More amusement park rides

I was thinking about how online dating is like being in an amusement park. We've already talked about roller coasters and merry-go-rounds. Let's think about my favorite when I was a kid: the arcade.

You remember what it's like to pay your entrance fee and walk through the gate of the amusement park or county fair? Your senses are assailed with a cacophony of sights and sounds and smells. Similarly, when you first register at an online dating site and start looking at profiles and photos, you're overwhelmed and excited by the number of apparently available single people in the age range and category you're searching.

It's like walking into the arcade. You go up to the game where your objective is to toss a ring over a soda bottle or a ping pong ball into a small fishbowl. Or for a more apt analogy, how about the shooting gallery, where continuously moving targets beg you to take your best shot.

So you carefully craft your profile and choose your best photo to better arm yourself to hit the target. You read profile after profile, you save your favorites, you decide where you're going to start, and you wink or send an e-mail. And another. And another. Maybe you receive a wink or e-mail in return. In my experience, you only occasionally hear back from those with whom you have communicated. So you take another shot.

Is it simply a numbers game? You shoot enough bullets and eventually you'll hit some target that will go down?

I truly don't have an answer for what it takes. I just want to win that big teddy bear to take home and prop up on my bed.