to people whose lifelong respect you want.

You can do this one of three ways: sneaky and underhanded, up front and in your face, or after the fact.

“Sneaky and underhanded” means casually dropping tidbits to test your friends’ reactions. If they go negative, backtrack with “Well, my friend said it worked for her” – and never mention it again.

“Up front and in your face” is all very well but not the norm, so I’ll skip that one. “After the fact” means telling friends about your profile a month later, being extra-special careful not to mention exactly which site your profile is on.

See? This is why we haven’t gotten to this before. It’s a beating! I’ll get to The Profile next week. I’m still in Recon. And it’s not going well.