Match.com
EHarmony.com
Yahoo Personals
Lavalife
Craigslist
The list goes on and on of sites that are part of the growing (epidemic) trend of places people turn to, pardon me, click to in their search for love. These sites are at the forefront of a dating revolution that evens the playing field in a notoriously competitive bloodsport, and bridges the gap between the nerdy computer programmer and the buxom blonde bombshell that was previously accessible only to society’s most well-heeled and charming.
But at what price?
It’s 2009, and now instead of paying for her Lasagna della Famiglia and three glasses of Chianti, dating has been turned into a cash cow that charges you to look at pictures of some girl you’ve never met before, with a chance to send her an awkward, out-of-nowhere, “I like dogs and Thai food and riding my bicycle” email, with the hope that you’ll catch her eye and *gasp* land an actual date. Face to face. With an actual human being. That may end up hating you, after all that.
Whoever the fuck came up with this online dating bullshit is brilliant, truly a cunning capitalist in every sense of the term. Let’s take one of the most basic human instincts (the desire to be with and care about someone else) and put it behind the liquid crystal glass of your work and home computers, and then put it for sale! We can let people post flattering pictures, witty quotes, burning passions, favorite hobbies and preferred soulmate traits for anyone to see, so long as they pay their low monthly fee.
Let’s get this straight here, we are charging people to “meet” people online, instead of having to brush their teeth, go outside, open their eyes, smile and *gasp* be social in public places. Some things should never be messed with, especially a good thing, but in this case it’s too late, online dating is not only here to stay, it’s growing.
The morons are rewarding the geniuses that came up with this shy-guy’s way of crossing his fingers and hoping to get lucky. In just one example of this profit-reaping epidemic, Match.com posted a profit of over $5 million in 2007 alone. One year, five million.
Don’t you wish you had come up with this or bottled water back in the day?
Had you told anyone back in the 1960s that in less than 50 years, people would be paying millions to find, communicate with, and stalk other strangers–all in the name of love–they’d have told you to stop smoking so much reefer and get back to reality, you know, where people actually meet each other.
What drives online dating? Is it the anonymity that lets anyone join and anyone find anyone they think they might be compatible with? Is it the coming of age of everyone who wants to be a part of the big couples party, but wants to maintain their antisocial attitude and doesn’t do well with the word hello?
Or are people just afraid of each other? Are people so stricken by face-to-face rejection anxiety that they’re willing to wait on a response to their emails for days and pay $19.99-a-month instead of waiting the two seconds it takes for someone to say “yeah, ice cream and an afternoon at the beach would be fun” to them directly? Are people afraid to flirt now in the 21st century?
Or is this just one symptom of a bigger, greater problem that can only be described as “real-world” social anxiety? Is all this great, cutting-edge technology killing our human personalities and our social interaction skills faster than an sugar-high 8-year-old shooting fish in a barrel with a 12-gauge?
Have we become laptop-locked, desk chair-dating turds that are afraid to go strike up a conversation with that hot redhead at the bus stop, but will gladly “go out on a limb” and send some stupid one-liner on Match.com to some chick we’ve never seen before? For a fee?
I guess that is one of those things that I’ll just never understand. Paying to “meet people” through online dating services is kind of like paying for sex. Minus that whole actually getting laid part. Actually, it’s kind of being blindfolded in a backseat of a fast-moving car with the window down, and you’re yelling out at all these girls you don’t know shit about and that you’ve never seen before, the driver’s going 75 and the whole time you’re dropping dollar bills out the window, hoping it attracts the love of your life.
If you have to use the internet for one thing sexual, go for porn. It’s free, the variety is better and you don’t have to take your computer to any awkward brunches the next morning.
But online dating is just fucking stupid, and fucking pathetic too. Go outside, stop pretending you’re too busy. Meet people. Say hello. Be your charming self. Smile.
You’d be amazed how well that works, still.
“The only difference between friends and lovers is about 4 minutes.”
~Scott Roeben
