Renting a Life: My Experience With Online Dating by Terri Rimmer - originally published by Associated Content, 2009

So I rent this computer the summer of 1999 though I have no money for toilet paper.

Why? Because from the time I was introduced to the Internet in 1998 I was hooked.

Then, came the naiveté that comes when first embarking on online dating, thinking that every person is okay and wanting to believe that "he is the one."

First there was Charlie from Boston who initially instant messages my best friend as I'm using her computer with a simple message of "Hey, there. So, you're an artist?"

My best friend who happened to be gay is not amused and has no idea how this guy got her email address.

She doesn't bother writing him back.

But I do.

And there it begins.

He tells me that the explanation for his email address made up of his and another woman's name is that he has a roommate who shares his computer.
It was only after I met him while he was in town at a hotel downtown and after we had sex that he tells me over a fancy dinner that that woman is his wife and he has two kids.

I continue seeing him over a few years' period though only a couple of times a year. He is, by turns cruel, cold, a little kind, sarcastic but before it's over I have to cut him off rudely and I have exposed the real him - a sad, middle-aged man who confesses that he's screwed up as I recognize the tell-tale signs of depression.

At some point in the middle of my escapades with Charlie comes Ian, a guy from England who is - all in one package - alcoholic, a mama's boy, and dumb as a box of rocks.

Lucky me.

I get him for three weeks but after two days in the States when he loses his passport I'm ready to ship him back home to his beloved pub.

He spends his days in the bar down the street where the bartender takes a crack at him verbally while I'm at work.

"You're not from around her, are you?" the bar key jokes as the other patrons laugh.

He is, painfully, obviously not the brightest Crayola in the box.

On to a recently separated father of four who calls himself "Troubled Dad" online who lives in Arizona.

We have phone sex and he seems great all the way up till the 1 a.m. pick-up from the airport where he plans on staying with me for a week.

It lasts one day, then he decides he misses his kids so it's back to Dallas to catch a flight home in less than 24 hours.

Having dated a woman before, I didn't mind it when a gorgeous woman sent me her picture through my AOL account and we soon started corresponding. She tells me that she and her boyfriend are looking for a three-way with another woman and they have only dated three months. She and I have phone sex then arrange for the three of us to meet.

I walk in a restaurant 45 minutes away at the same time as she and her boyfriend. Only I don't recognize her because the woman in front of me is as big as a house.

It is only when I am seated at the table where she and her boyfriend await me that I realize what a literally huge mistake I made.

I don't know who lost interest first. Me, who went to the bathroom and announced I had to move my car, never looking back, or she who got on her cell phone and claimed some emergency with her sister.

I was done with online dating for awhile - or so I thought.

Fast forward to 2000 and along comes Russ, a guy in his 30s who I later find out likes sponging off of rich college women because he has no job as he claims.

We have a fast and furious fling that continues for a month here or there with plenty of breaks in between and I realize I'm just a booty call so I stop seeing him.

Even now, ever so often he'll email me to see if I'm available and I don't respond though I still see him hanging out at the bagel shop with some new co-ed he's managed to live off of - for now.

I decide again I'm really done with this online dating thing and I bad mouth the concept to everyone who thinks it's so great.

Then comes 2001 and this new boyfriend tells me he's met this pair of swingers online who we should meet.

We knock on their door and she answers and boy, is she hideous!

"If that's what she looks like, what does he look like?"

My boyfriend tells me later that's what ran through his mind.

Oddly enough the girl's boyfriend is fine so we chat for awhile then have dinner with them.

However, the four-some never happens but a three-some does - between me, the girl, and her boyfriend.

Then another time just the girl and I but I have to close my eyes and pretend it's someone else.

Such was the life of a sex addict like me.

Turns out the guy is a real scum ball and tells me he wants to just date me though it never happens, thankfully.

While she's in the hospital he cleans out her bank account and leaves her with nothing and she's forced to move in with her sister after having to get her leg amputated.

Next is the "Harrah's" guy who seems to have a lot of drama in his life, including the soap opera storyline excuse he gives me for standing me up three times.

I swear off online dating after that and that promise lasts five years until I go out on two fancy dates with a woman who seems to really like me but never calls again.

I meet one other guy on a dating website for pet lovers but this gem turns out to be a full-blown con artist who has given the same lines to the same women and I manage to steer one woman away from him saving her the heartache.
She thanks me profusely and this player attracts the interest of "The Dr. Phil Show."

Even as I type this, I get "I can chat with you now" messages from perfect strangers along with messages of "Dawn a/k/a Dream Girl just bought you a drink" showing up in my in box.

But I'm not that lonely yet.