I dunno. I'm on Match - since I moved home a couple of months ago and broke up with the Ex, I realized I had no idea how to meet people here. (I've always dated guy friends.) I haven't found The One yet, but it's been fun getting to know new people. And besides, it's basically like online shopping for dudes. So that's fun.
Well my mom has been pushing me to do the online dating thing for years. She met my stepdad online (in AOL Personals, just to date it a bit) and they are quite happy together.
I am sort of talking to an OKCupid guy now and we've talked on the phone as well. One thing is, it's a bit hard sometimes to be sure that the person you're talking to is just making sexual jokes as banter and is not actually a sex offender. But maybe I'm just not good at this.
@lalaland13: To clarify, I often wonder if we both know we're just bantering with each other in a sexual tone, and I am not actually agreeing to meet him at a Super 8.
My biggest problem with internet dating is that I feel like I end up with a more narrow dating pool of people who have computers and fast internet. For whatever reason, most of the people I've dated successfully have not had that kind of lifestyle -- either are quasi-Luddites or grew up in such a way that computers are not a part of their every day life (do you hear how hard I am trying not to say "poor?")
There is one type of man I encounter fairly often in online dating who seems to be drawn especially to that niche: the guys who want to exchange emails forever and have freakin pen-pals but never actually go on a date. That is such a waste of my time. I have friends, thank you.
What about the stress of filing out a profile? I can't even begin to pick a decent username. The one I use here is not really conducive to finding the kind of guy I like to date.
I'm the person that can barely fill out her facebook profile because I hate being judged and evaluated based on the four books I list or the paragraph I manage to write about myself. I guess other people are much better at encapsulating their spirit in 150 words or less.
I have a seriously shitty attitude toward dating - I have always hated it. Online dating was never much better. In fact I never got past the exchanging emails stage because the guys always managed to turn me off sofa king quickly. Someone needs to tell them that women really don't wanna be "typed dirty to" until we know someone a leedle better.
Personal ads are personal ads are personal ads. I, too, bought into the premise (at first) that since we were computer-literate web-surfers, that that somehow transcended the previously seedy image of yore of the creep perusing the back page of the Village Voice next to "massage parlor" ads.
Not so. It' still a personal ad, albeit digitally, with about the same success rates as the old printed ones, I would imagine. Human behavior doesn't change, just the technology. The same person who would become hooked on the easy fix of serial monogamy through personals is the same online dating habitue.
Do some people meet and marry or find the love of their life via computers and e-mails? I'm sure they do, though this is starting to become some kind of mythic urban folk tale to me when I hear from someone from the nth time "Oh, but I KNOW someone who met their spouse online!" as some sort of proof that success exists. Never a first person narrative. I'm also sure I can't fall in love that way. It's just not my generation.
And dating? Still a HUGE pain in the ass. But after my exploration into the digital frontier that is online dating, I'll take my chances on face-to-face encounters, meeting people through my regular day-to-day life, through hobbies, friends and family, work-related events, and social circumstances.
@OneTwoPunch: Well here is a first person narrative for you, I met my husband on line. I had many, many bad dates from people I met online. I had good dates, and dated somebody else for a few months the year before I met my husband. I had the same luck with men I met at bars. And men I met through friends? Well, there was only one of those I ever dated.
I met my husband online and we have a great first meeting story. As were IMing to set up our first date, we found out we were both going to the same event that weekend, so officially met at the event.
I've tried online dating, it was good for a lot of hookups but not much else.
I'm VERY selective in person so I'm probably more selective online and most of the time would convince myself to meet with someone even though I was sure I wouldn't be physically attracted to him.
You can count me in the dislike of online dating box. Not because I don't like dating per se, I LOVE what happens when I meet someone that I'm attracted to in person. Its one of the most fun exhilarating things in life.
Online dating doesn't work that way for me. I generally end up on dates with someone I would never have gone on a date with had I met them in real life first.
I haven't figured out if I'm still emotionally immature [if I'm not physically attracted to you, its never gonna happen] or if I'm just destined to not be attracted to MOST men.
My older sister met her husband online. 4 years of marriage and 2 kids later, he abandoned them when his son was 3 weeks old. They are divorced now, and obviously, he's a big creep. My mother now thinks that online dating is awful, and if I mention meeting a guy from the internet, she freaks out. And she wonders why I don't tell her about my love life...
@thesciencegirl: You can tell your mother that the exact same thing happened to my aunt. Except the youngest child was five months old, and they met in church.
The stock photo here makes online browsing look so classy and sexy. If it were in my room, there would be several cups on my desk, alongside a box of gobstoppers, headphones, scribble pad, wrappers, receipts, and crumbs from a meal from the day before. There would also be tetris on the screen.
@siboney: I'm always really jealous of the clean smartness of people using laptops in stock photos. I'm always surrounded with like empty beer cans and art supplies. It's never just a sleek classic environment and my best black dress and a tasteful potted plant.
I feel as though I could wander forever through these halls of pixel, unable to tell one well-traveled, dive-bar-loving hopeful from another.
Fair enough, but aren't most men in bars or at your friend's party going to be in a certain uniform anyway? In a Major Midwest City this last weekend, I was at a Trendy Bar in which at least 85% of the guys had the same hairstyle and were wearing the same outfit. Almost every woman there had brown hair, bangs, and some kind of dress-with-boots combination, too. I couldn't have told you those hopefuls apart from one another anymore than I could tell you digital representations of themselves apart from one another. You only start to learn about who people really are after paying them more than a glance of attention.
@kithkin: Much agreed. And I must have been at that same bar! I was wearing a green t-shirt and doc martens so as to stand out :) All the dudes were wearing a t-shirt and jeans with sneakers. ALL.
@elephantshoes: In the South, all our men look like grown up frat boys. Khaki pants/short, solid colored Ralph Lauren polo, Rainbow flip flops or Sperry Topsiders. Or maybe that's just because I live in Buckhead.
@elephantshoes: That sounds dreadful. If I wanted to date someone in a t-shirt and sneakers, I'd become a pedophile. I thought boy-men who took pride in having Cheerios for dinner went out with Jerry Seinfeld circa 1997.
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I am sort of talking to an OKCupid guy now and we've talked on the phone as well. One thing is, it's a bit hard sometimes to be sure that the person you're talking to is just making sexual jokes as banter and is not actually a sex offender. But maybe I'm just not good at this.
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and then i see, months later, they are still viewing my profile. just bite the bullet dude! ask me out.*
*yes, of course women can ask out men, but this had literally never worked for me, dating back to my junior prom.
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I'm the person that can barely fill out her facebook profile because I hate being judged and evaluated based on the four books I list or the paragraph I manage to write about myself. I guess other people are much better at encapsulating their spirit in 150 words or less.
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What a terrible, pretentious, prolix comment!
(Just kidding. I have the same problems. And you know what they say about people who are paranoid....)
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Not so. It' still a personal ad, albeit digitally, with about the same success rates as the old printed ones, I would imagine. Human behavior doesn't change, just the technology. The same person who would become hooked on the easy fix of serial monogamy through personals is the same online dating habitue.
Do some people meet and marry or find the love of their life via computers and e-mails? I'm sure they do, though this is starting to become some kind of mythic urban folk tale to me when I hear from someone from the nth time "Oh, but I KNOW someone who met their spouse online!" as some sort of proof that success exists. Never a first person narrative. I'm also sure I can't fall in love that way. It's just not my generation.
And dating? Still a HUGE pain in the ass. But after my exploration into the digital frontier that is online dating, I'll take my chances on face-to-face encounters, meeting people through my regular day-to-day life, through hobbies, friends and family, work-related events, and social circumstances.
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I'm VERY selective in person so I'm probably more selective online and most of the time would convince myself to meet with someone even though I was sure I wouldn't be physically attracted to him.
You can count me in the dislike of online dating box. Not because I don't like dating per se, I LOVE what happens when I meet someone that I'm attracted to in person. Its one of the most fun exhilarating things in life.
Online dating doesn't work that way for me. I generally end up on dates with someone I would never have gone on a date with had I met them in real life first.
I haven't figured out if I'm still emotionally immature [if I'm not physically attracted to you, its never gonna happen] or if I'm just destined to not be attracted to MOST men.
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Fair enough, but aren't most men in bars or at your friend's party going to be in a certain uniform anyway? In a Major Midwest City this last weekend, I was at a Trendy Bar in which at least 85% of the guys had the same hairstyle and were wearing the same outfit. Almost every woman there had brown hair, bangs, and some kind of dress-with-boots combination, too. I couldn't have told you those hopefuls apart from one another anymore than I could tell you digital representations of themselves apart from one another. You only start to learn about who people really are after paying them more than a glance of attention.
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