By Gina Angostura
Columnist

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I’m beginning to think that maybe I, like Buckwheat, have been wookin’ pa nub in all the wong paces.

Today, I took an online relationship test, the outcome of which was supposed to show me what kind of guy I’m looking for. Instead, it only showed me that online relationship tests are stupid.

I wasted a whole half hour comparing how things were handled in my last long-term relationship with how I ideally think they should go. I already did that for almost two decades; did I have to lose another 30 minutes of my life?

I know I like funny, easygoing idealists. What I need to know is where to find one. I tried Googling that phrase as a joke, and actually came up with a dating site for social activists. One guy in Eugene, Ore., said he was Clyde looking for his Bonnie. “Must love bank robbin’ and gettin’ shot up by the Feds.” Don’t think I want to be that much of an activist.

Another guy has a spread in New Mexico. At least it’s warm there. And it’s probably lots of fun picking soybeans by hand and making wind chimes to sell to tourists at the roadside market. I’ll have to bookmark that site. In hell.

What I think all this really means is that I’m spending altogether too much time with my computer and not enough time with real men. I read the phrase “international dateline” the other day and immediately thought it was a site where I could find foreign e-mail correspondents. Why couldn’t my soul mate be from Uzbekistan, I asked myself?

In the 21st century, we’re surrounded by so much technology that it’s easy to believe your ideal companion can be found by inputting dating data into a laptop and out will pop the name of someone who wants to actually sit on your lap.

I don’t think it really works that way.

What I need to do is spend more time with friends, like my good friend Cammie. Too bad she’s dating someone she met online and no longer has time to hang out with me to whine about the state of our affairs. Stupid computers.

So this is my plan. I’m going to take my name off all those dating sites. I don’t pay for any of them, so all I can really do is send those free cryptic messages like “I like your profile,” which really translates to “I’m too cheap to pay to talk to you, but if you’re at all interested, write to me and I’ll let you buy me dinner.”

Instead, I’m going to go out and stand on the street corner. No, no, not for that. I’m going to hold up a cardboard sign that says “Will work for date.”

If no money actually changes hands, I think it’s legal.