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What’s a guy (or girl) to do in the modern age of dating? Especially if he/she doesn’t have a computer?

Yes, such specimens exist. Specifically, I’m talking about a friend of mine who, over the years, has steadfastedly refused to join the technology revolution.

Which is fine, up to a point. I mean, whatever his reasons—maybe he’s worried he’ll have too much easy access to porn, or online bingo—he’s still living in a mostly analog world. He doesn’t have a cellphone, either. I almost have to grudgingly admire him for this.

Almost. Because, the guy’s single—and the Internet is probably the single greatest matchmaker ever invented. Without it, you’re left to use other means of trying to get a date.

For instance, this computerless mook, whom I’ll call Dale, joined a friend and I at the bar of a lounge-y restaurant the other night. My friend and I had been talking to a couple of other people sitting at the bar, including a girl I’ve know for years, whom I’ll refer to as G. She’s a yoga instructor, which may have some bearing on the story I’m about to tell.

Anyway, I guess at some point Dale and G got into a conversation that Dale quite enjoyed. So the next day, yesterday, I get a phone call. It’s Dale, pumping me for info re: G.

Not that I blame him. G. is a very attractive girl, not to mention someone who knows her way around a yoga mat. But she’d been sitting with a guy at the bar, and later they had been joined by another male friend. So this girl is not hurting for male companionship. Unless you’re Brad Pitt or Zach Galifianakis, or have something special to offer—like disinterest, say—you’re probably going to be standing in a very long line. And everyone else in that line is going to have email access and a Facebook profile.

I didn’t go into any of this with Dale, though. He already knew he was at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the computer thing; as we were saying goodbye, G. had said something about getting in touch via Facebook. Dale didn’t say anything. “What could I have said? I don’t have a computer?”

So I answered his questions—is she single, where does she work (!)—as best I could. After all, I’d been that guy, awkwardly calling up a friend or acquaintance after failing to get a number from a friend of theirs. But I also have enough experience to know that something good rarely comes of putting yourself in that kind of near-desperate situation.

But there was no point in going into any of this with Dale. I also knew from experience I’d just be wasting my breath. So I told him what I could—that the last time I’d seen her she’d been with a boyfriend, that she used to work at a yoga studio downtown (as if a guy whose idea of exercise is watching the Canucks lose is going to take a yoga class). Clearly, he was looking for a way to get in touch with her that didn’t involve a computer, but I wasn’t about to offer up a phone number, even if I had it. But, I reminded him, she had said she was going to be at such-and-such a concert, why didn’t he come to that?

“But by then a week’s gone by, and it’s just a joke,” he said.

I sighed. There’s just no reasoning with some people. Still, if the computers ever take over the planet, he might have the last laugh.