Hi guys,
Just wondered what you thought about this article:
The Many Problems with Online Dating's Radical Efficiency
Basic summary: Online dating takes away the thrill of the hunt, gives us too many options, makes us value relationships less because they are easy to replace. The main point is that it makes us search out people who are very similar to us, very compatible. In real life, meeting new people is a lot of work and people exactly like us are harder to find. This means, just like in those old romantic comedies from the '40s, we are forced by scarcity into getting to know people who are very different from us, and that can lead to a more exciting relationship. Think Hepburn and Tracy.
What we are looking for isn't necessarily what we need, but sometimes we know it when we find it and are completely surprised.
I know that's something I've talked about, and readers have commented on, here before. I am particularly bad at wanting someone similar to me. Am I? Actually I'm not sure that's exactly my problem with online dating. I am really keen on finding someone who cares about the environment which narrows the field quite a lot and yet I don't have a lot of other specifics. Walrus wasn't that fussed about recycling, and wasn't all that similar to me, but I was quite intrigued by his profile: he wrote well, was quirky and seemed to have a set of ethics he lived by. We all know how that worked out....
If you read the comments people argue that online dating is much harder than the article makes it sound, but you probably could get a date in a few weeks if you work at it, and in real life, that would be a lot harder to achieve. In real life you wouldn't walk up to a random stranger and ask them out point blank, but on the internet you can.
And that's what I think I'm struggling with in online dating. I have certain expectations of how to use OKC as a tool to get to know people, and they're a bit old-fashioned in a fast-paced online world where anonymity rules. Jasper's profile didn't have obvious commonalities with mine, but he had a certain sense of humour that appealed, so I was considering meeting him. His downfall was that he used OKC to set up a meeting without ever getting a basic conversation going, and when the meeting was delayed he went silent. I think I like about 3 or 4 messages back and forth, and then we can meet. More than that is a waste of time. I suppose it's awkward to answer the first message and then decide a few messages later they aren't making the cut- do you tell them they've said something wrong or just stop answering? I don't know! The whole thing is unnatural so can we agree on some etiquette guidelines already?
For some reason, right now I want to hear about how online dating is bad. I'm always a bit of an anti-technology Luddite, even though I use the Internet daily (and blog about very personal things.) So I'm a walking contradiction! I read some article about our lives being increasingly run by technology and they used online dating as an example. It's a perfectly unromantic way to meet someone.
On the other hand, if you have specialty tastes, it's the perfect way to find those rare few who are looking for the same thing.
Honestly, I think that the online dating experience is different for everyone; and it also depends on the personality of the men you interact with. I joined Plenty of Fish back in June 2009. A lot of the messages I received were complete garbage...the usual grammatical/spelling errors or just wanting sex, etc. Sometimes I just chatted with men via messaging and that was it. One man I chatted with for a couple of months just because I thought he was fun to talk to but didn't think anything would come out of it, but surprisingly he asked me out later.
ReplyDeleteWith the first man I met online, we only exchanged 2 messages each, then decided to meet each other a day or two later. With the last man I met online (who I have now been dating for 3 1/2 yrs), I sent him a message first and then he responded with a message with his phone #. We talked on the phone for a week straight with each call lasting several hours until he finally asked me out on our first date. The first date was awkward and I wasn't sure about him, but our second date was much better.
Like you, my boyfriend is very much into saving the environment. Before I met him, I'm ashamed to safe that I barely even recycled, but he taught me to be more conscientious about trying to make the world a better and cleaner environment.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that an individual can still value a relationship that came from a dating website just as much as if they met that person "offline." Although I met my bf online, everything else went the regular course of a relationship and felt the same as if I had met him in person first.
I'm sorry, I'm not very eloquent in how I present my ideas in a public forum. I'm actually much better in a face to face conversation or even through e-mail. I guess you could say I get "stage fright"? :-p I'd be happy to converse with you via e-mail and tell you more about what I've learned through my online dating experiences, if you'd like. I even tried a social experiment with it once, which yielded interesting results. :)
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ReplyDeleteI don't mean to bash online dating. It's a tool and it can be used many ways. Once I met Walrus, I soon forgot about how we met and it just became two people trying to understand each other. Even when we were dating we still used typing (either texts or emails) to communicate the more difficult stuff.
ReplyDeleteIn theory, the meeting of two minds getting to know each other through words is a lot more romantic than two bodies hooking up for a one night stand after meeting at a bar.
On a personal level, I think what the article says about not taking time to heal after a break-up is true- that's what Walrus was doing when he messaged me! Of course, rebound relationships existed before the internet, but now it's so much faster to line up dates.
My email address is listed in the 'About Me' blurb on the right hand side of the blog. I don't check it often but feel free to send me your thoughts.
and I say 'in theory' because typing out clever banter or revealing a piece of your soul is never going to be romantic when there's an ad for 'Cut Belly Fat with this 1 Weird tip!' down the side of the screen.
DeleteI think that there is allot of downsides to online dating in general but even more so for men. That is if your looking for a real relationship. On the other hand if a man is looking for a relatively passive avenue to support his sexual needs then online dating works nicely oddly enough though thats only if he uses an actual dating site and not an intimate encounter site funny how that works. For me though online dating is annoying the majority of your messages are deleted before they are even read, people have ridiculous standards, the entire thing is skewed in the favour of women, and the majority of interactions go on ridiculously long online before meeting in person if they end in meeting at all.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of online dating I always imagine what it would be like if it played out in real life. Walking up to a girl in chapters and starting a conversation.
ReplyDelete"That's a great book you're looking at, I read it in college for my environmental ethics course, The author Aldo Leopold was one of the first people to write about the need to adopt a set of ethics toward our environment and ecological systems"
"wow, really?"
"Ya, his book started a huge grassroots movement toward ethical stewardship of the environment, he did for environmentalists what Gloria Steinem did for the women's movement"
"wow thanks, I think i'll buy it. It does look really interesting"
"Im sorry, Im nervous but if I could I would love to by you a cup of coffee?"
"Oh ok just fill out this short survey, I'll give it to every other man in the room and assuming none of them answer it better I can get out my tape measure and confirm your height which is the first question on the survey and if thats all up to snuff then maybe I'll let you buy me a coffee. I am assuming of course that you are actively employed in your field of study and oh I forgot there is a small spelling/grammatical test after that and.... wait..... are your eyes green??"
I would totally send a spelling and grammar test out to potential mates. Hahahaha!
ReplyDeleteyou know what Twain said about about spelling :)
ReplyDelete