Online Dating

            Getting to know people online tends to be much easier than face to face.  When online, you’re able to trim the fat of most conversations and cut through many of the social norms that you might otherwise be unintentionally giving off or picking up.  This is congruent to what I remember when social media websites were just starting to take off. The most vivid example comes from using Myspace in middle school.  Attending an all boy school, we had the occasional Friday night mixers set up with our paired sister school and most people from each school knew each other, or knew of each other, through the use of the website.  However at the mixers, the guys and girls that would chat regularly online hardly interacted at all in person.  Whether it was because the guys would stand in one place in large groups or the girls pulling their friends away, the event set up to promote a social atmosphere fell short to guys and girls telegraphing indifferent social cues.  Although, of course, a couple hours later and the barriers were dropped and people were back to chatting online.

            In class today was the first time I had seen the inner workings of a modern dating website.  The way it was laid out again took me back to Myspace, where you could answer long surveys that posted to the front of your profile and fill in slots on your side bar that detailed personal information such as your income, body type, religious views, etc. The component of the dating site that shocked me the most was how open most people were to complete strangers.  For example, when trying to determine your compatibility to another’s profile, it allowed you to answer similar questions that the other person had, and would then show how you both stacked up; all of this before the other user has even responded to a message.  The most common ones I noticed people sharing were their views on sleeping together on the first date, whether they were open to having a kinkier partner, and whether the user had remained monogamous in their most recent relationships.  Even though I’ve thought dating sites were partially used for hook ups, the openness these websites offered before engaging in a synchronous chat still took me by surprise.

The Netflix documentary on online dating, When Strangers Click, put into perspective the way the Internet has evolved the manner in which people meet.  Living in a town such as state college for the last four years, one might forget that not every city is primarily made up of people the same age. The ability to meet others greatly diminishes once you consider most people hold a full time job along with numerous other obligations.  For those, online dating websites have played an integral role in connecting them to other people with similar values and interests.  In the documentary, it highlights a few instances of how people living thousands of miles away now have the ability to connect and get to know one another.  The draw to this style of dating is that the user has the freedom to use the medium any time of the day, and any place that has an Internet connection.

            Not every love story with online origins has the fairytale ending.  This past week, a California man notified police when a woman he had met and broke up with online, tried breaking into his house before getting stuck in his chimney.  Another woman from Georgia met a man online supposedly involved in chemical engineering and after talking for a couple months, she was persuaded into sending him money numerous times amounting up to $300,000.  Online dating sites can be a godsend to those who do not have the time or confidence to go out and meet people; however there are still dangers involved and the everyday user should exercise a fair amount of caution when revealing personal contact information.