I've been asked if I've written my own Courtship Story. To write a good Courtship Story, a journalist needs two sides of the story. My husband of six years,  Mark Braunstein, a violin and viola instructor here in Redlands, CA, has not agreed to an interview, nor have I pushed him. So, I haven’t written my Courtship Story, however I have written the Prequel. I spent four years on the ‘Net looking for a husband. I started in the mid-1990s when no one trolled personal ads online. My friends shuddered thinking I would meet an axe murderer at “the other end of the line.” (As if you could reach the end of the Internet, see everything and go back - unless you were offed by an axe murderer.) Well, now everyone meets on the ‘Net, including many of my Courtship couples. Match.com makes the most marriages. (15 million members).

In 1996, this was a new tool for meeting men and an empowering one. I wanted to take charge of my search for a husband.  No longer would I have to depend on meeting men through friends or chance encounters at bars or supermarkets. I approached my search like an employer culling through hundreds of job applicants. I went online for quantity -- the raw numbers that only AOL could generate.

 I believed there was more than one Mr. Right out there, maybe even dozens, in the same way that I suspect that life exists outside our solar system: simple laws of probability. With an online ad, I could cast a net as wide as the country and as long as AOL's membership list. (Only 5 million or 6 million back then, but it would have to do.)

I posted on the now defunct AOL Jewish Singles, the precursor (get it? Pre-CURSOR) to J-Date. The search lasted four years and consumed every waking hour outside my newspaper reporting job. I probably could have cut the time in half without my turtle slow dial up. (click to read more)