Online Dating

So today we got into groups and made an OK Cupid profile. My partner and I decided to be a bisexual female, 25 years of age, who lived in State College, PA. Her name was heartstoper_taco and she was a CATCH. She was also a stripper who spent her Friday and Saturday nights entertaining the poor college kids at the local strip club. Most people could tell she was probably a fake profile but hopefully we convinced at least a few people that she was just a college drop out with very, very loose morals. Additionally, since ours was so obviously fake and had about 10 minutes spent on it, it was quite easy to identify other people from the class because most of theirs were quite obvious as well. We found no less than 3 other people from our class on there. If everyone had their sexuality set as bisexual then there is a high likelihood that we could have found them all.

I definitely felt we lost out on the experience though quite a lot when no one besides the OK Cupid employee messaged us. Especially considering we messaged quite a few people first which is like an instant boner for dudes considering how often they have to make the first move. Messaging is not only a big part on dating websites, it’s like the entire point of them- to be matched with or select someone you MAY have a connection with and then to explore that possible connection through interacting with each other. Dating websites may give you the kite but truly. you have to run with it to get it to fly. They are what you make of them which is why it was such a disappointment to not have anyone interact back with us.

But with all that being said, I wasn't surprised at all by any of it. I’m not surprised by the way it’s set up, the amount of people on there, or even what those people may (or may not) be looking for. Dating websites like OK Cupid at least actually aren't all that different from normal social networking sites like Facebook in terms of the personal information they want you to display. A lot of people seem to use it, just like a lot of people seem to use tinder or Facebook and similar mediums. The other thing is that they aren't always used strictly for their intended purpose, people have used Facebook as a way to date and tinder as a way to make friends.

That connects with the point of someone being more likely to use online dating if they use CMC for more tasks in general. The internet, and CMC, is what people make of it, sometimes regardless of what is meant to be made of it. After all, the internet was originally meant for the military and then universities and now look at it! I think the biggest advantage of online dating is the pick and choose aspect of it, you get to choose who you go out on a date with and have knowledge of them beforehand versus having your friend shove someone completely unknown at you and go “have fun!” as you search for something to talk about.  Related to that, the biggest disadvantage of online dating is that the websites are now throwing potentially hundreds upon hundreds of people at you and you have to sort through all the ones who aren't looking for the same thing or aren't interesting enough to say anything other than “hey wuts up?” and the management makes it not worth it.