A Veggie Tale (minus the religious connotations)

my mom has had a few boyfriends in the past year, the latest being a great guy with a dry sense of humor and a big heart. one day a few years ago, i asked her how she met these guys. i thought through friends, at a bar, maybe the gym, and her response was online. my mom picked up men on the internet! i imagined her on aol where she'd im someone saying "hey sugar, wanna meet up? i'm 53, blonde, and i drive a honda." ok, so that's probably not how it went down. after many prodding questions, i found out she's more of a match.com and jdate person. no craigslist for her; she's a lot more technologically savvy than us city people. with these dating boards, she's got some serious background information right at her fingertips like amount of hair remaining on head and favorite childhood pastimes.

so i was thinking about this last week because i went to fill out my ballot for the veggie awards (don't ask, just nod and smile). one of the categories was "best veggie website," and it listed veggiedate as one of the choices. so i was expecting a great website. a best of the best of the best. not the best of the best of the worst of the best. i went to the website, not for a man, as i have a great (and veggie) one already, but to see what it was about. maybe i was missing a great place to meet veggie people and learn more about how i should be protesting outside of neimans or not eating honey and cheese (separately or together). veggiedate, though, was pretty simple; i could enter age preferences (up to 90 yrs old), height requirements(4''8" up to 6'8"), and type of vegetarian level (vegetarianish-at-home, whatever that means, to raw). so, just for the fun of it, i entered some basic data and got a list of my matches... and they looked scary. or old. or both. the man with a receding hairline to his neck cannot be 28! i don't know what i can deduce from this. maybe the good looking (or even semi-good looking) veggies must have all found each other, created a natural/nuddist colony, hooked up already, and removed themselves from society. perhaps they know how to socialize with others and don't need a low-budget website to meet people. or they haven't seen veggiedate yet. or they're all asexual, thereby having no need for dates. or they're too busy passing peta leaflets out. or they've all been jailed for trying to free willy.