Naturally you’ve rushed into the digital universe befriending every dimwit without bothering to check where they knew you from or why they wanted your address. The sudden deluge of farm animal porn in your mailbox was a clue that “liking” the 1100 people that haven’t had sex with goats, might not of been too bright, especially with your wife standing there shaking a fist full of contraband recently repossessed from your now wide-eyed offspring …

If only part of what the eRomance sites are claiming is true, how we’re fleeing that ancient and boozy flesh-stalking ritual, and rushing headlong into the thorny bosom of the Internet to meet our prospective bride – whose flashing eyes are purely digital, airbrushed flawless like Playboy – and with a fetching handle to match…

… to hell with women, why aren’t we digging up destination fishing buds? How much simpler it would be to befriend some fellow at the destination watershed, then sleep on his sofa while we insist he guide our every step. His reward for missing work and catering to our every whim, we’ll be best friends, like in grade school …

Us aging boomers can’t spell social networking, and are faced with hideous and insurmountable questions like, “Do I even exist if I lack a Twitter account?” Singlebarbed dares say “yes”, and is prepared to guide you through the Internet’s version of small talk, as only an antisocial can …

Bromance Relationship Rule #1: Don’t define your relationship online unless you plan on raising eyebrows at the casting club. If he pays his portion of the bar tab, gas, and meals without being reminded you’re in a stable and committed relationship.

If he balks at the gas pump or claims his wallet is in his other pants, (conveniently under all the gear strewn in back) chances are the relationship is tenuous and he’s got a commitment problem. If he opts for the “all I got is hundreds” – he’s hoping you’ll be generous enough to allow him to GPS your favorite riffle to return later and pillage it.

Hand him a five and motion at the mini mart, tell him to get you a pack of Wrigley’s. Once the doors close behind him, squeal onto the interstate, you can always break even by auctioning his rod and possibles on eBay.

Bromance Relationship Rule #2: If your current “steady” can’t make the trip, don’t change your online status to “available” until you’ve had a face to face discussion about fishing with someone else. It’s just not classy.

The last thing you need is someone sobbing electronically after you display a weekend’s worth of large fish pictures on your Facebook page. Big fish, lots of them, he wasn’t there. Reinforcing the notion that painting the living room should have been done last month as originally promised, instead of the entire community of his friends and wife able to snicker at his untimely and catastrophic emasculation.

Bromance Relationship Rule #3: If you find yourself checking your ex’s profile daily estimating length and girth, and seeing your favorite riffle pillaged and burnt, you should probably unfriend him.

To take this a step further, you should really give your former pal a heads up that you’re changing your status. Rather than making it “available” right away, maybe the two of you can settle on something less humiliating like “Have sack full of grape Intruders, will travel” or  “looking to raw dog Oncorhynchus mykiss, need riffle.”  After a few weeks or months have passed, and everyone basically knows you’re no longer an item, then it’s appropriate to go back to “available.”

Bromance Relationship Rule #4: It’s OK to share major relationship news online only AFTER you’ve picked up the phone and called your loved ones.

Your wife will be thrilled to know you jettisoned Bob somewhere on the upper river.  Bob always creeped her out in the first place. Your new pal ties all his own flies and has enough for the both of you means he may be a keeper. This time treat him like one. He’s neither a beast of burden nor a tackle dispensary, and wipe your feet before sleeping on his couch. Respect The Skills, especially if you value him for more than a single fling.

It’s apparent that AFTMA is content stonewalling the issue, but as all those emotional fully urbanized types begin to join ranks, will we recognize the peril before we’re all swept off the streets and put to forced labor?

It’s quite plain fishing is headed for one of those perfect storms like hunting, bowling, pets, sweaters, or anything involving a handful of something that resists mightily.

Declining fish, declining fishermen, bigger appetites, more bird watchers, and the hoards of new emotions we’re discovering in our dinner – are all pushing us to the point where we’ll have to remarket our sport or suffer societal censure and wholesale excommunication.

Our angling publications delight in displaying decapitation, boats awash in blood and offal, tales of masculinity and suffering, domination of prey and their harsh environs, and copious mention of how much we prize our stocks of dead animals as they enable us to kill so much more.

I’d propose wordsmithing our current standard into something that looks like we’re no longer the interloper, the harbinger of Death. We can retain the content and message for the like minded, yet remake fishing articles into, “… how fish love tissue massage, and where’s the best place to spend a weekend massaging them.”

In short, us sporting types may have to go the “secret society” route.

“It is also internationally recognised that we must quantify not only the biological cost but also the emotional cost of animals used for production of food and fibre.

It’s plain that the farm lobby is way ahead of us on this. Over the next couple of decades we’ll be regaled with tales of the perfect Tri-tip, and how playing Lady Gaga in the barn just as you relieve the bloated bovine of its ethereal self (blow daylight through the brain pan), lowers the cholesterol level of red meat by half.

It’s important the animal not suffer, the farmer on the other hand had better like female soloists.

All those force-fed geese and milk fed veal are vanishing out of sight, replaced by Grandma with fresh-baked cookies and animals that claim they rent the grass.

“With increased public concern about the welfare of animals, and consumers seeking ‘animal welfare-friendly’ products, Australia’s livestock industries are focused on improving farming practices to meet changing expectations.”

Our problem is not considering PETA had pals, and while we focused intently on all the invasive species, watershed, and property rights issues, only to turn around and find how many more of them there were than us.

Then again, they could be stymied trying to identify which of the barnyard animals is more equal than others. Cows being the practical jokers that they are, pointing out the hiding place of Tom Turkey didn’t smooth relations much come Thanksgiving.

Now that the World’s collective microscope is off our convexness we can get back to eating all that grease-imbued unhealthy.

No more sermons from “green” zealots admonishing us how unhealthy our kids have become, and no high pitched, pallid scientist illuminating the damage done to the Ozone layer by herds of  Big Mac’s as they graze  peacefully.

Instead we can point fingers at French fast food, which has debuted the Foie Gras Burger, containing acres of duck fat and types of cholesterol that vaporizes arteries on contact, with science gasping for the words to aadequately describe the peril.

As diseased goose liver shares a bit of “snooty” culinary reputation in addition to being a Widowmaker,  the fly fishing community will greet the dripping SOB with open arms, and declare it the Official Burger of Theodore Gordon.

It’s obvious them Eurotrash weren’t content with the “Royal with Cheese” and felt it necessary to one-up us on the societal diabetes scale by adding even more lard.

… and they’re welcome to it. It’ll be percussive Darwinism as us newly svelte American tourists will be side-stepping the disenfranchised Islamic fundamentalists as they rush the cafe entrance with a vest full of nitrates, wherein the slow and fat will eat the blast.

Hamburgers being synonymous with American culture, and with copious references to their care and usage in exported media, we can only hope that  “look at the big ass on Brunhilda”, doesn’t get attributed to Pulp Fiction.

Naturally the Trout Underground will recant their hasty decision to go with a mere chili dog and Cole slaw as their mascot, and it’ll be the subject of much tension on the Drake boards as to proper condiments appropriate for this gelatinous monstrosity.