In a word, no. I don’t believe you can.

I think you can get to know someone and you might be in love with the idea of having the person you perceive him or her to be in your life forever, but I don’t think you can truly be “in love” over the net.

Remember that I do have some history on this subject. Back in 1994, before the www existed in Orlando, Florida, I met the man who is now my husband through a personal ad on a newsgroup sent to a local bulletin board system. We emailed back and forth many times. He seemed like such a nice man with goals, aspirations and morals similar to mine. The first emails took a day or so to reply to and before the first week was out we were both waiting for a reply.

I thought that there must be something to this or I wouldn’t be so eager to hear from him again. He seemed so perfect. We went to calling each other. (I was in Orlando, Florida, remember but he was near Melbourne, Australia!) Then we sent each other things from where we were, our favorite music and we were the best of friends, even though we’d never been in the same room together.

One day I told my grown children that I thought I’d take a trip to Australia to meet this man and they were both very upset.

“What if he’s an axe murderer or a rapist?”

This was WAY before it was common to meet someone online. There weren’t any dating sites because there were no sites at all where we lived. We ARE old after all.

Anyway, I decided that I had to know if he was perfect or not. I kept asking myself, “What if he IS perfect and I live my whole life always wondering?” Of course he could have been full of crap and a loser but I still needed to know. My soul told me to go. That’s the best way to describe how I felt. I just had to go.

I arrived in Melbourne and he was there to meet the plane with a bouquet of roses. When he saw me, he tossed the flowers on the floor and gave me the biggest hug. Then he picked up the flowers and gave them to me. I’ll never forget how great that felt.

Was he perfect? He certainly was. He still is. Ok, he’s a man and well, men do things that will always irritate women. Sometimes he leaves the toilet seat up, sometimes he forgets to take out the trash and sometimes he forgets how to empty the dishwasher. What he never forgets to do is tell me how much he loves me — every day. He treats me as a complete equal in everything.

So we decided if we could find love through the internet, maybe we should try to help others. That’s when SexyAds.com was born. Why SexyAds? To be honest, at first I thought it was a bit full-on. As the years have passed, I have come to realize that every relationship, whether you meet in person through a friend, or at a club or even on the internet, it’s all about the sex. It’s how we’re built.

Yes, I know sex is only a small part of any relationship. Friendship is way more important to me, but I’ll admit that I wouldn’t want a relationship that was only friendship. I like the intimacy that we share and would feel a great loss not to have it in my life.

So, that’s my story and I didn’t fall in love “over the net” but the net certainly played a huge part in helping two people find each other from so far apart.

I see so many men and women complaining that they are alone and never get lucky finding someone to love. I want to smack the crap out of people when they say that. They’re setting themselves up for failure with an attitude like that. If you think there’s nobody for you, you’re going to be right on the money.

I love this poem about life that I think puts it all into perspective. If you don’t ask for what you want and you settle for what you get, then don’t complain. If you want someone new in your life, he or she is there for you, you just have to have confidence and belief in yourself that you’re desirable and worthy of being loved.

“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
“For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
“I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.”
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Close your eyes and can you see yourself with someone new? Once you can do that, you’ve got the desire and it will happen. I don’t know how or where but I do know that the right person will come into your life.

Do you believe in it? If you don’t, then you’d be going against the results of the latest research on the human face and sexual behavior published by scientists in Great Britain.

In the study of 700 twentysomething heterosexuals by the universities of Durham, St Andrews and Aberdeen, results showed that one look can be enough to gauge whether a long-term relationship is on the cards, or just a one-night stand.

According to the research in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, subtle sexual signals emanate from the shape of the jaw, nose size or narrowness of the eyes - although people were not always sure about their judgments, the authors noted.

“Lots of previous studies have shown that people can judge a lot about a person from their face, including things like health and even some personality traits like introversion,” Ben Jones, from the University of Aberdeen’s Face Research Lab said.

“But this really is the first study to show that people are also sensitive to subtle facial signals about the type of romantic relationships that others might enjoy.”

Men with traits perceived as more virile - square jaws, larger noses and smaller-then-average eyes - were more regularly imagined by women as chasing short-term gratification.

The study added that women who give off come-to-bed looks are considered the most attractive by both men and women.

Women with full lips and eyes larger than average appear to send messages of sexual availability.

“Our results suggest that although some people can judge the sexual strategy of others simply from looking at their face, people are not always sure about their judgments possibly because the cues are very subtle,” Lynda Boothroyd from Durham University’s Psychology Department said.

“Yet preferences for different types of face were actually quite strong.

“This shows that these initial impressions may be part of how we assess potential mates - or potential rivals - when we first meet them.”

In one study carried out by a sample of 153 people, more than 72 per cent correctly detected the intentions of persons shown to them on a photograph.

I’ve not posted for a few days because I’ve been in the hospital with a gallstone attack. Make that two. The first trip went fine and I was ok after some pain killers and tests and after 12 hours I was sent home to await surgery. Next night at 2am, same thing - back to hospital and then another hospital and more tests and then more tests and geez, I hate hospitals. I haven’t been in a hospital other than for a bit of day surgery since my kids were born and that was in the last century.

It’s a teaching hospital so every man, woman or dog who came by wanted to poke and prod and go “hmmm” without saying a fricken thing. Finally I said, “I’m going to stand in front of the door and not let you out unless one of you tells me what’s going on.” So he said I could go home.

I have no desire to go again.

However, I was in a semi-private room (which sucked) and my roommate was a delightfully chatty woman who’d just had a breast reduction from a 38 G down to a small C. She was ecstatic and wanted to show her new boobs to everyone who’d have a look. Her boyfriend came in with a friend and she was fine with the friend having a look too. They oohed and ahhhed and I wanted to vomit. Ok, I wanted to vomit because I was sick but even if I hadn’t been sick I might have vomited too.

All I wanted was for her to shut her cheery face up and leave the curtain closed so I could moan in private.