Chance encounters don’t happen for everyone, so what’s the shame in trying something new?
Online dating – is it time to lose the stigma?
For the past week or so me and one of my closest friends have been convincing our mate to sign up for online dating. It’s something we used to joke about as teenagers at school as a ‘last resort’ which you would only do if you ‘couldn’t get any,’ however seeing and hearing all the success stories I couldn’t help but to be curious. We often ‘tried’ but failed to be the wingman in real life, could we manage it online?
There are tons of dating websites: Match, Eharmony to niches such as Green Singles (Personals for those in the environmental, vegetarian and animal-rights communities etc.) that boast thousands and thousands of members. Despite being aware of these sites, signing up was not something that I or he ever considered before.
There is a real stigma attached to online dating amongst a lot of people. When talking about it amongst friends it’s often shock down: “You have so many opportunities in day to day life to meet new people…from work to parties and nights out, I can’t imagine who would use online dating unless they were some creep or something”
Harshly worded perhaps but it reflects quite a common view about online dating amongst a lot of people. Given the sheer number of people you meet in different situations from school all the way through to your working life, it seems natural to assume that you’re going to meet someone. Going online feels a little bit like admitting failure.
Online dating also feels very adult, very practical. It does make sense when you’re working full-time, and as I explained to my mate, you’re working 50 hour weeks, you don’t have time to meet girls “the old fashioned way”. Although subconsciously we were probably thinking otherwise!
The only real issue I have with online dating is that it feels robotic. You tick a few boxes and up comes a list of potential ‘products’ a bit like online shopping. Sure, it makes sense to select someone who matches your preferences to a degree but offline, would it really matter if someone’s choice of sport didn’t match with yours? Yet online, that could be the difference to having a potential candidate in your list or not.
I’m not subscribing to the view that online dating is bad however. It’s completely stupid to sneer at online dating because it’s not as spontaneously romantic as meeting someone by chance. Nor is there any benefit in remaining single because of the apparent stigma.
Online dating is just the latest stage in the evolving process of relationships. And, unsurprisingly, it’s really successful. The industry is worth billions of pounds and has shifted from being a little bit weird to being widely accepted and taken up.
If we’re old enough to online date, we’re old enough to realise that chance encounters, unfortunately don’t happen to everyone. The reality is dating websites allow you to interact with people that you otherwise might not. If there’s nothing there, you’ll start looking again. It’s just another way of widening the amount of people you ‘meet.’
We still don’t know if he’ll use the profiles we set up for him, or for that matter join any other dating website. The last barrier left is him believing in the concept enough to give it a go! Perhaps somewhat hypocritically, I still don’t think I would ever join one however I would wholeheartedly offer it as an option for someone else, whereas before I would have viewed the whole thing as a bit of a joke. Evidently that old view was completely misinformed – I don’t think you can honestly joke about a method that has been so successful for so many.