This is a story about dating.  Do you know anything about dating?  I bet you think you do.  Really?  What if everything was a lie, a hazy-day fantasy, a theatrical arrangement?  Read on.  This story has two parts, and may help you understand a thing or two about life, friendship, and dating in the time of cholera.

It all started with a request from a man.  Hold on, don’t rush to judge anyone yet.  Sit down, let’s look at it with an open mind, better yet, with an open heart.  This is also the story about a man who became a friend.   Right upfront I tell you that the ideas and words in this text may appear a bit disorganized at first, a bit rushed, a bit out of place.  But what if your life was all that too, and you were rushing because chaos was chasing you to the very end?

When you get to the last two or three paragraphs, maybe not in this article, but in the next one, you’ll enter a more poetic realm, a medieval reference of sorts, with castles, and codes, and roads, and smoke signals, you’ll think ‘something is going on in there’ (of course, smoke signal means pick up the phone, baby, got it?).  The number of codes, and mountains, and windows, and roads, etc., obviously, refers to a phone number.  Don’t think it’s so obvious though.  Most of the women who are in these dating sites don’t have time to be thinking about castles and codes and bullsh.t.  They get home tired, only to have to feed the kids, maybe there’s an ex-husband who is an asshole, bothering, and she has to deal with him, maybe there are parents, or school, or the kids’ schools, or the kids’ homework, or PTA meetings, and a whole lot of activity which is not making her all too happy.  So when she wants “action” she has no time for poetic bullsh.t.  Get with the program, or get out of my way.  Period.

This is the 21st century, and let me tell you, I know a couple of women like that, and I applaud their spirit, for all the sacrifices they have to make and all the bullsh.t they have to put up with, just to get things going fairly well at home.  Meanwhile, the ex is scratching his balls in some sofa, watching football without too many worries, and with a couple of more beers than he needs, and getting laid here and there without too much compromise with anyone, or commitment with his own children’s mother.  It is tough, and yes, sometimes it is unfair.  So when a woman is pissed off about all those things, who can blame her?  And when she wants to have fun, oh, I understand, she wants to have fun, and she doesn’t want the b.s. that sometimes happens after the fun.

Those not familiar with the dating scene, you should know that this situation is described as something like “single woman/man seeking single man/woman (variations allowed), no baggage, no commitment” or something to that effect.  If you don’t know what that means, that means, decent restaurant, couple of drinks, couple of hours chatting, if things go “chemically” well, fun part happens.  If not, start from zero the next night, with some other soul, smiling more, wishing for the best.

But let’s get back to the code thing.  When I wrote that–in a moment you’ll know what I wrote and where I wrote it–I intended to get through hundreds, maybe more, of visitors who would read my profile and maybe show some interest in you, well, me, in this case.  But if she didn’t quite decipher the code, oh well, hey, listen, she didn’t decipher the code, period, and that’s it, we don’t talk.  No crime in there.  However, it was important to do it this way. But Why?

First of all, you want to filter out the weeds.  There are dangers galore out there.  If you want to meet women that are decent and at least schooled, you should search for women who read and write and think and reason.  In an online world, a profile that’s a bit too long, will immediately look “too long to read”, or “too scholastic to be fun,” or “too complicated a mind to control” (don’t tell this to my ex-wife), or just “too much b.s. and books and pamphlet for just a simple fun night.”

Now, fun is important, but brother, brains count a whole lot more, believe me.   Having a long profile, with words well thought out, well studied, well chiseled, will return intelligent smiles, sweetly mysterious approaches from educated minds and delicious wild kittens, oh no, the fun won’t be diminished.  Need I say more.

Second, Yahoo Personals, or AOL Personals, or Match.com, or eHarmony, or MSN Dating and Personals, and all those websites who offered or still offer to post your profile for free, yes, they’ll do it for free, but that’s all you get for free, posting it.  You can see other people’s profiles, but you can not contact them.  If you’ve never tried this, they’ll get you really desperate and anxious with little teaser buttons of “WINK AT THIS WOMAN” or at this guy, or at this person, whoever it is you want to wink at.  Or they would invite you a million times to become a member for about 60.00/3 months, about 20.00/month, and then you can email (through their website), any person in the dating website who may be interested in you, or whom you may find interesting.

Yahoo Personals recently was acquired by Match.com.  There are other big websites out there who will assist you with your love needs and dating tribulations, for a price, of course.  For a price, practically anyone can help you in your search for love, the bus driver, the postman, your cousin, your boss, your hairdresser, oh, yeah, hairdressers are big on dating advice.  Women hairdressers can give good advice because they hear so much about so many things, you should pay them the 20 bucks extra the day you go for your hair and nails, and save the 60 bucks from the dating website membership fee.

Men hairdressers may give you good advice too, but since most of them are gay, they tend, I think, to be experts on how to steal a boyfriend from another guy, I suppose, maybe not, I don’t know any, really, but I have great gay friends with whom I talk openly about many things, and yes, I hear that hairdressers apparently give some good advice.  I know for a fact that women open up rather quickly with a gay man, friend, faster than with other women they don’t trust so easily.  Perhaps they, the women, feel less fear about their own boyfriend/husband being “stolen” by a gay hairdresser than by a female friend.  Oh boy, it happens all the time.  It’s ugly out there.

But advice, as advice goes, I’d say you’re better off going with the advice of your female friend-hairdresser or with your male gay or straight friend hairdresser, because the computer thing and the dating website won’t give you any good advice.  It’ll rip you off, it’ll take your money, all of it, like a drug addiction, and it will invite you to come back tomorrow and pay some more.  And if your hairdresser doesn’t know much about dating, listen to me: DO NOT PAY ANYONE.  Get out there, get a bottle of Havana Club or Bacardi Rum, drink it all, sing outloud, you’ll get noticed really fast–no bra, of course, that’ll help a whole lot–and just TALK to people.  No, seriously, LOVE, in capital letters, doesn’t happen if you don’t talk to the object of your affection.  Unless the object of your affection is one of those big polyurethane dolls on a long and rainy lonely night.  Hm, well, that’s an idea…

At the end of the trip, most of those websites make a fortune out of the necessity of humans to communicate with each other, they make a kill out of your desperation to connect with another human being and feel the warmth of a human hand through your hair, and warm eyes gazing at you, and smiling at you, and smiling with you.  They know you need it, they will charge you for it.  You will pay it, and you MAY NOT GET IT.  Don’t believe it?  Try it.  60 bucks, not the end of the world.  You may come back and read this again another day.  Hopefully you’ll find the perfect man/woman online before then, if that’s what you’re looking for.  But in the majority of the cases, it doesn’t happen that fast or that easily.

I wouldn’t pay them a dime, honestly.  Instead, here are two strategies that may work for you.  Sure, you may not find the same amount or quality of people, or the people with the same exact level of income, or personal interests as in the paid sites, but you will find average human beings in both types of dating websites, and both being humans after all, the purpose is the same: meet that special someone–or several special “someones” if you know what I mean, one every week–who could make you happy the way you hope or dream, while you climb the lonely roads to the Summit of Happiness.

Difficult to find happiness, though.  Have you tried?  Did you find it yet?  OK, if you tried and failed, now try this.  STOP searching out there.  Start searching within you.  It’s there, inside you.  I know, don’t bullsh.t me, I’ve been there.  Found it yet?  OK.  Put it on, NOW!  WEAR IT as if you were wearing a war vest and shield.  It’s that simple.  Life is like a war, and if you put on a war-ready smile, a happy face, you will be victorious.  You are now a HAPPY PERSON.  Good for you.  Let them talk.  It’s all bullsh.t.  They are unhappy too.  Get your buttocks (see, I’m an educated man, I didn’t call it ‘your big fat ass’), alright, let’s try again, GET YOUR BEAUTIFUL BUTTOCKS OFF THE FLUFFY SOFA!  Oh, easy with the accent, sir.  Well, you get the idea.

The idea is this:  at home, behind a computer, you WILL NOT FIND LOVE.  You can watch a lot of skin-to-skin action, you can masturbate, you can make a connection one day, a ten, and you can eventually get laid, sure.  And that’s all good.  You’re a big girl, or a big boy.  Nothing wrong with all that.  It is the 21st century after all.

But if you want love, book a trip to Florence, go buy pastry in a corner, talk to the flower delivery guy, your world will be changed for the better, you will be shaken by the new experience, you will see things in a different light, and then, when your heart is open again, open to love, to light, to laughter, to reason, to beauty, to human communication, without expecting anything in return, and without any previous notice and without expecting it, a lonesome gentleman (or lady) will suddenly ask you “bon giorno, signorina, where is the entrance to the Galleria Uffizzi?”  THERE!   That was the moment you were waiting for, for years.  You are looking at your little map, or you are wandering about Piazza de la Signoria, and then, BOOM!  It hits you!  There!  Right There!   That’s when you have to talk.  The angels brought you the opportunity.  Now it’s your turn.  Smile, coño, smile, don’t let it go, talk, c’mon, talk, you can talk like a parrot, yeah, you know how to talk.  This is the moment to start talking, ready, set, go!  Talk!

Of course, you don’t believe it, but love can happen anywhere, anytime.  It doesn’t have to be in Italy. It could be in Louisiana, when you went there to work as a volunteer and then suddenly you are helping an elderly woman, and the grandson is a man with eyes like an eagle–also desperate for real love, but you don’t know it yet–and it clicks, right in there, it clicks like the master key that opens the door to your house lock.  When you’re 20, it looks different, it tastes distinctly new, wild, fantastic.  When you are in your 40s, like most of my friends now, love tastes wonderful too, but we are a bit different, more beat up by the events and ingratitudes of life, maybe less tolerant with others, and we see little imperfections in pretty much anything or in any behavior that we then simply find not perfect.

Oh well, advice #1, perfection is the enemy of love; advice #2, perfection is the enemy of happiness; advice #3, do you want to be happy?  Then shut up and cooperate.  What does it mean: imperfection happens, in China, in Patagonia, in Oklahoma, in Russia, and in your own home and your own life.  Learn to live with it.  If you do, you will find love, and you will be happy!

Need more advice?  Ask your grandma, or an elderly woman close to you or your family.  Chances are that woman had ONLY ONE MAN in her whole life.  Maybe not, maybe she had two or three relationships, or a couple more.  But these days, many young women, and young men, but in the case of women in particular, a young Western-culture woman in the 21st century may have from just a couple to practically dozens of intimate relationships before she gets to the first stage of marriage, if they get to marry at all.

I promised I would give you 2 strategies. Rather, these are websites where you can network for free, in the dating scene.  You don’t have to be looking for a partner or a love or the like.  But you will find people with similar interests.  I frequently enter and browse the Travel section of this website, and have talked to women and men about France, Italy, the Middle East, Mexico, Cuba, Florida, and other destinations, and yes, I have checked out the dating forums.  I feel no shame in being myself, as long as you don’t hurt others.  Since I teach business and technology, one of my marked intentions is to help those learning how to use these emerging technologies understand that there is nothing wrong in visiting websites of this nature, as long as you don’t do it at work, or in the presence of children or minors, if you are accessing explicit content in adult sites.  Other than that, there should be no shame.  Of course, one must always measure his/her words in these forums.  EVERYTHING you say gets recorded in a blog or database, EVERYTHING.  Here are the two websites, which you can add to your “dating” arsenal to help your own successful strategies, if you use the right wording to “sell yourself” out there:

1. Meet Up .com (www.meetup.com)   2. Plenty of Fish (www.plentyoffish.com)

Easy, open another tab, type the web address, meetup.com, or plentyoffish.com, and set a search parameter, boy looking for girl, for example, and you’ll be up an running in no time, reading interesting profiles of people like you, who want to get in the fun too.  If you go visit, these two sites are free, although there are many others that carry a credit card charge, so be cautious.  In some circles, you must first join a group to be able to read posts or message boards from a specific group of people.  For example, French women interested in Sunday morning baking.  Oh, yes, of course I’d love to get in that group, but they know you’re not interested in baking butter bread (hm, bakin’ sounds nice and warm…), I was saying, they know you have no business baking bread on Sunday at 7 am, and you are not a woman, well, of course you’re not going to be given access by the moderator of the group.  But if you try, ‘Floridians interested in Calypso dancing,’ hey, things are going to start shakin’ good pretty soon!

Are you lonely now?  Try that.  Go to meetup, type ‘tango.’  Be open.  Good luck.  Let’s talk in a couple of weeks.  Oh, you naughty little pervert…

Alright.  Up to here, things are fine.  By now, 98% of my readers already went to at least one of those two websites, or thought about going right about… now.  Of course, it’s human curiosity, intuition, anxiety, morbidity (morbosity, casi casi se me escapa, compadr, qué clase de traductor de tres kilos tú me has salido, con esa mente morbosa que tienes en la cabeza, chico).

In any case, now that we’ve gotten so far, it’s only fair I disclose the real reason why I posted a profile on those dating websites in the first place.  If some of my cursing language made you a bit uncomfortable, and if it all looked a bit chaotic, a bit unkempt and disorganized, well, it was all intentional, and for a reason.  Life gives us love, and it gives us chaos.  We must find a way to sort out the garbage and separate the honey from the vinegar.

This story does not have a happy ending, but from all difficult experiences one can draw safe conclusions and learn useful lessons.

Around 2006, 2007, or so, I met a man who needed assistance in learning computers.  This man, who later became a friend, had a severe disability.  This man was a quadriplegic, which means that he could not move any of the main four extremities, neither of his two legs or arms.  So many years ago, he had had a very serious accident on a bicycle, when he was riding on those big concave canals where they ride and jump in the air and do risky acrobatics and crazy moves.  Well, this guy, who had been pretty active in his youth, did one of those crazy things, and one day, one bad day for him and his family, he flew in the air on a bike, and apparently, he had not measured the jump and the fall that well, and when he came down, he fell head first, and damaged his spinal chord for life.  It’s a rather sad story, but it is a true story.

I’ll spare the tale of the medical treatment, medication regimen, physical therapy, and/or advanced surgical and respiratory procedures this person was submitted to on a daily basis.  The man went on with his life, as best he could, and he had to learn again how to do pretty much everything and anything, and he learned and he did everything reasonably well, given his limitations, from his motorized wheelchair.  He would control every movement of the chair, from a little tube he could reach with his mouth, and he would blow at different strengths of the mouth blow or the mouth sip, depending on whether he wanted the chair to move forward, to stop, to go right, to go left, or to go faster or slower.  This man, let’s call him James, James the Mechanic.

James the Mechanic was a great guy.

When I came to James’ life, my only intention was to help him learn a computer database management program called Access.  I had taught him PowerPoint, and he had passed the MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) Certification Exam, one of the required tests to complete the whole package of subjects for the final certification of this discipline.  It was obvious that in the workplace, most likely, employers would choose someone who could just use the software without so much complication, because he had to use a special software to speak through a headset microphone system to the computer, and give it whatever instructions he wished, you know, a voice-activated software, like Dragon Naturally Speaking.

It was a challenging situation.  Employers, or potential employers may be easily discouraged to help or hire him because the cost of revamping a computer network system to fit the needs of the new employee, hey, it could add up to a few hundred bucks here or there, and not everyone was willing to go with that arrangement.  But he wanted to do it, he wanted to prove himself, and at one point they called me, and we worked together towards achieving his goal.  I helped him all I could, not because I was getting paid to do it, but also, because I believed in the power of the human spirit.  I still believe in the power of the human spirit, and I am sure that if you set a realistic goal for yourself, even if it’s so darn close to impossible, if it is humanly possible, when you try hard enough, you will succeed.

But then James the Mechanic learned how to navigate a brave new world, through his computer at home.  And then he wanted TO DATE.  To date?  Online?  Are you crazy?

Since there was a level of professional responsibility involved, I didn’t want any liability or conflict with the college I was then teaching at, and discussed the issue with an authorized colleague with influence on the subject.  Let’s call this other person, Dr. Ronald.

I discussed with Dr. Ronald ways in which our friend would learn what he needed to learn, while providing limited but prompt and sound advice about online activity that was already happening, because this man knew he would not be here in this planet, alive, for too much longer, and wanted to explore and discover new things today, not tomorrow.  Few times in life have I seen end of life issues so close as in this situation.  And I am glad I interceded for this man, my friend James the Mechanic, to allow not only the teaching of the databases and software for his certification exams, but also, gain a bit more freedom to browse, RESPONSIBLY, online material like race cars videos at YouTube, which he enjoyed immensely, and construction of houses, and popular mechanics, and related subjects that he enjoyed.

I am glad for him.  Seeing this man sitting back in his wheelchair watch a video of a 1957 Corvette, one of his favorite machines, or a Pontiac Firebird, or a GTO, this guy was flying high, as happy as one can be.

Then he wanted to enter a completely different realm, altogether.  The world of dating.  Careful with the ax.

It had to be on clear terms, really careful not to violate any policies of the educational institution involved, but still, being a course on databases and emerging  technologies and the world of internet, we were able to navigate friendly, non-explicit dating content and general content websites, within the parameters of decent browsing and exposure agreed with Dr. Ronald, so that our friend could learn how things like the Amazon marketplace worked, or how you could sell or buy a motorcycle on eBay, or many other extended topics in the world of e-commerce, including the sale of consulting services, dating services, insurance services, you name it, we talked about it in a controlled environment of academic interests.

But this guy wanted more.  He wanted to move full throttle ahead, into the “business” of online dating.

So I knew he wouldn’t be around for long.  He himself would tell me that, it was a recurring line.  He didn’t say it all the time, but he was quite aware about his physical condition and his limitations.  On a couple of occasions, he had just “turned off,” so to speak, the lights.  He had passed out temporarily, involuntarily, and we all got really scared.  During the last few weeks I worked with him, those “lights out” episodes started to happen with more frequency, and there were days when he simply would stay in his home facility, particularly if it was cold, or rainy, as he could not produce enough body heat by himself to keep him warm and comfortable out of his medically-equipped home facility.

But dating, he learned too.  He was going to get the exposure he wanted, and his profile up and running as fast as he could make it fly.  I didn’t do it, or I didn’t do it all.  Outside of the school hours, I prepared a series of lines, sincerity above all, announcing his physical condition, so that whoever approached him would know what kind of limitations she would find.

I am very respectful of people’s privacy, so I didn’t want to get involved in very specific private matters, nor did I want to handle his email or manage his responses.  I suggested the creation of a completely different email account, linked to his profile, and from that platform, he could jump into the cumbersome ocean of plays and emotions surrounding the online dating world.  In that manner, he wouldn’t jeopardize his identity, his laptop, his finances, or the school.  And he could play all he wanted, on his spare time at home, and play little devil with whoever he wanted.  Oh that, he did, yes, he flirted with every other woman in town, online, I mean.  Good for him.

James the Mechanic was eager to do in fifteen minutes online, everything he could not do–and had not done–in fifteen years stuck in his wheelchair, in the era of the Internet.

Of course, his adventures and tribulations would go further.  But that part is not relevant now.  When we finished the course, and he had passed his first exam with me–he had passed another two exams with another trainer–he asked me to take him to Miami Bayside.  I thought about it for quite some time, because I didn’t know how he would react to stimuli, food, the sun, etc.  In the end I did, as a reward for finishing the course.  I walked by his side.  The man was so happy to see and hear the roaring engines of a “cigarette” (fast race boat) parked in the water right in front of the Bayside restaurant area.

James was happy, and inspired about the new world of online flirting.  That afternoon, he wanted to have a beer.  I had told him many times that I’d gladly invite him for a beer, but never at the college, never on school hours, and never if the invitation would put in danger his health or my employment.  In reality, his medical condition was not the best, and that I felt that alcohol didn’t really contribute to his general health status in any positive way, shape or form.  “Fuck my health,” he’d respond.  “I’m already fucked up, and stuck in this fucking wheel chair.”

He was right all the way.  So when we got to a good viewing location, on the second floor of the restaurant area of the Miami Bayside tourist complex, looking north, you could see all the nice boats anchored in front of you, some of the tall buildings of downtown Miami, and even the big cruise liners all aligned in the distance by the causeway or entrance canal to the bay.

And he wanted his beer.   For months I had denied him the right to have his cigarettes, or rather, to have his cigarettes lit by me.  Remember, he could not use his hands, at all, so somebody had to light his cigarette.  Well, I had told him so many times that I was disgusted by the cigarette smoke and that I was the wrong guy to ask, because I had smoked for about 16 years, and one brave day I said “enough, I quit,” and then I had been clean for 14 years, and had no intentions of taking back that nasty, silly vice ever again.

But I still always found him someone who could pull out a cigarette from his chair, which he carried in his backpack, and light it for him.  And this day, he wanted to have a beer, simple, smoke and alcohol.

“I don’t buy beer for my students,” I said.  Deep inside, I was hoping he would give me the only response that could, in my mind, and in reality, release me from any liability or perceived violation of college policy, and that could get him a beer.  After all, he was no longer my student, as we had completed all expected course work, and all exams programmed.  And more than that, the man was dying, and did not want sermons or speeches, he wanted a beer and a cigarette.

So he answered in a friendly manner, but with a determined ‘now-gimme-a-fucking-cold-beer-right-now’ tone:  “I am NOT your student anymore.  I am a kick-ass son-of-the-bitch who aced my exam.”   He actually was right, he was both:  no longer my student, and had aced the final exam.  And those were the magic words I needed to hear.  So I got him a simple cheese pizza, the one he desired, and a Bud Light, which the attendant poured into a plastic container next to his chair, with a really long sipping straw attached.  We then moved slowly to the balcony area where the magnificent view awaited, along with the warm spices emanating from a thick cheese pizza crust.  I fed him the pizza first, which he enjoyed immensely, and then I ate mine.

Now, the beer deal, oh Lord, James sipped his whole beer slowly, smilingly, happily, as if it was the last one on Planet Earth.  It possibly was his last one.

After he finished his beer, I had the afternoon free, with no class to teach at the other college, so  I sat by his side while he entered a state of nirvana, I suppose, because the beer knocked him down for at least two hours.  I didn’t think it was responsible for me to let him drive his 30-grand computerized wheel chair with alcohol in the system.  So I left my dying friend enjoy his “fucking beer” as he pleased, under the best possible supervision, with a friend.  So he drank it, he slept it off, I supposed he peed it later, in the urine container he carried at the bottom of his wheel chair, and when he woke up from paradise, then I asked him what he wanted to do.

He had arranged for the STS (Special Transportation Services) guy to pick him up later that evening.  So we call the STS guy, always the same guy, they knew each other, I accompanied him back to the pickup location, outside of the bayfront park area, and he was picked up and taken back to his living quarters.  I never saw James as happy as that afternoon.  He had accomplished his goal, had passed his difficult exam, and was inspired with the avalanche of new things he was learning in the midst of the brave new world of the Internet.  But his health was failing badly.

That’s the story of Billy the Kid, the story of James the Mechanic.  I used to tease him with those names, maybe I would call him something else, I don’t know, King of the World.  But always jokingly.  We talked about many things.  He liked listening to my stories about trips and travels around the world, which I have enjoyed my whole life, or my stories as a Cuban political refugee in big ole USA, and dreadful stories about Socialism, and how beautiful Cuba was, is.  He would tell me stories about Viet Nam, where he had been a helicopter mechanic, and all the crazy things he did here and here, which made him in a way proud, probably for the spirit of brotherhood he felt towards his colleagues and old pals from the times of Nam.  He always carried that spirit from those difficult years, always carried it close to him, like a flag you can’t let fall.

And he would carry that spirit, that flag, until the end.

Now that you know the story of James the Mechanic, maybe you understand why it was a pleasure to write a profile for him to post on a dating website.  He had challenging situations with women shooting at him, hitting on him.  But he got through them, with flying colors.  Success?  Oh yeah, he got successful at it.  The man got a couple of good “dinners” for himself.

One day, they called from the college saying that James had had a serious setback, a stroke had left him with very little brain activity, and things didn’t look promising at all.  He had fallen during bathing at the hospital-home facility, a few weeks back, and it got him hurting for weeks.  His breathing had complicated dramatically, and his alertness had diminished considerably, even during class time or during training sessions, he would fall asleep for long minutes, which got me, and Dr. Ronald, somewhat scared.  Although we had completed the course, he had put off the final database management system certification exam due to his medical condition at that moment.  There were other issues about continuing funding his classes when most likely no employer would realistically offer him a job.  So some administrators in the college environment saw his training as a complete waste of time.

I neither agreed nor disagreed with this view of some at the college.  I believe in the power of education, and I’m all for it.  But in realistic terms, unfortunately, the cost of education has increased dramatically in the last 3 decades, and looking at the cold numbers, there was zero chance that any employer would offer him a job.  Whatever the case, he would never return to those classes again.

Three days after the stroke, James fell in a coma, then in a profoundly vegetative state, which was finally deemed an irreversible stage.  As soon as I learned of his condition, I went to see him there at the hospital.  Connected to a bunch of tubes and beeping machines on both sides of his bed, I was able to talk to his wife, or ex-wife, his son, and we shared some moments about his life, or the part that I knew, his learning of the software he was pursuing and the college classes he’d taken.  I said goodbye to a friend who had made the absolute best out of the no-way-out situation he had been dealt years before, including, learning computers and navigating an ever increasingly complicated online universe.

James the Mechanic passed on peacefully that night.

His family, friends, and a few college associates who appreciated him, went to say a final goodbye at a serene church in Coral Gables.  A very beautiful prayer and religious ceremony was arranged by a close friend and his wife, who had provided substantial financial support in the latter years of our friend’s life.  I contributed all the photos I had taken with his permission, beforehand, and they used some of those images in a very nice PowerPoint presentation showed at this religious service to honor our friend.  We don’t know the meaning of complete peace, but this is one of those situations when one says: “it’s better this way, at last the person has peace.”  I think he must now be in peace.

I’m happy to report, as he himself would repeatedly, yet privately say, that before he left this world, he was able to see for himself and enjoy any way he could whatever the online dating world had for him.   That, he was able to enjoy.

And the world of dating kept on going.  Advice was and is still being given to millions day in and day out.  And hundreds of thousands of dollars change hands every single day, almost always from the hands of frustrated singles, or single-again, or divorced people to bloody-fang dating websites, who are so ready to promise the magic, the elusive love, for 60 bucks, or your money back.

I still come around the site now and then, and read and re-read the wording I wrote for my own profile.  While I was not looking, I was in fact single, single again, and it wouldn’t hurt to post it.  I showed my friend James a bunch of times what I had done, and with a teaching spirit, showed him how technology and society were interwoven in a commercial operation online that would produce profits for one side, and happiness for its counterpart.  Beyond that professional tone of our student-professor relationship, he enjoyed every new change I made to his profile, or to mine, oh, he enjoyed it when we talked about online dating. With every word, he was living to the fullest!  And outside of the teaching hours he would always inquire how things were going.  This by no means occupied his mind all the time, by he saw a new universe of things, words, dreams, people, relationships, humanity open before his eyes, when he got home and turned his computer on.

It is not probable that I will delete my profile any time soon.  I honestly don’t use it, or don’t use it much.  I hope I never offended any woman when I didn’t return the winks or the hellos, but since the very beginning, although I did a million searches voluntarily, and with the hope of finding the perfect someone we all dream of, even when I discovered great people, women with fantastic personalities, and very appealing profiles, the truth is that since day one I didn’t put much trust in those websites as being the main tool for finding happiness.  Today, I still don’t.  But I celebrate those women (or men), who Friday after Friday, search and connect, and party on, and continue fighting to find happiness.  I have a few friends in those sites, and I think they work fairly efficiently, up to the extent you want them to yield a realistic result.  To them, my female friends, all the luck of the world in their search for love.

And since we live in a free world, for many of us, love is still out there, waiting, so hey, click on, you (we) desperate lovers!

Ricardo Trelles