If you're ever tempted to engage in online dating (and, really, it should not be called “online dating”; it should be called…like…"online introductions" or something more accurate), I have three words for you:
GOOGLE. IMAGE. SEARCH.
Google Image Search will save your sanity and your wallet. It's simple: When you're on an online dating site, and there's something that seems a bit off about the person you're chatting with, you take a screen grab of the profile photo that that person has uploaded of themselves. You then open Google Image Search in a tab, upload the screen grab, and wait for the results. With any luck, the names will align and the person's identity will check out.
If you are NOT lucky, then a number of things might happen: you'll get a page of Google search results, and at the top of the page you'll see the French web page dedicated to people whose images and identities have been stolen by online dating conmen. You might see the results from the Mont Tremblant Ironman triathlon, and realize that the picture of the guy who supposedly lives in Manotick is, in fact, of a triathlon-loving rabbi who lives and works in upstate New York. You might even get taken to the FBI's Most Wanted List. (Clarification: That hasn't happened yet, but only because I've given up entirely on online dating.)
How do I know this?
Around Valentine's Day of 2021, I signed up for both Bumble and eHarmony. I got nothing out of either of them, except an alarming number of pictures of guys who'd taken selfies at the January 6th riots (we're in Canada!! People were NOT supposed to be crossing the border then!!!) and financial planner, about two hours from here, who fancied himself a bit of a man-about-town, owning a Ferrari and a collection of fourteen guitars. (Me: Do you play? Him: I picked out the opening riff to “Life's Been Good to Me So Far” once.) I packed both platforms in after six weeks.
Not having learned my lesson, I signed up for Hinge in late January of 2022. I don't know who these men are who say that they never hear back from all the women they ping; I must have pinged about two dozen guys, and the only contacts I made were with one guy from Montreal who found the love of his life the next week; a very panicky civil servant from here in Ottawa who wasn't entirely disentangled from his maybe-ex-wife. Real contacts, I should say. There was also the guy who claimed to be a project manager with Global Affairs Canada. The purported triathlete (I hope the rabbi in question tracked him down and gave him a lesson, or several). The guy who couldn't spell “Canada” correctly. And that's not even the guy who sent me a dick pic the last day of my subscription when I said I'd totally lost interest in online dating. As if that was going to change my mind at all.
I am not a confident dater by any stretch of the imagination, and failing at something like online dating (who the HELL fails at online dating? The men were supposed to be lining up the block to shoot off a simple “hi”!) was a real blow to my already not-great self esteem. Add to that the injury of only having extended contact with grifters, rather than any real connection, and I thought, that's it. Not even going to bother. Why pay money to confirm something I've always suspected? I might as well save the money to buy more guitars.
Two days later, I'm wandering over to the shower, not a stitch on me, and just about to step under the shower stream when the line hits me: “The course of true love is bullshit, like some Leonard Cohen song.”
I stood there for about ten seconds, foot under the water: Is that a line? Is that not a line? Is that just me being cynical, or does that line actually have legs?
Pause.
It's got legs.
I turned the water off, grabbed my house coat and a towel, ran over to my desk, grabbed my hook book and a pen, tried not to knock my coffee over, and knocked out the first draft of Click in five minutes flat.
A couple of days later, I had a meeting with Debbie, the songwriting coach, and told her about the idea: What about a cowpunk-rock song about an internet dating scammer who falls in love with her target?
Debbie smiled as she read the lyrics, but I remember that her eyes distinctly said: Honestly, kid, what planet did you fly in from?
Me: What if we made it a duet and had two internet dating scammers fall in love with one another?
Debbie: NOW you're talking!