ONLINE DATING:
Instead of using a traditional match maker, online dating employs the use of specific websites to meet new people. It allows individuals, couples or groups to meet online and possibly develop a romantic or sexual relationship.
How does online dating work?
Online dating is almost like meeting people in a bar or a club, except that you set up a date profile. Most websites offer this for free. You leave a contact phone number or more preferably an email address for prospective suitors to get in touch with you. The website will then post your profile in its pages, where anyone can access them easily. And that’s all there is to it. Interested people will surely flood your inbox with messages.
Problems with Online Dating:
| • | Some websites make members sign up ‘blind’, meaning that the users do not get to preview the profile that they are going to see. This prompts people to post not a real profile but advertisements to other services like prostitution or multi level marketing |
| • | Websites keep peoples profiles online sometimes for years together. Which means that even after you have met the love of your life online, got married and had children, there are chances that you may be invited out on a date again? Probably. |
| • | Even though most profiles are ‘real’, there is always a lack of trust inherent with all members. Since this is an online dating ritual, people tend to lie about themselves, post pictures of people other than themselves etc. |
| • | On any given dating site the sex ratio is often almost always imbalanced. |
| • | Romance scams are common. Romance scams essentially occur when strangers pretend romantic intentions, thereby gaining the love and affection of people. They then use that goodwill to gain access into their victim’s bank accounts or even get them to commit financial fraud on their behalf. |
Why online dating works?
| • | It provides a safety buffer when it comes to confidentiality. |
| • | Better selection. You have a million people to choose from on the net compared to a bar cramped with about a hundred odd people. |
| • | You get to know more about a person before going out on a real date with him/ her. |
| • | Your conversations can go on endlessly without the fear of saturating yourself with coffee (or alcohol) and closing times. |
| • | People are less defensive and tend to open up more than what they would do on a normal date. |
Why online dating does not work?
| • | Fakes: One of the biggest arguments against online dating is that everyone is lying. That really sweet guy who said he was a banker may in reality be an undertaker at the general hospital, or the caring sweet 20 something you met may be a 50 year old gay man living across the street. The anonymity of the internet allows people to lie about their age, appearance and even gender. That is why most online dating portals provide a confidential messaging system of some kind so that you can get in touch with the person you are dating before you reveal your personal contact information. |
| • | There is a mind set that the people who opt to date online are in reality losers who cannot get a date in real life. Although not necessarily true, this is most often the scenario. People are fed up of going endlessly to dating haunts in search of the right person. Why go through all that trouble when you can do all that on the click of a button? It’s easier to escape from persistent pursuers online than in real life. Escape is just a block list or a delete key away. |
| • | Expensive?: Setting up a personal profile online can get pricey as most websites require payment using a credit card. |