Since the advent of time, man has always sought companionship. It



could range from something as platonic as a close friendship to a deep and

lasting marriage with shared responsibilities such as children. For

every person, the question that always comes up is “where can I find that

special someone? How"?

However, finding that special someone is not as simple as it seems.

Each person’s uniqueness and idiosyncrasies, although bringing color and

vibrancy in a relationship, brings risks. But these risks depend on

the expectations on relationships, on one’s knowledge on issues that

could arise, and on a greater great degree, on social skills.

We try to limit the risks by seeking out our special someone from our

own race, our own country or our own religion. We go to places where we

could probably find people with the same sexual preferences as we have.

We seek out friends who may have friends or acquaintances who we could

meet.

However, there are some of us who would like something different.

There are some of us who are risk-takers, who have the attitude of

conquering the world and everything it could offer. There are those of us who

are daring, who want something exciting and maybe forbidden. We would

like to take the risks yet limit its consequences.

Although the need for companionship has not changed, there is one

thing that has - TIME. As cities continue to modernize and become more

efficient, more and more companies have organizational structures that

limit physical access to other people. We get tied to a job in an office

cubicle whose only link to the outside world is the internet through a

computer. The time we have to develop and nurture relationships “face to

face" has become extremely limited.

We don’t have the time to go courting as our parents or grandparents

did in the olden times. The matchmaking aunts and relatives that they

had then are virtually extinct as we live our usually solitary lives in

our city apartments. Our human “face to face" inter-actions are now

limited to a few officemates and a great number of nameless faces we see

as we walk through the streets to and from work.

But companionship is a basic human need. We seek to find our match

yet lack the time to do so. We want to keep in touch with our roots and

establish links thru relationships yet lack the time to do so. We want

to find our “soul mates", the person who shares our inner most beliefs,

but are limited again by time and for others, space as they spend their

lives in 9 to 5 jobs in an office cubicle.

But there is hope. The internet frightening though it seems, with its

non-physical characteristic except for the usual PC or laptop, opens to

us a gateway. It links us to a vast resource of people seeking out

people.

The internet introduces to us the concept of on-line dating. This

phenomenon allows us to get to know people, screen them and size them up in

an almost risk-free venue. We could go from one relational level to

the next with ease and cut off right away if it gets too close. All

these can happen with just a PC and a laptop on hand.

Now all we need is the skill, the know-how and the right organization

to get what all of us need from dating that the internet could offer.

If only we could find the link of all links what could link us with our

ultimate “soul-mate", we shall look at our PC or laptop as the gateway

to that source of joy and excitement. But the link has to be there or

we would be wasting the one precious commodity that we can’t afford to

waste – TIME.