I have been meaning to write this post for years, since I started seeing posts from a surprising number of friends and classmates in the year or so after graduating college. I have always half-wanted to start a profile, as a social experiment, but my time for that is past, so instead I've talked to some friends, read some Pew Internet research, and left the social experiments to other people with a passion and a mission (like Amy Webb - seriously, watch the TEDTalk; it's amazing).
To give you an idea of the vastness of experience with online dating, I have friends who:
- have decided squarely not to try it, and resent the constant suggestions by coupled friends to "just try it, it helps just to meet people."
- are happily married or engaged to someone they met online.
- have had relationships with people they met online, and have had the relationships crash and burn...
- ...while others have had them end well, and are still looking.
- have internet-dated and now are married or engaged to or are happily dating someone they met offline, in bars or through friends.
- have never gone out with anyone met online, but not for lack of trying.
- moved to a new place and made a profile just to meet anyone of similar age and/or interests.
- have just never gotten on one of these sites, like me. Maybe they just haven't gotten one yet, but will someday...
...and the list goes on. Plus, the nuances in each of the stories, even if they have big things in common, are as varied as human experience in any other realm.
Talking about variation through a scientific lens, Pew has published several studies about online dating; I looked in particular at one general report from 2006 and one from 2013 to write this post.
What jumped out at me right away was that a major focus of the study responses in 2006: people by and large were widely afraid of the safety and security of online dating. While this is definitely still a concern now (even within my small social sample, catfishing was mentioned), this barely factored in the 2013 study among all the other, much more prevalent findings and impressions.
For example, far more people now have gone on a date with someone they met online. It's also much more public: significantly more Americans now know someone who has used online dating, and the percentage of people who know someone who has gotten into a long-term relationship or marriage with someone they met online has almost doubled! Those numbers are even higher once you start talking about college grads and younger people (like us!)
Not surprising, I suppose.
But it also depends on what you're looking for online. Some may be looking for a long-term partner, while others may not be looking for commitment at all. (One person responded to my question about goals with: "Just wanted someone to pay for my meals and take me to the movie theater because I was broke. LOL." Should have tried CarrotDating!
But she and others who said they weren't looking for commitment did have positive experiences and good relationships with people they met online. This particular person did ultimately end up meeting someone she was "head over heels" for, and they are now married with kids. A modern-day fairytale - love changes our world!)
Most people in my sample use OkCupid (it's free!) Think about how many different goals people have for creating a profile, and imagine them all flocking to one general site. It might shed some light on why nobody responded when you tried to get in touch! (Not that uncommon, it seems.)
But especially now, there is a seemingly endless list of different sites with different objectives. There are all the ones you see ads for: eHarmony, Match, Plenty of Fish. And the growing cohort of religion-based sites, and even at least one for missionaries! Then there are sites for people in a specific age group, like OurTime.com for the 50+ singles crowd. There are sites for couples to meet other couples (I may get my chance yet!) and sites to find people with similar interests (HowAboutWe). Then there are location-based apps like Grindr and Tinder that may be taking the place of approaching a hottie at a bar, because you can find them on Tinder first and avoid the sting of a face-to-face rejection, or the creep factor. And I had totally forgotten about chat rooms when I started researching for this post - the online dating of the AIM era! I know a few people who met someone in a chat room and are still together.
But no matter which site(s) or app(s) you use, the answers to the "why" question were very similar across the board:
"I was using it more to have a person outside of my life and social circles to talk to."
"I longed for communication outside of my circle, outside of my community and outside of my town/country. I wanted to know all different people, without involving myself into any activities I wasn't interested in. It's like getting past all the walls really fast, instead of looking for doors."
"I realized I wasn't meeting people (don't go out to bars, and most of my friends were either female or married or both, so that can make it hard to meet date-able people), and decided to try it on a whim."
"Most guys on OKC seem to join because they're new to a city, or because meeting people out in public is difficult."
"'The best and most satisfying aspect of online dating is hope. There is ALWAYS someone available in online dating and they are usually looking for, broadly speaking, something similar to what I am looking for - a date."
"It seems like most people are into casually conversing, but never setting anything in stone.... I think the truly exciting thing about it is just seeing people who are out there who you can really imagine digging.... Overall, it allows for an expansive view of what's out there (at least what is out there on one dating website) and knowing that there are a lot of possibilities to find great people and lotsa love in the world."
I'm sure you've picked up a common thread: many people who try online dating are looking to expand their horizons, meet people they might not normally meet, fulfill a need or desire for a meaningful human connection of a different sort than what they have on hand.
And isn't that something we're all looking for? Meaningful, stimulating human connections?
There are so many different ways to find and develop those kinds of connections, and why not, when the internet is so deeply intertwined with our everyday lives, use it as a tool to that end?
The 2013 study also talked about how social networking in general comes into play in modern-day relationships with people no matter where we meet them, but I won't get into that.
In fact, there are about a million different aspects of online dating I couldn't delve into in this "short" form, so maybe I'll do a series. Or a longer piece, sometime in the future. I would talk about how people present themselves on their profiles; the selection process of who we try to contact, and which advances we reject or ignore; the perception of online daters as "desperate," even among the online dating community!; how online and offline relationships compare, and interact...
What do you think, readers? Do you want to read more? And if so, are there any specific areas I should focus on? Let me know in the comments!
posted from Bloggeroid
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