Online dating: last resort or new norm?

Let me preface this by saying that I've never used online dating nor am I currently considering using online dating - mainly because I'm married and I'm assuming that my old lady wouldn't exactly be cool with me re-entering the dating field. My sister-in-law, though, has taken the plunge in to the online dating universe.

She is a few years older than I am and she's never really had a problem finding guys to date. She has, however, had a problem getting them to stick around. She wants something long-term and they want to hit it and quit it. I've seen the TV ads for Match.com and the people they feature, actors or not, seem to have landed happy relationships that culminated in marriage. So is online dating considered to be the new norm or is it a last resort for the truly desperate?

People's lives are busier than ever and they spend their free time in ways far different than in the past. No longer do people head to an ice cream social to meet their neighbors. I don't exactly see sock hops where people in the early twenties meet and go to the local diner to share a malt.

Nope. Today, people who make up the dating population are a house parties, bars, clubs or wirking a second or third job. Their lives are total chaos and not too many people I know were ready to get hitched at 19 years old to their high school sweetheart or the girl next door. They were in college or busy getting stoned in the basement or garage. The last thing on their minds was finding "the one".

I have to ask if anyone you know who uses online dating is open about their experiences. Have they come right out and said that they met the person they are with via an online dating service? Or is there a stigma that equates "resorting" to online dating to being a recluse or loser who couldn't find a date if they lived forever? If you're single, would you go the online dating route or are you more inclined to roll the dice and see who you bump in to in the produce aisle?

MinnPics isn't going to help you find a date but the cool photos could find you some popular locations where singles may linger.

Would you date Muffintop McGee?

I love a response to a dating query that includes the phrase "you have my full permission to dip out before she starts eyeing you up like a fat kid at a rib roast".

It's only right that I would agree. There are just some things in the dating world that a guy or girl will be unable to get past because that all important first impression is what counts. If you bumble that first impression, the chance of that other person getting to know you for who you truly are isn't likely to happen.

Imagine if on that first date you shovel food into your pie hole like you've been trapped in a remote West Virginia cave for a few months with nothing to eat but grubs and moss. There are going to be some people who find the fact that you ate not two but three meals repulsive.

That is why, even though it seems shallow, appearances are of the utmost importance. That is why I don't step out of the house wearing something I'd be ashamed to be seen in. Think about sweatpants, would someone of the opposite sex become weak in the knees at the sight of a potential conquest sporting some dumpy, droopy, grey sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt that looks like it was run over by your lawnmower? Think again.

I am far from elite but I have boundaries in style and impressions that I simply won't cross. What are your boundaries?