What’s a shy girl to do?

I feel as though the taboo of internet dating isn’t as strong as it used to be.

I was 13 when we first got a computer and the internet in my house.

Actually we were one of the first families on the block with a computer and dial up internet provided to us by the wondrous America Online.

I remember going into those infamous AOL chat rooms and being bombarded with “A/S/L” by people either looking to hook up or just looking for someone to talk to who also happened to really like Ricky Martin.

Not that I went into Ricky Martin fan chats or anything. I mean I don’t even know if they had those.

But I digress.

As the world’s shyest teenager I felt strange and weird meeting people online. Like was I doing something wrong in my life because I couldn’t meet friends in real life, because I couldn’t get a boy to like me in real life.

Even as I got older and started blogging on xanga (yep you read that right, I’ve got 10 years of posts on that bad boy. shit that probably isn’t helping my situation is it?) and gained readers from all over the country and the world and more of my friends started meeting strangers online and, gasp, even dating them, I still felt weird about these people. I felt weird about letting these unknown, sometimes faceless people into my life. I felt weird befriending them and even developing feelings for some of them.

But here I am, in my late 20s spending my lunch breaks and bus rides scrolling through dozens of profiles of the eligible men in the city of Chicago and trying to decide if I’m still in the same mindset of my 13-year-old self wondering if I’ve messed up somewhere along the way. If I’m defective because I cant seem to meet a decent man in real life and am instead relegated to hunting for one on an app.

Is there no such thing as a cute meet anymore?

Welcome to 21st century; the digital dating age.