This article is about on-line dating with the use of emoticons.
Many on-line dating sites, including Catholic sites, have various emoticons to help speed up the love connection. An emoticon is a digital picture or symbol of a smiley face, wink, flower, or hand wave just to name a few. They can be sent to someone you're interested in at the touch of a button, and hopefully they send one back reciprocating.
I have heard various opinions on the use of emoticons on dating sites. Some say they wouldn't respond to one because it's not as respectful as a message. In other cases, emoticons can be a sign of something to come. I look back on a girl I was once attracted to. Before I met her, I had been praying through the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux for a girlfriend who would not damage me spiritually. The Fourth of July came and I had a love-at-first-sight-moment with a simple farm girl from Oklahoma named Mandy. It was a great friendship that developed quickly.
As I tried to fall asleep that night, I wondered if she was the one I had been praying for. I knew that people often asked St. Therese for a flower to confirm what they were asking for in prayer. I asked St. Therese that she pray to God that if anyone gave me a flower the next day, I would know that Mandy would be the one who I had been praying for, because no one had ever given me a flower before. The next day Mandy and I spent the day picking strawberries and sharing our faith and dreams about the future.
On the way back home, I felt inspiration and drove to the river. We took a walk, and on the way, she smiled and picked me a daisy. I still remember that moment clearly, even though it was twelve years ago. When I looked at her, it was with awe. I didn't tell her about the sign I had prayed for. Later that evening, when we were headed back to our friend's house to make short-cake, Mandy gave all her strawberries away to a bag lady we bumped into. That spontaneous charity attracted me to her even more. After that, I pursued her passionately and tried to win her heart. Once she had returned home, we corresponded for several months through letters, and later I flew down to see her. I told her I loved her. But this story did not have a made-for-TV ending, even with the flower. Because she was meant for, and married, another man.
Years later, I found myself thinking again about that daisy. Hadn't God answered my prayer? Why did she not choose me? As I thought about it, I realized that the significance of the daisy was that it activated my will. It caused me to pursue her, to try to win her heart. My habit before that was never to be spontaneous in pursuing a woman I was attracted to. I would have never dreamt of jumping on a plane to see her, or tell her how I felt about her. The daisy was meant for me and it was a sign that broke my inhibitions. Even now, I thank God for it every day, because that simple little flower encouraged me, a guy who would have never shaken the cobwebs from his heart had it been otherwise, to love.
We can all be held back from finding love by our inhibitions that we aren't even aware of. With modern technology in on-line dating, we have digital emoticons to provide us another avenue to meet our soul mate and another remedy to break through the barriers of our inhibitions. Although I don't need an emoticon to activate my will, when someone sends me one, or responds to one I sent, it sure does help! Like the sign we ask for in prayer, we sometimes need that little something extra to activate our hearts to love again, after they have been dormant so long in a loveless slumber. Don't be turned off to the possibilities. A simple handpicked flower from the field or one fresh from digitized cyber-space could be that which wakes up your heart.
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