Insert Foot tries his hand at online dating. Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.

LAFAYETTE, Calif. — The smokey skies are forest fire red and the air closer to Earth is full of rotten pandemic. Between fires and coronavirus it’s only fashionably safe outside to dress up like you’re about to rob a stagecoach.

So much for going out and meeting strangers to see what they look like so maybe you might want to meet them a second time.

After my latest round of let’s see how many ways a grown man can shoot a relationship in the kneecap, my kids got tired of my moping. “Yes Dad, you are too old and it’s far too late for you to find a suitable life partner, but at least you can get on the Internets and kill a lot of time believing otherwise.”

I was also moping about Charlie Watts dying, about which I was going to write but … just … couldn’t. Not yet. I’m somehow still too sad about an 80-year-old fantastically rich, talented man who spent most of his life making music with history’s greatest rock and roll band to go there. Whether the Stones go on or not, my two favorite bands of all time essentially died the past 10 months, along with some other things I’d hoped would last a few more years.

So … yay! Let’s computer date!

My children forced me on to a dating site, also known as the rejection procession. I played along, though, because one of the great truths revealed in middle age is that it’s, without question, ALWAYS better to do what your daughters say, because someday you’ll have no income, nowhere to live, and you’ll need to know how to take their orders.

So I sent the money and did the thing where you fill out the questionnaire with a bunch of lies, went through some photos that didn’t include an ex-wife (I guess that’s frowned upon) or me making facial expressions after apparently stubbing both feet on a large boulder.

Then I guess they take all that, throw it into a giant computer/blender full of blinking lights and noisemakers and such, then it spits out your next wife. You immediately teleport to Las Vegas and live happily ever after … until the next time I screw up.

Just for the record … done with doing that. Promise.

What this thing really does is send you a bunch a daily recommendations. This doesn’t have anything remotely in common with reality. The first few days I didn’t really pay much attention … until a familiar face materialized

Well, yes, I’m pretty positive I’d have a great time socializing with that person. She lives nearby, which is handy. Great sense of humor, smart, and a great conversationalist, as well. I’m sure we’d have a lot in common … actually way too much in common. Like DNA in common.

This dating site was trying to set me up with my sister.

Uh … ewww.

My sister—whom we’ll call Krista, because that’s her name—and I are pretty close, save for some semi-long periods after an argument when we desperately try to outlast the other in the “Which sibling will show greater weakness by breaking the silence this time, giving the other the most useless of useless victories?” game. Right. We’re very mature.

We were actually coming off one of these periods that lasted too long (they all do, but this one was really kind of silly).

Krista and I have an interesting history. Technically half-siblings, we didn’t meet until we were adults, after growing up exactly one city away from each other. We even had friends in common. We already had kids when we met and everyone immediately became family. We’ve shared good times and bad times and she’s not just my sister, but a close friend.

I figured this was as good a reason as any to reach out. Who knows–maybe the spirits were at work or something, like the hippy masquerading as my daughter might say.

So I called Krista to tell her all about my new prospective date, to which we laughed and laughed and made jokes about this stupid dating service at least finding someone with whom we know we’d go out and have fun. Then stories started flying, and photos, and more laughing.

Somewhere along the line apologies were exchanged for the last round of childishness. Now we’re sending each other dating suggestions (not really) and trying to get back to having some family time again with the kids we have to treat nicely because we’ll be old someday.

Maybe the online dating thing isn’t so stupid, after all.

Follow self-critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.