I don’t believe in online dating
Sometimes, my friends would ask me how comes I am still single.
Although I hope to meet my Mr Right some day, I like where I am in life right now, and people around me do not always understand that. But still, the not meeting the right guy is probably the main reason.
Of course, there will always be someone to tell me that if meeting men is the problem, it can easily be solved. With a few clicks, on an online dating service. Ah, what cannot be solved online these days?
The truth is, I gave it a try a few years ago. I have no horrible story to tell about meeting total jerks, or guy who had lied about their age or appearance, or married guys looking for an affair… I only met men who were alone and looking for their significant other, just as I was. But it didn’t work.
At first I thought it just didn’t work out for me: I was finding it hard to be online very day, available for anybody who wanted to talk because well, you never know, the one you turned down could have been the right one. I was finding it hard to have 3 dates with 3 different guys on the same week. And I was finding it hard to decide which one of those guys I liked best. If I liked any, that is.
So I gave up.
It was one year later that I read several articles on the subject, and began to think about my experience again. And this is how I see it now (and sociologists see things the same way). When you enter that see full of fish, you look for someone who shares your interests because you need something to start a conversation. Oh, that guy likes Fiona Apple and Bruce Willis, too, I am going to contact him! And of course the standard questionaire we fill in when we subscribe are full of information of that kind. So we look for someone like us.
But look around you, look at the happy couples, ask them what they love about each other. I bet they won’t tell you that having a favourite actor in common made their relationship last. Actually, it is their fundamental differences that brought them together and made them a good match. One of my friends’husband finds it hard to make any decision; he says that what he loves about his wife, is that she can always decide what to do so quiclky. Unlike him. My best friend, before she had her kids, told me she thought she was going to be a terrible mother because she’s so anxious, but that it was OK because her husband would be a great father. Unlike her, she thought.
What we need in a long-lasting relationship, what we crave for, is someone to give us a hand and help us walk when all we want to do is sit on the side of the road and stay there for ever. And vice versa. And that is something you cannot look for in those standard questionaire.
You will probably tell me that you know someone who met their significant other online. Actually my colleague just married a guy she met online. She kept looking for 3 years, so I guess if you look long enough and have a bit of luck, you might find a partner this way.
But I am convinced that looking for someone this way is mostly unproductive and leaves a lot to luck.
So I had planned to be a mere lurker until you mentioned Fiona Apple. She is an incredible song writer and one heck of a talent! It’s unfortunate that more people don’t know about her (and that she doesn’t make more music more often!) I am on a Regina Spektor kick right now. Not as accessible as Fiona, but once you get past the quirky-punched-in-the-gut sound effects she makes and begin listening to the lyrics of some of her songs, she’s actually quite outstanding. I highly recommend Musicbox. It’s one of her most accessible pieces. At first, I was annoyed by her, but the more I listened, the more I liked.
Sorry. I began the post with a digression. Not my style typically.
What you’re saying is true, but I’m not sure it paints the picture totally. Looking for “the one” online can be unproductive and does leave a lot to luck. But the truth is, meeting “the one” EVER involves a great deal of luck. There are 6 billion people in the world and the chances of finding one that can ingest my foibles, embrace my less than optimal habits, and still want to cuddle up with me on damp Saturday mornings takes the kind of luck that makes a profit at the roulette wheel. The question is, do you increase your chances by looking for it online?
I argue that you do slightly improve your chances. That is, if you consider the alternatives being meeting people at a bar on Friday nights when everyone is half liquored up, having the friend who has never had a successful long-term relationship set you up with her friend, or waiting for the debonair guy who keeps stealing glances at you to come over while you’re fondling the avocados at the supermarket. Luck, it has been said, is being prepared when an opportunity presents itself. By looking for a relationship on a reputable, online dating site, I think you increase your chances of finding someone with a goal congruent with yours and less likely to find the sleezy, velvet jacket dude at the end of the bar that hits on anything with a pulse and lipstick.
One mistake I think people make (not you in particular) is that they go into online dating with an expectation that it will lead to romance. I think that’s a lot of stress to put on any relationship at the beginning. If you start with an expectation that this WILL be a long term relationship, things get too heavy too fast.
For me, when I think about my most successful relationships, they started off by having fun with the other person. I wasn’t thinking, this is going to be an incredibly, successful, long term relationship that will lead to marriage… Instead, I went out with that person, we had a lot of good times, we shared things in a very natural way and never thought or talked about how serious of a relationship it was. By the time we looked up, a couple years had passed and wow! We’re a couple.
At any rate, I’m not trying to sell online dating. I think there are many paths to get to happy coupledom. And judging from the initial part of your post, you don’t seem in any great rush to be paired up. Still, before totally writing off the online thing, I would encourage you to think about the alternatives and see how online dating stacks up. You might see that it’s your best chance to get lucky
Good luck!
muskratfajita
November 1, 2007
Hi, welcome here and thanks for your interesting comment. To start with the same digression I like Regina Spektor a lot, too
Now about the online dating thing, I think you have a good point on saying that people go there and expect immediate romance. And I think it is why it didn’t work for me actually: I never felt free to just have a good time with someone and discovering if I liked him because when you meet someone through such a service, the first meeting immediately turns into a date. The ‘just hanging out’ part does not exist, and this is what I missed.
I totally agree with you when you say luck is involved anyway, that is true, but still there were other things bothering me and I guess it is just not my thing.
Marie D.
November 1, 2007
Okay… I was looking for an “email me” link somewhere on your blog and couldn’t find one. I didn’t really want to post another comment to ask this question…. but since you love Fiona and like Regina, I was wondering what other music, bands, musicians, you’re listening to at the moment. I’m always hungry for new music and since you have incredibly good taste in music, I thought I would ask…
muskratfajita
November 1, 2007
LOL – I moved my blog to here recently and never thought about the contact info, thanks for pointing this out
Sometimes I like a mix of different thins and go for series or movies music, the last ones were House MD and rey’s Anatomy (vol 1) that I higly recommend. In a different genre 3 CD’s I have had for a while but never get tired of are: Rise by Kim Richey (she’s categorized as country but I don’t think it is), Half the Perfect World by Madeleine Peyroux and Not too Late by Norah Jones. I am also a huge fan of Dido and Alanis Morissette and impatiently waiting for their new albums.
I hope there is something you like in there
Marie D.
November 2, 2007