THE PERFECT MATCH!

Finding true love, online or offline?

Let me start with mentioning the following names to you: Lexa, Parship, Be2, Match.com and Relatie Planet. What is the first thing that pops up in your mind when you see these names? I am sure you immediately recognized one of them.

Today, I want to talk about online dating sites and the effectiveness of online dating. With this subject I want to go back to The Social Aspects of New Media. As already mentioned before, The Socials Aspects of New Media is also a course that I am following this semester.  A couple of weeks ago we talked about the development of romantic relationships online and more specifically via an online dating site. This lecture made me curious about online dating and the effectiveness of these websites. Moreover, is it really possible to find ‘the man or woman of your dreams’ via an online dating site? In order to talk about the effectiveness of online dating and romantic relationships, you first need to know the definition:

ONLINE DATING: “Similar to newspaper personals (but with much more information), individuals construct a profile, describing themselves and often providing photographs of themselves and sometimes sound bites and videos. Users typically have to pay to use this service and once they identify a person whose profile they like, online contact is made through the system to gauge whether the other individual might also be interested. From there, individuals typically organize to meet face-to-face (Whitty & Carr, 2006)”.

ROMANTIC RELATION: “It usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person. This is typically accompanied with intimacy, passion, physical contact (e.g., hugging, sex), compassion and affinity”.

In this online era, the popularity of online dating is increasing every day. Online dating even has to some extent taken over less traditional forms of dating such as personal ads in newspapers or magazines and video dating. In addition, there are many dating sites available on the internet. There are two types of online dating sites namely, the general dating sites and special interest dating sites. General dating sites are sites where everybody can subscribe and has access to. Some examples of these dating sites are Lexa and Relatie Planet.  

The special interest dating sites focus on specific target groups with specific preferences, such as vegetarians (Vegadates) or Christian (Christian Match) people.

Another, online dating bureau that caught my attention is not the one that matches two people together but people and animals. This online dating site, called verhuisdieren , matches pets with their future owners by character features instead of outer appearances.

Online dating is real business, people spend large amounts of money in order to find the perfect date, and at the same time the dating services receive money for matching people. When you just want to explore online dating; on many dating sites subscription is for free. However, for example to get more options, seeing other profiles or sending messages to other people most sites ask a certain amount of money per month. The following scheme shows some prices in euros:

According to Mashable, online daters should not be considered desperate anymore. Online dating is popular and it is becoming even bigger than the online porn industry. An important advantage of an online dating site is that the system is trying to find the perfect match for you according to your living place, length, looks, character, job, interests, hobbies, and etcetera. People try to present themselves in the most positive way at online dating sites; men tend to lie about their age and women lie about their weight. Nevertheless, there are people that seriously believe that they will find the man or woman of their dreams via an online dating site. Moreover, there are people that have actually found true love via the help of an online dating site. These people got married, got children and lived happily ever after

However, in the lecture we also talked about the reasons and motivations for people to find a partner via an online dating site.  People use an online dating site because it is a good alternative to the pub and the club scene, because they are shy or reserved, they felt that there are no other options left, it is more convenient, and because of the privacy it affords. Furthermore, another reason could be the high pressure at work. This leads to less leisure time, which makes people look for other alternatives way to find love. Moreover, the amount of romantic relationships developed at work are declining, due to that sensitivity about sexual harassments is growing (Whitty & Carr, 2006).

In addition, if you decide to search for the perfect match on an online dating site try the BAR Approach to find a match more successfully. With this approach you need to create your online profile in such a way that is represents both your most ‘attractive’ and ‘real’ self. Online daters claim to be attracted to honest and genuine people. Hence, the most effective profile is one that has a good balance between an attractive and real self (Whitty & Car, 2006).

What do you think of dating online, do you think it is effective and that you can build the same romantic relationships online as a romantic relationship developed offline? As from my point of view, I think that online dating is a good alternative for people who have troubles with presenting themselves and getting to know new people. An online dating site can help these people in making the first contact with a man or a woman. Although, in the end when meeting face-to-face a person has to do it on their own without the help of an online dating site. On the other hand, this should be easier because the face-to-face meeting is with someone you already connected and matched with on the internet. I am sure that there are people who definitely have the ‘luck’ to find true love via online dating. However, love is something you cannot ‘force’ to happen; it ‘hits’ you on a moment when you least expect it. 

Talk to you again next week!

Lastly, I do not want withhold these eleven interesting facts about online dating from you.

Reference:

Whitty, M. T., & Carr, A. N. (2006). Cyberspace Romance: the Psychology of Online Relationships. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.