I’d be the first to admit it, if I had used an internet dating website.  I think it’d be fun and somewhat addictive.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for me I suppose), I found my husband in a much more typical fashion:  I moved to a foreign country.  Ok, so maybe that isn’t how most women meet their husbands, but it worked for me!  I brought back more than a souvenir from Italy. 

Anyway, back to my experience…I recently forayed into internet relationship building on a site called ‘SitterCity” (the company I work for pays for its employees’ membership—as a perk.)  My husband and I are both new to the Nashville area so we weren’t sure where to begin looking for babysitters.  With this uncertainty we avoided the task…until last week.  We both had work commitments, so I decided to try out “SitterCity”, with hope of finding a babysitter for Wednesday night.   

The site was super easy.  Being the procrastinator that I am, I posted our job opportunity on Monday afternoon to see what kind of a response I would get.  Twenty four hours later, I had 13 applications!  I read through the girls’  bios, sent them messages, checked out their pictures, and of course took the “next step” with a few, by Googling their names. I narrowed the search down to my top three choices and set up interviews with them at our house on Tuesday night.   

We fell in love with the first girl who came over and offered her the job.  To be honest, the process felt natural, but I did feel quite awkward admitting to my mom that we found her grandson’s first babysitter on the internet.  It just sounded creepy and a little embarrassing—like, we were so lame that we couldn’t find a nice girl in real life.  Oh well, it worked and I’m sure I’ll “date” on the internet again next time I need a sitter! 

What do you think?  Would you ever use an internet sitting site, or are we really that lame? 

Sarah Travaglio blogs at Capa Tosta.