The Rules of E-traction

Technology has made getting to first base more complicated thanever. The Boy-meets-Girl scenario has morphed from a relativelysimple exchange to a high-tech labyrinth of cell phones, e-mail, two-way pagers and caller ID.

It used to be: Boy meets Girl. Boy gets Girl's phone number. Boycalls Girl and arranges date.

Now, besides mustering up the guts to ask for a stranger's phonenumber and actually making the call, the unattached have to worryabout things such as phone numbers that come up on caller ID as"restricted," fuzzy lines of e-mail etiquette, Internet searches thatturn up too much information about a prospective partner and cheesy(cuteasabutton@erols.com) or suggestive (lust4u@yahoo.com) e-mailaddresses.

Now it goes like this:

Boy meets Girl. Boy asks for Girl's e-mail address or takes coverunder technology's mask and searches online for it. Boy spends themorning composing a message that will wow her. Girl reads what Boythinks is his most charming e-mail flirtation yet. Girl scrutinizesday and time sent, emoticon and techie abbreviation use, content,capitalization, grammar and spelling. Girl decides to accept Boy'soffer, but plays it cool by not responding for a few hours. In thattime, Girl looks up Boy's name on Google search engine and finds outBoy ran cross country in college and spends too much time on a Yahoomessage board ranting about his obsession with Courtney Love.

Girl becomes unsure about Boy so she forwards his message to a fewfriends for analysis. Her friends give the go-ahead, using the what's-the-harm-in-a-cup-of-coffee logic, but tell her to hold off untiltomorrow to write back.

Boy refreshes his e-mail every five minutes for the entireafternoon. He becomes despondent. Girl must have rejected him. Boy e-mails close female friend for advice. Female friend reassures Boythat he is indeed handsome and charming and, even though she doesn'twant to date him, a great catch. Friend tells Boy he didn't write toosoon. Girl is probably in a meeting, or maybe her server at work isdown.

Boy does not believe his goodhearted friend. On his telephone keypad, he dials *67 followed by Girl's office number, which he foundonline. With caller ID blocked, Girl answers. Boy hangs up, without atrace.

Boy curses womankind . . . until the next morning when Girlfinally writes back. Girl agrees to meet for coffee, ending hermessage with a virtual wink [;)]. Within one minute, Boy fires off aresponse, showing his eagerness, and a back-and-forth messagingsession ensues. Girl gives Boy cell phone number. If something bettercomes up for Friday night, Girl can always pretend her battery died.

Weekend writer Sara Gebhardt is free next Thursday. She can bereached by e-mail, cell phone, two-way pager, instant messenger,Morse code, telegram and smoke signals.