This week's column:He's very much out-of-date

I remember from when I was a dating person, sometime before the turn of the century and after the Paleozoic Era, that the whole process was a complicated, messy affair. First you had to actually meet someone somewhere, like your office, the Laundromat or through a friend who pitied you. Then you spent months getting to know the person while doing your best to make sure they didn’t get to know you, at least not the real you, the you with five-day-old stubble and pile of old socks under your bed. It was exhausting.

Fortunately I’m married now, so the only person I “date” is my wife — and we have young children, so our dates consist of anything we happen to be doing without them, like looking for furniture or comparing paint swatches. At least we know all the dates will eventually wind up in bed, although in between us will likely be two kids, a lumbar pillow, a black Lab and a golden retriever (whose noses can get pretty darn cold, incidentally).

But I think it would be difficult for my wife and me to start dating today, given the archaic way we got together — spending months as co-workers while pretending not to be attracted to each other, and then starting to date without telling anybody. We didn’t fill out any forms or record any videos, and we certainly didn’t use computers, which back then were primarily for playing solitaire.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.