Dating Diva

This is Part III of my dive into understand the phenomenon of online dating, if you haven’t read Part I or Part II, you probably should.

So where were we?

Dating sites commonly provide a broad outline or example of what users should do to be successful on them. Match.com offers tips before the user is able to write about themselves. This helps to make up the definition of “quality singles,” as Match.com names them. These people are described by Match.com as someone who approaches new people themselves, moves throughout a room mingling with ease and is open to new experiences while being witty and articulate. With these guidelines fed to the users of their site, many Match.com profiles seem to be similar in responses – all with a coherent format and use of words.

This may be helpful, as during every login that the user does, a dating site gives between 300-500 matches. With the ability to scan matches due to the ease of knowing what is where and a coherent format of each profile, it helps the user to be more productive with the time that they use to find a suitable mate.

With the use of words, comes the ability to put up a picture. Match.com also has suggestions for this process of the profile making:

• If you are not extra lean, keep your shirt on
• Don’t stand in front of a yacht if it’s not yours (my personal favorite)
• Need to drop ten pounds? Be prepared to date someone who needs to do so as well

While this may seem like a pivotal part of the profile, some people do not want to put themselves so far out in the public sphere by having a picture attached to their dating advertisement.

When author Hardey met with Marlene, a 45-year-old single female, she stated that she would “not put a picture up because that’s too public and I want to get to know a man first.”

This phenomenon of knowing someone emotionally first before knowing their appearance is relatively new. Meeting someone out or through a friend would have to include both one’s personality and physical’s attractiveness as well.

After the profiles have been made and searched, individuals contact each other to begin their own type of self-disclosure. Users behind a computer screen report revealing much more quickly because they know they can cut off communication without ever having the repercussion of having to meet the person or share a public space with them for long. Many let go of their anxieties and apprehensions that one would normally have if s/he were to meet initially face-to-face for the first time, and instead become more intimate with a flurry of e-mails spanning over a few days or weeks. Offline dating tends to move slower – generally with one to two dates a week for a few months before progressing into a more intimate knowledge of each other. Online dating has the potential to be the catalyst of emotional intimacy, displacing time compared to offline dating by allowing for more contact in a shorter time frame, according to Hardey.

Most Internet users foster an environment where honestly and authenticity is valued and ultimately the key to success. A 2006 Internet dating poll conducted by Match.com concluded that 86 percent of individuals who go onto online dating sites are there to seek long-term mates, while 14 percent say they are looking to see what’s out there, though they are not ruling out beginning a long-term, monogamous relationship.

Once the information about each other is gathered and individuals decide to move to the next level of knowing one another, then para-social interaction can be taken to the face-to-face level, or, it can stay as it is. Many enjoy the distance relationship that a computer-to-computer interaction can bring. In this detached attachment, many have relationships that are spontaneous and casual – shunning intensive personal involvement by having the face-to-face meeting, which may or may not begin a serious commitment to another individual started by a virtual space.

Many do not believe in stopping at the point of para-social, or computer-to-computer communication. Most who find a suitable mate after numerous e-mail and messaging exchanges do in fact take it to a face-to-face level.

However, this doesn’t always go as planned.

Daniel, a 28-year-old dental hygienist, described one of his many meetings offline as follows:

“We arranged to meet up in a pub in London and I was a bit put off by the way her stomach seemed out of proportion for her frame. The other thing was that she kept on touching – just sort of reaching out all the time which I found a bit odd for a first meeting. It was not that she had lied about herself but just what she was like and how she acted with me when we met. It was hard to realize that she was the same person.”

According to Match.com and E-Harmony.com success rates – this is not usually the norm. Individuals become so involved in the relationship before this stage that it is hard to turn back once they actually meet face-to-face.

Arvidsson describes the interaction on Match.com, “evolves on the basis of the assumption that true love is contingent on a true and authentic experience of selfhood, and revealing inner self and its true desires.”

With this being said, offline and online dating all try to reach one common goal – to find a mate suitable enough to spend a long duration of time with. The goal is the same, but possibly more focused through online dating since offline dating has many more casual encounters. Overall, online dating allows for honed-in productivity to find a mate, leaving chance out of it and getting directly into the person of interest at hand. This displaces place by shortening the time frame that was once used to get to know someone before taking the plunge into a monogamous relationship, and instead allows for a deeper, personal connection before initial face-to-face confrontation.

This is Part II of my little investigation into the phenomenon that is online dating. If you haven’t read Part I, I suggest you do before you dive into this puppy.

Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?

Many Web sites begin with straightforward questions such as height, weight, age, religious views, etc. Then, more esoteric questions are asked such as what the user enjoys doing on weekends, what makes them most happy, etc. Finally, the user is given the opportunity to describe their ideal match – right down to the shade of brown hair, if they so choose brown hair to begin with.

Next, the user is given the opportunity to put themselves into written word. While some do not feel at ease doing such a thing, as one 31-year-old male on E-Harmony.com wrote, “I don’t feel comfortable having to describe myself, but I understand it has to be done, so here we go…” as an opening line, others flourish. Take for example Jane, a 35-year-old woman with two children:

“I am what you might call a ‘modern independent woman.’ I have a good career and stand firmly on my own feet. I do not like to depend on anybody and therefore look for someone I can have an equal relationship with. I will not allow you to dominate me and will lost interest instantly if I can dominate you. I have two children, though they live with their father three days a week. If you are not sure about children, do not bother me. I am not looking for a casual relationship; I simply do not have time for it. I have done two degrees and speak three languages and have my own company. And, in case you are wondering, I am very attractive, dark hair, blue eyes. Ideally, I would like to meet someone between thirty-thirty-five years old, tall and dark hair. If you are a businessman – great – we’ll have something to talk about. You need to be a graduate and have a good career. If this sounds like you it would be nice if you send me a note and tell me about yourself. I’ll reply and we can see if we get along.”

An introduction such as this would never be done during an in person meeting. In fact, this much information, including the domination and accepting of children might not be done until a month into seeing each other. Online dating is definitive in that it allows for people to actively seek ideal matches from the comfort of their own home, and learn about them before they ever know the user had the slightest bit of interest.

Hardey states that the “about me” section of the online dating profile is to “provide an important point of contact information from which others decide whether to enter to communicate”. Therefore, the advertisement that users place allow for others to instantly accept or reject them – displacing the need to go out and meet someone to “get to know them,” then cutting off the individual if they did not suit your needs.

Part III

I find the idea of online dating extremely intriguing, like a dog that walks on its hind legs while dressed. I’ve also noticed that it seems to be blowing up lately. So, I decided to do a little research and investigate the phenomenon. It ended up being a little more than I expected, so I’ve broken my findings down into three parts.

Without further ado, this, my friends, is what I have found:

Within the past five years, the social world of dating has undergone extreme changes. No longer does it resemble that of meeting someone through a friend or at a public location after work. Now, meeting your partner is potentially a click away.

Internet dating sites are a “comparatively efficient venue for finding a partner” according to Adam Arvidsson, author of “‘Quality singles’: internet dating ad the work of fantasy.” With so many Web sites that are tailored to this specific want, over 1,000 with a 48 percent” growth rate since 2005 and 74 percent of all single Internet users having tried at least one, it is hard to see how there could be so much growth within a high success rate – which they do have. In 2008, 72 percent of all matches online which became successful offline, face-to-face relationships married within one year. Couples who met offline were almost half as likely to be married in one year, with only 36 percent marrying in that time span.

Online dating gives users something offline can’t always accomplish – compatibility testing. This feature isn’t new, as computer matching has been around since 1960 with the IBM 1404 computer matching questionnaire. However, the approach is now much more different and evolved.

Two of the largest online matchmaking sites are Match.com and E-Harmony.com. Match.com is owned by Ticketmaster, which gives it solid backing. E-Harmony is said to be a more niche oriented dating site for a “higher class level the average Internet date seeker.” Both of these sites offer the ability to describe yourself in an unlimited fashion, surveying of numerous issues and circumstances within your life, photo uploading capabilities and also compatibility testing – all for a small fee.

E-Harmony has had numerous complains about the selectivity of their site. Many are not accepted due to their interest in men or women, or even other factors, such as class status. Furthermore, numerous complaints have been filed stating that “fake” profiles have been set up in order to keep consumers interested and paying the six month fee. Therefore, with all of the controversy surrounding this Web site, this paper will focus largely around Match.com, which is also the number one dating site to date in the United States.

Simply put, online dating sites allow people to place advertisements of themselves for other to see. They also have the ability to actively search out partners, all included in their membership fee. These sites’ mimic the idea of advertisements in a newspaper, however, they carry more freedom. Michael Hardey states within his article “Mediated relationships: authenticity and the possibility of romance,” that “internet dating parallels newspaper ads – only online ads are unlimited.”

By giving people the ability to write more about themselves, they are able to explain themselves in a way that may be more enticing. Within a newspaper, usually the character limit is so small that it can at times encourage a draw on culturally stereotypical descriptions of masculinity or femininity, meaning that in order to attract the opposite sex, the posters believe their advertisement must be flashy and straightforward with no mystery. Online dating has the ability to erase this stigma along with give people more of an opportunity to learn more about their potential mate before meeting face-to-face.

The phenomenon of Internet dating can be characterized as a cycle of reading descriptions, writing responses and exchanging messages. This can be a contrast to that of offline dating as the user doesn’t necessarily have to deal with the face-to-face awkwardness and potential embarrassments of meeting someone, as writing and exchanging messages allows for the ability to edit an unlimited amount of times until the message is perfectly crafted – in their eyes at least.

However, before that message has even begun to be crafted, the user must first set up an account on the Web site of their choice. The ability to describe yourself limitlessly through the Internet potentially allows for a great ability to use the mechanism of imagination and empowerment. It allows users “to construct mutual symbolic meanings, shared experiences and affective bonds is to put us to work to generate content that is commercially successful,” according to Arvidsson. Basically, the user is creating an advertisement that will attract a quality partner.

Part II
Part III

While I am by and large one of the biggest fans of Sex and the City, I’ve come to a realization.

Sex and the City has the possibility of ruining young women’s lives.

I know, it pains me to even write it. But hear me out.

Carrie spends six seasons and one full-length movie (and another to be released next year) chasing Mr. Big around. Whether or not you agree with her choices, his choices — whatever — she ends up with him.

He marries other women, she cheats on her fiancee with him; he won’t commit, she’ll commit – all in all it spells out disaster.

But, in the long run, she marries him. And why? Because she believes that he’s her true love. The “big” love, the one and only so to speak.

So, basically, the series tells us that while a guy may do terrible things in our relationships such as not give us what we want or need, or may not be good for us in general at times – they very well may be the one.

I understand that the basis of the series is that every woman that watches the show has a piece of all four characters in her. That these four women somehow make up a composite sketch of who we, as modern, independent, single women are. I get that.

But if you’re going to tell me that you have no attachment to a single character, then guess what, Sally? You’re lying to me.

So, while I see that Carrie, the character I see most of myself in, allowing her big love to do whatever he pleases, including leaving her at the alter, I get confused. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

I don’t put a lot of “real-life should turn out like this” stock into this series, so if you think I’m trying to live my life by some Sex and the City code, you’re wrong. But, you’re going to honestly sit here and tell me that you’ve never heard a friend bring up a scene from the show, or even another show such as this, and somehow compare it to what they’re going through – as if to justify their actions or that of their significant other?

I thought so.

There are cues or hints that help women put their lives into perspective. We receive these through television shows, magazines, Web sites or close friends. Throughout these venues, we seek answers that we don’t necessarily have right away, or are too close to the situation to come up with.

So, while Sex and the City is an amazing show, all I have to say to the women who watch it as religiously as do I, is be careful. Pick and choose what you take from the show and place in your love life, if anything.

Because, when that big love comes along, may it doesn’t have to be as dramatic or hard like it is in the movies. Maybe, it can just be as simple as we make it out to be.

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