If you’re a single adult in the early 21st century, chances are you’ve tried some kind of online dating service. Hey, if I can admit to having tried it, you can, too.
You know the process–you sign up, answer a zillion really dumb questions about your interests, inclinations and preferences. Then the computer plays cupid and matches you up with potential dates whose answers most closely match your own. And then…
Well, if finding your soul mate were that easy, there’d be significantly fewer single people in the world and a lot more “happily ever afters,” wouldn’t there? Besides, how exciting can it be going to dinner with someone who agrees with you about everything?
“You say potato; I say potato, too/You say tomato; I say tomato, too.”
It doesn’t even make a good song.
Maybe we’ve got it backwards. Remember the old adage “Opposites attract”? Maybe online dating services should get a clue from romantic fiction and bring people together whose backgrounds, interests and preferences are very different.
Do opposites really attract?
For Kat James and Gabe Rossiter, the hero and heroine of
Naked Edge, the next book in my I-Team series, that’s certainly the case. Yes, he’s male — six-foot-four of dark-haired, blue-eyed male, to be precise — and she’s female. But it’s more than that.
Kat is Navajo. Gabe is white.
Kat is deeply spiritual. Gabe believes in nothing — and no one.
Kat is saving her virginity for one man; she wants marriage and lots of children. Gabe drifts from one emotionless sexual relationship to the next, with no interest in being a husband or father.
Kat is thoughtful and a bit introverted. Gabe’s idea of a good time is rock climbing without ropes and skiing off cliffs.
Kat gives selflessly to her friends. Gabe has no close friends.
Deep down, Kat has an unshakable but quiet self-respect. She makes no apologies for her choices in life. Gabe behaves as if he’s the only center in his universe, but in reality he can’t stand himself.
These two never would have connected on Match.com or eHarmony.
But connect they do. When Kat is caught in a rockslide while hiking and is badly injured, Gabe, a park ranger who just happens to be rock climbing nearby, rushes to help her. This chance meeting, brought about by near tragedy, will change their lives in ways neither of them can imagine. The result?
Tension? Yes. Misunderstandings? Some. But also heat. Passion. And a “happily ever after” — for both of them.
He saves her life; she saves the soul he didn’t know he had.
One of the great pleasures of writing this story was watching two people–both of whom had been deeply hurt–as they worked through differences to a deep and abiding love. In fact, it’s these differences that helped them to overcome the past. That’s something they never would have found with a partner who was their mirror image.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading Kat and Gabe’s love story as much as I enjoyed writing it. You can read more about it here on Fresh Fiction, including a look at the real events in my own life that inspired the story, including a near-fatal mountain climbing fall.
In the meantime, what do you think? Do opposites truly attract? Should online dating services start giving clients the option of being connected with people who are their opposites?
Cat people dating dog people. Pepsi people dating Coke people. Single football dads dating single soccer moms.
It might work.
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