Dating ... online?

So, whatcha think?

  • Awkward and weird man.

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What do you guys think? Ever tried dating sites ... any luck or bad stories from it? Share if you feel comfy sharing.

I'm considering hitting up OKCupid to see what it's all about, I mean I hear a lot about the place so why not. I fear I may not have the time to invest in being active on there though, but I'm open to it. Curiosity will burn this cat one way or the other haha who knows, or maybe it won't. I remember seeing ads for eHarmony with a free weekend thing, maybe last year and decided to try it out. Little did I didn't realize it entailed filling out 15/20 pages worth of information before you could do anything like searches n what not, so I never got around finishing making the account and trying it.

I personally don't have a huge circle of friends and the probability or chances for me to meet other girls is lessened because of that. So just to sort of meet someone online and then obviously take it from there IRL is what I think I'm looking for (I say I think because I truly haven't given it a lotta thought, just came to me as I was typing ...).
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I never tried it, but a few of my friends have met people through dating sites like Match.com, and their relationships have worked out. But I dunno, perhaps I'm just old fashioned but I honestly I don't think it's a very healthy or sustainable way to meet people for a long-term relationship. Every couple is different of course, but here's my basic thoughts on why I disagree with it, as a practice in general:

Online dating sites take all the magic out of meeting someone who ends up being compatible with you. Instead of a chance encounter you and your significant other will reflect on throughout your relationship, it's a carefully manipulated social system that you both pay money for (you do pay money, right?). As an individual, you are reduced to a few traits and a profile picture, which people will comb through before even bothering to set up a meeting. I find that pretty dehumanizing, and not an accurate parallel to the real world, where things aren't so filtered and predefined. Sometimes you meet someone who, at first, you wouldn't have expressed any interest at all in, but after a few minutes of conversations, you realize could truly be someone special. That's the beginning of a real relationship, but that kind of moment is robbed because of expectations forced upon the willing subjects of online dating, who are looking for a modern shortcut to a conflict that's as old as civilized society.

I tried to keep it brief but... you see what happened? I'm a romantic at heart... it's my big flaw. These are also my thoughts as someone who met his wife in college, and all previous girlfriends at school or through friends of friends. So I have no perspective on what dating is like as a single guy in a big city.

I'm totally willing and curious to hear alternate perspectives on this!
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
I once took a picture of my hand and put it on a dating site. Ten minutes later I did a search and found my hand. I emailed it and got a response. We decided to hook up that night. It was one of the most magical experiences of my life. We've been together since.
 

Truder

"I frown at Griffith's nipples" -Aazealh
Johnstantine said:
I once took a picture of my hand and put it on a dating site. Ten minutes later I did a search and found my hand. I emailed it and got a response. We decided to hook up that night. It was one of the most magical experiences of my life. We've been together since.
You two must have the best High Fives.
 

Grail

Feel the funk blast
I've never dealt with dating sites before, but I have a friend who's trying it out. Based on what I've seen, it's more about employing a strategy to get the best results rather than actually spending the time to get to know people. It seems like a good option for folks who don't have much time on their hands.

As an alternative, I've heard some ads on the radio for an "activity club" where you can meet new people through outings that you sign up for, like bowling or hiking or whatever. I don't know if it's more expensive than an eHarmony account, but you'll probably end up having more fun, even if you don't find someone you like. :carcus:
 
I don't have any experience with American dating sites, but when I first moved to Japan I put a profile on Yahoo! Personals, which was (and still is, maybe?) the top dating site here. I met a lot of guys, went on a few dates with a few different dudes, but nothing panned out.

Then I started doing karate at the local dojo, where I met my future husband! Seven years later, we're still happy together.

IN SUMMARY: Give it a try I guess, you've got nothing to lose. But I agree with Grail's idea: join in some kind of group hobby/ sport, where you can start as friends and see what happens. :slan:
 

turkitage

ターク
Okay, so I want discuss a few things before I directly address the question because of some of the comments and answer choices in this thread.

I feel that the most critical time in your life to find a partner is when you are in school. After highschool and college it becomes significantly difficult to date and find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. The reasons are rather obvious - that is, in school, you're put in groups and situations with other people and forced to interact on most occasions. Then you also have your friends and they have friends so you end up having a big circle or multiple circles of people that you can hang out with. Even though your core group of friends might not change, you are constantly put in new situations every year/semester with different group of people. So, this and many other reasons is why it's so much easier in school to find someone. Especially for someone who is not as outgoing - which, I guess, would be someone who would think about online dating in the first place, ya? In any case, I feel if you were distracted by other things or never really focused on dating when you were in school that you've missed a fundemental time in your life to find someone. Of course, you can still meet someone after that and be happy forever, it just sometimes makes it harder for those who did not. So, I strongly encourage anyone that's in that part of your life to try really hard to date during school.

IncantatioN said:
I personally don't have a huge circle of friends and the probability or chances for me to meet other girls is lessened because of that.

I bring up what I said earlier because of that. It makes it extremely difficult for some people to break out and find someone when you've reached a certain age (lets just say 25+) and you're done with school. I also think the longer you are by yourself the harder it will become to find someone that you can be compatible with. If you haven't been on a date or have been living by yourself for lets say 10+ years or even 5+ years then it's a drastic change to accept someone into your life. This matters on your personality type, but if we assume you have a small group of friends and it's hard for you to break out of your shell to meet someone then it might also be hard to change your lifestyle as well. Let alone, all your habits, processes, day to day activities will have to fundamentally change just for someone (I know "love" sometimes makes people change everything they're used too). You will still be put out of your comfort zone that you've been used to for so long. I don't know, it's just a thought. While it's not true for everyone, I feel the longer you're by yourself and independent the higher probability it is for you to comfortably change your lifestyle for someone.

I do want to mention one more thing. I don't believe or like to think of the concept of "soulmates." I think it's just one's attraction to another personality type and then how much each other are willing to give up their comfort zone to make things work. So, when you're online dating or dating in general, don't be convinced by the sites that you need to find your "soulmate." To me, most people aren't unique enough for there to be that one person that you can't live without. You can find someone with a similar personality (or type, or even a different type) in a different body that you are sexually attracted to and willing to be compatible with. I don't know, most people find the person they want to be with forever in their same geographical area (settle) and are very happy then marry then die. Nothing wrong with that, that was just the closest person you found that you're compatible with - great. But there are millions of other people that you could be more compatible, love/sexually attracted to that you just don't know about -so how could you possibly know the person you're with is the only one for you? I don't know, in the end it could always be someone different and it still wouldn't be a big deal. Of course, there are things like "faith" and all that other nonsensical ideas people believe in.. but let me not derail anymore.

Like Walter pointed out, I feel the concept of tossing a pic with bullet points of how great you are is rather dehumanizing. Most of which are going to be phony. Like someone's going to put a bad picture or talk about their problems and how they really are on these sites? Yeah right. Then again, when meeting someone in real life people put up walls as well - so maybe it's not so different. I feel online dating works out pretty okay for your situation Incantation. There might be a bad stigma that everyone who is online dating is going to be awkward, phoney, or have social issues but it matters on what online dating service you use and other factors. So, from experience any of the free ones like plently of fish or whatever have been a complete waste of time. I've, personally, have several bad experiences and even assumed pay for sex conversations. It's rather disgusting. If you're into a one time fling or just want to have fun, I'd recommend going to one of those free sites.

I tried eharmony and even though you have to fill out a 20 page book it was a pretty good experience. You can not do searches, you simply wait each day for matches to come to your inbox. It's a bit different at first but they portray "quality over quantity" - however true that is. The great thing about eharmony (and I assume some of the other paid sites) is you don't just write a random message to someone and not know what to say. Before you talk to someone you basically start off with some pre-defined questions you can ask them, if they reply with answers then they are interested, if they didn't then you didn't waste much time and go on. I know, this seems extremely socially awkward, but I feel very comfortable with this approach. It was nice talking to someone on there or via IM, phone, email and getting to know them before going on an actual date. Some clicked, some didn't but even the ones that didn't we still had talked a lot before and were comfortable with each other before meeting face to face. I really liked that aspect.

So, back to what Walter was saying that the old school way felt more natural to him. Honestly, that's the way to go but if you're past that stage in your life and you now have your narrow group of friends you don't have much of a choice. Again, depending on your personality type, if you're not one for clubs or approaching girls then this makes things extremely difficult. You're not going to want a girl from a club because you're not into that scene so why would you want a girl that's at one? Unless you go to parties and make more friends to meet more people it's going to be tough. So, online dating seems like a pretty reasonable choice. One point Grail made was joining an "activity club." These basically mimic your school experience where you are paired with a group of people to do an activity. I'd recommend these as well if you're up for it. It's also called "Meet up groups" that you can typically google for in your area. You hang out with people of your same age group and just have fun. There's no pressure as far as you looking for someone to date. You're just hanging out with a group of guys and girls that are doing some event and see where it goes. I've had a few friends do this as well and it works out pretty well for finding someone to date. Mainly, because you're in a group setting and it's easy to talk, joke around, and get to know people and vice-versa.

Anyways, I think it's worth a shot and not really a time waster, depending on the site. I think match, and eharmony are pretty solid as far as reputation wise.
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
I've always used both dating sites (An anonymous French admin and Grail helped me pimp out my original profile back in the day!) and in person meetings. Since I had come back from the Army I was starting college at 22 and had to start at Community College (Jr. College). To be honest there really wasn't a lot of girls to pick from at a Community College, a lot of people my age that were there were generally slackers, who had been there BEFORE I joined the Army, and the desirable ladies had boyfriends. I tried to meet girls at bars while at the same time I kept an active account on a dating site (OkCupid) just to help broaden my chances with meeting someone to date. Yeah dating sites are a bit dehumanizing, leaving your self to a few paragraphs to describe your self however as is getting shot down at school or bars (this is even far more soul crushing when it happens repeatedly), but occasionally I'd meet someone on there and I'd go on a few dates. It's really just another avenue for you to meet someone who you may not normally meet.

IncantatioN said:
I'm considering hitting up OKCupid to see what it's all about, I mean I hear a lot about the place so why not. I fear I may not have the time to invest in being active on there though, but I'm open to it. Curiosity will burn this cat one way or the other haha who knows, or maybe it won't. I remember seeing ads for eHarmony with a free weekend thing, maybe last year and decided to try it out. Little did I didn't realize it entailed filling out 15/20 pages worth of information before you could do anything like searches n what not, so I never got around finishing making the account and trying it.
I'm personally biased to favor OkCupid since it's not run by weirdo Christians (who only recently allowed gays to get on their site after being sued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHarmony#Same-sex_couples ). OkCupid has a larger number of users and is pretty easy to use. Give it a try regardless.

Walter said:
Sometimes you meet someone who, at first, you wouldn't have expressed any interest at all in, but after a few minutes of conversations, you realize could truly be someone special. That's the beginning of a real relationship, but that kind of moment is robbed because of expectations forced upon the willing subjects of online dating, who are looking for a modern shortcut to a conflict that's as old as civilized society.
I've generally never had a lot of luck with talking to women in person. I'm very anxious so yeah that really works against me. Dating sites at least allowed me to get past my own anxieties when talking to women since I didn't have to worry about coming off as weird; however, it's funny because I ended up meeting my current girlfriend in person, which I only attribute to being pissed at my PUA friend.
 
Met my wife through yahoo personals when it was still around. Its not such a bad thing. Its really just another networking tool. Kinda like saying, "I met my wife through facebook" (I'm assuming that's happened before). Yeah you don't have that unique and elaborate "this is how it played out how we met scenario," but there still is a story to it. Its really everything that happens after the first date that counts.
 

nomad

"Bring the light of day"
Never done it. Heard some interesting stories from friends and family. Good, bad and ummm interesting ones really. It's a nifty way if your personal life doesn't give you the chance to meet people on the large basis. At this day and age I guess it's a normal thing.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not really qualified to post in here since I've never used a dating site and have been in a relationship for close to a decade, but here are a few comments anyway.

IncantatioN said:
I personally don't have a huge circle of friends and the probability or chances for me to meet other girls is lessened because of that. So just to sort of meet someone online and then obviously take it from there IRL is what I think I'm looking for (I say I think because I truly haven't given it a lotta thought, just came to me as I was typing ...).

I think for someone who isn't at ease when meeting new people and doesn't have a lot of opportunities to do so in the first place it can be helpful. But like Walter I favor the idea of meeting people IRL if possible. So I see it as a palliative to a social context more than as an efficient tool to find the ideal candidate.

Turkitage said:
I feel that the most critical time in your life to find a partner is when you are in school. After highschool and college it becomes significantly difficult to date and find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. The reasons are rather obvious - that is, in school, you're put in groups and situations with other people and forced to interact on most occasions. Then you also have your friends and they have friends so you end up having a big circle or multiple circles of people that you can hang out with.

I don't know about that man. Seems to me that the same goes for the workplace. And it's not a secret that a lot of people meet their significant other at work. Obviously if your field of work is not very social that's moot, but that's not the majority of cases. And then there's any kind of group hobby, like Grail mentioned. It doesn't even have to be specifically geared towards romantic relationships. In the end I think what it all comes down to is meeting people.

Turkitage said:
I do want to mention one more thing. I don't believe or like to think of the concept of "soulmates." I think it's just one's attraction to another personality type and then how much each other are willing to give up their comfort zone to make things work. So, when you're online dating or dating in general, don't be convinced by the sites that you need to find your "soulmate." To me, most people aren't unique enough for there to be that one person that you can't live without. You can find someone with a similar personality (or type, or even a different type) in a different body that you are sexually attracted to and willing to be compatible with.

I think you're mixing things up a bit here. Sure, having one single true love is a bit of a myth. But that doesn't mean there aren't people you'll fall in love with more deeply than others, and not just because they're "hotter" or because you have more interests in common. It's a combination of many things that I think is more than the sum of its parts, and is more subtle than you make it sound like.
 
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