Fishing For Love On The Net

Fishing For Love On The Net
Myles Reed, Jr.
iUniverse, Inc
ISBN: 978-0-595-42491-7
Non-fiction, Dating
Reviewed by Frederick Noronha

This book comes with the bold sub-title "A guide to those searching for love". In our day and age, that's something we all want. Something we all believe to be possible. And when we don't get "love" -- however we define it -- we feel terribly ill at ease.
Author Myles Reed, Jr's solution is to go online to find it. Reed would have us believe that "love" is available via the "ever-popular world of Internet dating". And his book promises that it "demystifies the process of online dating and shows you that out of all the fish in the sea, there is one right for you."
'Fishing For Love On the Net' is written in simple style, and easy to follow. What one can be less sure about is whether what worked for the author would work for everyone else. (Read Chapter 13 'The Wink That Changed My Life Forever' to know the author's own story.)
Cultural differences are indeed strong across the planet, and even within a country. Each one of us would, presumably, have our own way of interpreting things. Our conditioning makes a world of a difference.
Reed calls himself an "early adopter" of online dating, having started in 1999. By his own admission, it took considerable time for things to work out for him.
Yet, at the time of writing the book, he was thrilled by the result. As he puts it: "I am typing the last pages of this book with one hand and holding my ten-day-old son with the other. I can only describe it as a tremendous blessing."
Often in the book, his Christian and religious perspective comes through.
His chapters of the book make a case of why online dating "will work for you", list different dating sites, and talk about his own experiences.
Other chapters give hints on getting started, possible stumbling blocks, and some "rules" with quaint and almost-impressive sounding tiles like the Two-by-Four Rule.
At the end of each chapter come some useful hints and tips. Briefly put, they read like this:
   * Searching for love can be potentially emotionally dangerous, with the prospect of a great reward.
   * Communicating with someone new for more than seven days with high-quality dialogue is the best indication of when it is a good time to meet.
   * It is common to meet someone who initially seems right but later turns out not to be. (Ch. 5)
Reed's book, we are told, has something for everyone. Whether you've tried online dating before with little success. Or if you are eager to try it for the first time. Or even if you're only curious about this "cultural phenomenon".
So, who's left out?
To me, it was an informative read. I'd leave it to the reader to decide how much beyond practical commonsense it manages to go, in tackling a subject which is indeed complex, and which is compounded by its very newness. This book does however have useful segments though for someone wanting to understand how technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives.