Customer Reviews

I Love You, Let's Meet: Adventures in Online Dating

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At first blush, the subject of this book might seem a bit light, but don't be fooled. This is not just a book about online dating--it's about many of life's deepest questions: how we perceive ourselves and others, how we present ourselves to the world, the deep mystery of romantic love, the difficult search for happiness, and ultimately, how we can live out E.M. Forster's challenge to Only Connect. The broad spectrum of personalities and stories makes for challenging, thought-provoking reading, and--in very engaging prose--the author bravely and honestly confronts her own romantic history. Highly recommended.

Even married people and nuns will find these tales from the dating front interesting--I found myself reliving the fun and horror of that world as Vitzthum shared her own story and others, with a twenty-first century spin.

Neither a polemic nor full of accolades, I love You, Let's Meet is a well-reasoned and well-researched book exploring the overwhelming world of online dating. Not everyone in ILYLM finds the love of his life online, nor does everyone encounter sleezy liars out to cheat them of their life-savings. The real-life stories are are at once funny and sad as people just like you and me traverse cyberspace in search of their soul mates. Although written with a voyeur's eye, Vitzthum also takes the plunge into online dating, exploring her own feelings about the trend and what she thinks living online means for the future of romantic relationships. I Love You, Let's Meet is a great combination of philosophical analysis and juicy gossip.

Vitzthum quotes psychologist Abraham Maslow's to-do list for true individuation.

"He says you have to get things straight with your family, your friends, you find your career, and only then when you're a whole person on your own, can you be part of a successful relationship. Until then you're just these broken pieces."

This rings true in the commoditization of the web and online dating sites. There are over 1,000 online dating sites in the States and approximately 25% of the population has used them at least once in their lives. But are all the gimmicky questionnaires, perky advice on how to write a better email, or use different lighting for your photo really helping the shopping-cart mentality of dating in cyber space?

For her book Vitzthum interviewed dozens of daters between 25-70 years old, gay or straight; men and women; married and single; and everyone in between. She herself online dated as well. Her opinions and observations are astute and intelligent. She says that the big online dating sites are discouraging a dater to be more honest, confessional and curious. They warn you that you will be shunned, because the adage that you're fine the way you are never sold anything to anyone. Even with this mentality the online dating industry is a $56 billion dollar-a-year money generator along with a yearly creep of 6%, which is higher than inflation. Perhaps people want to believe that they can find their one true love online, instead of waiting for that person to pick up the same artichoke you did at Trader Joe's.

Interesting, documentary-style, creative non-fiction book that takes a microscope to the online dating world and gives it a good flouncing.

Armchair Interviews says: Read it for the laughs.

As an experienced online dater, I can say that this book is spot on. I wouldn't say it's a How-To online date book, but it does give a real glimpse into the workd of online dating. Just about everything she writes about I have experienced first hand (except for the gay/lesbian dating). It even made me examine some of the subconscious choices I have made and realize why I did it. Great book!

To the extent that Vitzthum's method is descriptive and narrative, the book is a humble and efficient dossier. But in its analysis and commentary the book rises above reportage to the precincts of the humanistic essay. `What does it mean?' and `What does it mean to me?' open up cogent and sometimes brilliant meditations on the nature of human happiness, the social and linguistic construction of the self, and the manners and morals of courtship in the electronic age.

The book is wickedly funny in its dissection of the foibles of the hapless and the meretricious in this agonistic merry-go-round, and moving in its reflections on the attendant disappointments. Nor is the irreducible strangeness of looking for love in a computer database lost on Vitzthum, who brings an anthropologist's curiosity to her careful teasing out of the semiotic codes and deep structure of these online milieux, and the lifeworlds they help constitute.

Juxtaposing the almost magical potential of the apparatus with the various unsatisfactory denouments (some arising from the daters themselves and some from the medium), Vitzthum evokes the magnitude of exertion, the emotional wear-and-tear, of protracted cycles of optimism and frustration. But among the tales of Sisyphean labor are (true) stories that happen to end well, if not in full fairy-tale glow, at least in ways that are real and authentic in their humanness and particularity.

Above all, as she tells us toward the end, the author herself refuses to be crushed or disheartened. In so refusing, it seems to me, Vitzthum is making a reasoned, informed assessment that the potential is there, and that the odds are sufficient to the adventure, if daunting. She claims to persist not rationally but as an act of faith; but such a claim seems evidence of her intellectual modesty. Demonstrably there can be a there there, with Vitzthum's volume a stark and charming guidebook for the journey.

I stumbled upon this book after finding a related (and very funny) video on YouTube. On a lark, I ordered the book and found it to be quite entertaining and surprisingly deep in its analysis. It really made me think about why people search for love online and what makes for a successful search.

And the true stories were hilarious and heartwarming. Even my married friend loved this book.

I was introduced to I Love You, Let's Meet through a reader to my blog who posted the link to a YouTube video in a comment. I thought the video humorously captured what happens far too often with online dating -- you become enamored with someone through emails, IMs and phone calls. Then you meet, and nothing. No attraction, no chemistry.

I wanted to know more about the book the video promotes, I Love You, Let's Meet, by Virginia Vitzthum.

The book is a mix of interviews Virginia conducted with a broad spectrum of online daters, all ages, sexual orientations, and marital status (!), interspersed with her own experiences online dating.

Virginia's writing style is also a mix: some sociologist, some memoirist, some humorist. She sprinkles salty language and sexually explicitness in with her thoughtful insights. She tells the stories of her interviewees and adds perspective to what she hears.

It is not a light read, but instead one which seriously examines the motivations and experiences of online daters. However, the serious parts are balanced with some irony and humor, so you don't stay mired in seriousness so long as to be tedious. The opposite in fact, as you want to read more of the world she examines through the stories her interviewees tell. But unlike other memoir/story-based books, she doesn't ply the experiences for humor by making fun of the storytellers or her own former dates.

Everyone can enjoy and learn from Vitzthum's intelligently presented facts and psychological insights. Those interested in trying out online dating get helfpul advice; those retired from the dating scene get a glimpse into the wired world their children and grandchildren inhabit. A delightful read for all ages.

vitzthum's roundup of online dating characters and services is both practical and poetic. it captures the messy set of people, motivations, and results than come from this new form of encounter -- and includes some beautiful writing and observations along the way.