When you find yourself suddenly single after many years of being in a relationship it takes some time to get your bearings. One day you're busy trying your best to love someone and the next day you find out that you've been tossed to the porch. My day was on New Year's Day. We had just finished a kind of tradition and had gone to a local mexican restaurant, Maro's Tacos. The food was good as usual. Maro's has grown from basically a takeout stand to a full-fledged restaurant with an outdoor patio. I had three tacos; my soon-to-be ex had a burrito. It was pouring rain that night when I got the message (Boy, did I get the message!). I pulled over and we talked for a few moments, and that was the end. Actually it was much more dramatic than that, and it's a subject for another time, but in the days and nights and weeks to come I found that I had a lot of time on my hands. We had become quite an insulated couple, and had not cultivated new friends and rarely saw old ones, so without my former love there wasn't much to do.

One friend I did have is probably the one person responsible for almost quite literally saving my life. S you know who you are. Thank you. S had had a terrible divorce about two years prior, and was insulated from the outside world. We had met through work, and I was kind of a shoulder to cry on. After the divorce was final S went on some of the online sites and tried her luck. Every-so-often she used to ask me about various guys she had met in the virtual world. At that time, being in a relationship for sixteen years I begged off by saying that I didn't know what it was to date anymore, didn't know how it worked and didn't know the language.

Little did I know that a very short time later I would be borrowing space on her shoulder to cry and begin a steep learning curve to learn the new language of love.

She suggested I try the online world. Actually I don't know if she so much suggested it but I thought that I would learn from her example, or at least try to expand my horizons "in the comfort of my own home."

I went for numbers. I signed up on Match.com, the overstuffed elephant of singles sites, and got busy.

A little background. I am not unfamiliar with meeting someone by using a third party, or a medium besides bumping into someone in a bar or on the job. Some sixteen years prior I had placed an ad in the "Meeting Place" as the lonely hearts classifieds were known in the Chicago Suntimes. I was twenty-nine years old and had not been in a steady relationship for many years, was tired of being alone, and my father had died not six month's prior. I kept hearing what I thought was his voice. I stalled for awhile, but the voice got stronger, so I placed a little 53 word ad, that started by saying "Marriage Minded? I am." In some ways I think the old-fashioned way may have been better than today. I received about a dozen responses, and in those days you had to be more picky, you couldn't click, write and delete. You had to put pen to paper and take some pictures (I didn't require them) and put them in an envelope and trust the United States Post Office with any future romance. The last letter I answered was from the person I'd spend the next sixteen years with. When I called, after the basic greetings, she asked what had taken me so long. I didn't say until later that she was younger than what I had asked for in my ad. She was just twenty-one, a nine year difference.

At that time there was a stigma attached to placing an ad in the newspaper looking for love. You were branded as a loser. My mother went to her grave not knowing how we met. I never told her, even years after the relationship was going and long after we both gave little thought to how we met. My two sisters don't know to this day, unless my uncle confessed.

So I have used the media to find love, and I would again.

But it was a brave new electronic world.

I composed a long and thoughtful profile, uploaded a picture, and pumped in my credit card numbers. Love was in the wires. A few short moments later I entered my zip code and --holy mutha!-- I had fifty pages of women who were promised to be my perfect match. And with about twenty women per page I couldn't miss. Like shooting fish in the old singles barrel. Hey, Happy New Year, best thing that could have happened to me. New bodies yet to conquer!

I began emailing my certain new loves. I did this in the morning and left for work. My first volley of emails and the responses would leave me in a much better world at seven that evening.

I booted up... and found no responses. It had to be a mistake. I looked all around the site for the hidden messages, but there were none. Worse, nobody had found my profile irresistible, and I had had not one inquiry, not one woman pleading with me to just talk with her.

This was the way it was for probably two weeks. Then I connected! I received an email from a woman in an fairly close suburb. We emailed back and forth and then finally chatted on the phone. We talked a long time. She was intelligent and funny and owned her own business and worked out every other day at a downtown fitness club.

We agreed to meet.

I was nervous. I texted my friend S and gave a play-by-play. I asked her if she would like to join us. She thought that it wasn't necessary and wished me luck.

My date was a little late, but I waited patiently. These are the hardest minutes. I just kept telling myself that it couldn't be too hard. If nothing else we get a nice dinner out of it and that was that. Good food, a few laughs and then scram. But why should I be worried? She had her picture posted, and she was cute. And smart. And funny. And worked out.

The sun was setting when my date arrived, and I was standing just inside the restaurant when she finally entered. I must say that only one word filled my head upon first seeing her, and that was "curvy". I realized then how much things had changed since my 53 world ad. There was a whole new internet dating language, and I needed a translator. My date literally filled the doorway.

And...she was dressed in pink from head to pinkie. She even had a pink purse. And a pink wallet inside the pink purse. I thought only one mean pink thing, having to do with packadurms. Pink packadurms.

After a rib crushing hug we sat at the bar for what I thought was a cocktail but turned into a four course meal. Shall we order an appetizer? Sure. Why don't we eat at the bar. Sure. After wiping her pink lips on the napkin after our first course she suggested two more. I couldn't help but notice the bartenders wide eyes. I couldn't eat one more thing. Then came dessert.

All the while we chatted, usually her with her mouth full.

I can't say that it was a bad date as far as major problems. It was just a voluminous date. Never, I thought, had so much been eaten by so few. It was dark when we waddled outside, but due to the luminous pink dress my date filled it was not hard to keep track of her. After another bone crushing hug that would have made Dr. Heimlich proud we parted.

Ms. Pink wanted to know what I was doing the next day, Saturday, and I lied and said I was working. In truth I spent the better part of the day walking and exercising to try and get the bulge out of my gut. Then later that Saturday evening I sat down, just me and my computer and Match.com, and tried to make a quick study out of the new language of love.

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