Imagine, if you will (and I realize this is a stretch, but indulge me) that online dating sites have been around for centuries…which, of course, would mean that computers have also been around that long (I said it was a stretch).  Okay, now if that were the case (c’mon, suspend disbelief for awhile), just imagine the people who could have met that way and what some of the conversations (translated as necessary) would have sounded like:

ARISTOTLE:  Hi, Pythias.  You know, GrecoRomance.com* thinks we’re 98% compatible.  Maybe it’s because we’re both professionals – you being a biologist and I a philosopher.  So I thought, if you like, we could meet someplace for a glass of Retsina, converse a little, and see if that website is right.  Or if we just bore the hades out of each other.

PARIS:  You really are quite pretty, Helen.  I’m surprised you’re on a dating site.  Although, I have a rough idea why, since you’re married to Menelaus…and not very happily, from what I hear.  Anyway, I’m going to be in Sparta next month, so maybe you can sneak away from that philandering, ill-tempered spouse of yours for a little while and we can get together and just see how things go.  A safe, out-of-the-way place, obviously…my family isn’t too popular in your city.

CLEOPATRA:  Hi, Roman General who won’t reveal his name.  You sound interesting, though.  But you say your interests, outside of waging wars, are drinking and gambling and womanizing.  Which I can understand…you do need a release after running around slaughtering people.  But keep in mind, I’m a queen and have an image to hold on to.  So before I agree to get together for a test-meet, you’re going to have to promise me, if we decide to move forward, you’ll stop your carousing.  The slaughtering is okay.   

DONNA LUCREZIA:  Well, well, look who is here.  Casanova, you cad, now that you’ve gone through most of the eligible, as well as ineligible, women in Rome, you have to search the rest Italy for new prospects?  You never have enough, do you?  Like having sex with me four times that night and then immediately moving on to my 17-year-old sister Angelica?   I forgive you, my dear, but one of these days a cuckolded husband or two won’t, and I fear you’ll end up spending the rest of your days singing with the castrati.

PIERRE CURIE:  Marie, we seem to have a lot in common.  Odd how no one seems to be interested in pitchblende, torbernite, chalcolite  and thorium.  Anyway, I’d love to meet you and, over lunch, discuss my theories on ferromagnetism, paramagnetism and diamagnetism.  Your interest in radium and polonium most impressed me.  I may be wrong but I have the feeling that one day everyone will know the name Mademoiselle Sklodowska.

PABLO PICASSO:  Francoise, thank you for your mostly complimentary post on Francofixup.com, and possible interest in a face-à-face meeting…that is, you said, as long as I promise to never paint a “face-à-face” (as you refer to my abstract portraits) representation of you like the ones I did of Dora Maar.  Ah, Francoise, I so want to meet you, but I’m afraid the most I can promise is that every portrait I paint of you will have the correct amount of facial features…the order of them you’ll have to leave to me.

BONNIE PARKER:  Hey, Clyde, you are a handsome devil.  And your criminal activities actually excite me.  I’d like to meet you…someplace, I guess, where you won’t be recognized.  Not a bank, of course.  Ha ha!

CLYDE BARROW:  Actually, Bonnie, I think a bank is a great idea…I’m a little short of cash.  Make sure you wear that cute beret.  Oh yeah, and a mask.  Hey, maybe we could become partners.  Clyde and Bonnie.