Why be ashamed about meeting people online?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a friend who is going through ex-boyfriend blues. My advice to her: Try out an internet dating service and get your mind off the old guy. I met my boyfriend through match.com and so far, I couldn’t be happier with him.

She basically dismissed the idea. “No offense to you, but just imagining telling people I met a date through the internet…uggh.”

I didn’t get offended; she’s entitled to her opinion. I do think it’s a rather closed-minded view, though. I mean, she’s been in a funk about her ex for how many months now? IMHO, the best cure for a broken heart is a new romance, even if it is just a short-lived fling with someone that may not be ideal for a lifelong relationship but is good enough for flirting and a couple of dress-up dates. If I were in her shoes, I’d probably be considering all my options and not be too picky. It looks like she has rejected what could possibly help her over this hump, and frankly I don’t get it.

On one hand, I understand the embarrassment factor associated with meeting people on the internet. It’s doesn’t have that “natural” feel that hooking up with a person at a bar or club does. But on the other hand, I think it is because there is no I-didn’t-come-here-to-meet-people-per-se-I just-come-here-for-the drinks pretense that makes online dating the ideal route for someone who knows what they want and who wants it without all the games and pickup lines that come with the bar/club scene. That’s why I see no shame in saying I met my boyfriend online. It’s just another route of meeting people. I think it is petty to worry about what people might think if you end up dating someone you met on the internet. Mr. Right could be out there, who knows?

What’s your take? How do you feel about internet dating and why?

2

I’ve ranted about this perception that many people have that people you’d meet online are losers, geeks, or mentally unstable. Maybe it used to be that way, I don’t know. I’ve only been online since freaking 93 so maybe I don’t know yet.
I do internet dating, and I date ALOT. At work, some witch with a stick up her ass will invariably, and in front of as many people as she can, inquire how my COMPUTER DATING IS GOING??? I just smile and assure her that things are going along swimmingly, thanks.
Like it’s a much better idea to go to big rooms full of people getting drunk to find a mate.
It’s not as easy as I thought it would be. I started with the idea that, hey, I’d kinda like me one of those “men” and I think I’ll just get on the computer and order me up one. A few pleasant but maybe boring dates later, and the man of my dreams would appear in my email, and a walk down the aisle is just clicks away. Yeah, right. I’ve been on lots and lots of dates. There have been a couple of short-lived relationships. I’m still doing it, though, because I don’t have many opportunites to meet people, and I still think I have just as much of a chance of meeting my dream man than I do anywhere else. The bonus is that I get to do it from home.

3

I have a very nice story to tell about internet dateing to share.

I have always been a fan of the old TV show Thunderbirds (1960’s Gerry Anderson production). Back in Sept of 2003 I finally got an internet connection on my system at home. Well, I did some posting and made some friends. This lead up to using MSN messenger and chatting with some fellow fans. after a couple of months I wound up[ spending a lot of time talking to Lynne and forming a VERY close friendship. then one day I got a microphone so that she could hear my voice since I talk considerably better than I spell. this lead to her getting one as well then came webcameras on both ends. On Jan 16th of 2004 I had fallen in love with her. In a rather nervous voice I told her that I was falling for her. She told me that she had the same feelings for me. I’ve been in love with her ever since. And I still am. We both view Jan 16th as our “anniversary”. We share an incredible amount in common and love each other dearly. However only one problem. She lives In california and I live in Wis. So we have never been any closer than a half a continent apart. She plans on moving to Wis but she’s having serious financial difficulties and I am presently unemployed. So we’ve got two people who love each other, have seen each other, but have never held each other. In fact she’s and I are chatting righ tnow even as I type this. the only way that I could be happier is that if she were here right now.

So yes, by all means your friend should look into internet dating or at least meeting other people through the net.

4

I told my RA (Resident Advisor) freshman year that I’d met my boyfriend on the internet. (He was visiting, she asked…) Her response was, and I quote,

“HA!!”

Now I tell people we met through a “mutual friend”.

Which we did. On the internet.

5

I met my husband online. My grandmother was embarassed and didn’t want anyone to know, and a former teacher of mine kind of rolled her eyes when I told her. Everyone else in my life at the time didn’t really have an opinion.

Internet dating has to move into real life eventually, so I don’t see what the problem is. You still have to go through the awkward meat market preening, the only difference I see is when you find someone online, you’re going into it (hopefully) a little less blind than you would be if you went out on a date with someone you’d met at a club.

Good mates are hard to find. If I were single and really wanted to settle down, I’d use everything at my disposal: friends, family, internet, regular dating services, etc. Using the internet to find someone just enables you to cast your net wider than you would if you stuck to only dating people you ran across IRL.

I think your friend is limiting her options.

6

If you meet someone in a bar or get introduced by a friend or meet on the internet it’s all the same. You start out as strangers and maybe get to know a whole lot about each other or you move on if it’s not a match. I’ve said this before on the boards but you’ve got to date a lot of people to find the right one. Internet dating provides a way to meet many people, while in the “real” world, chance meetings are rare.

7

I hate it when you’re not ashamed of something, then someone says “why be ashamed of it,” and suddenly you have to consider that you should be ashamed!

Anyway, I don’t know why. Because it sounds too easy, I guess people assume there’s a catch like that you will snag a shut-in or something. It’s probably the same people who won’t order a CD from Amazon because they think their identity will get stolen.

8

I’ve always hated cafes and places where looks and noise gets in the way of more meaningful interaction (not to mention the smoking - ugh), but nevertheless I’ve had my fair share of relationships (my own looks are not holding me back).

Only to realise that I am the kind of person that can get along with very many different kinds of people, but need to be with one who is … well … what is perhaps best described as a SD type of person - curious, intelligent (or at least trying to be) and sociable.

Sadly enough, these prove to be pretty hard to find. On the internet however, there are websites that have a good share of educated women who have a well trained mind, which is something I rate far above a well trained anything else.

I’ve now had two relationships with someone I met through the internet (one 2 years living together, one 3 weeks) and I’ve met a lot of great people this way. Of course, my experience with that goes all the way back to 1993, when I first met someone I met in a chatroom, but this was a guy from the UK.

I started internet dating three years ago and back then it was considered by some to be … ehm … somewhat desperate. But ironically, some of those people were in fact pretty desperate themselves (essentialy virgins in their late twenties) and they looked up to me because I got along with the ladies fine. So when after 2 months I had met 4 girls and got together with one of them, others started following my example.

Considering how especially later in life (i.e. after university or whatever) you end up in social circles that don’t change very much, internet dating is great. It is certainly in my experience, I have now met maybe 8 girls over the internet and I’ve never been disappointed by any one of them. Ok, some girls are to relationship focussed (in my experience, if they run a life-partner checklist on you within 3 weeks, you’re in trouble), but I’ve had that happen with someone I met in real life exactly the same way.

Of course, sites do matter. I visit one that allows you a lot of detail and freedom in the description of who you are (or think you are) and what you are looking for, and there is the option to email or chat (or even anonymous voice, but I never used that). This is why it totally blows away the newspaper add medium. Also, it’s a pay site which takes care of any jokers.

Today, internet dating is no longer really seen the way it was 3 years ago when I started (mind you, in that period I’ve been actively dating only about 3 months in total - it just seems to work that well :wink: ) and recently I read that 60% of relationships over here are now forming over the internet.

We all know the Internet is a great invention, and internet dating is just one of the exciting new possibilities. The best part for me personally is getting to meet someone mentally before you meet them visually. Though it has to be said, this is also a danger especially for n00bs - if you lack experience, you can easily build up a very detailed image of every aspect of the person you’re mailing or chatting with that will turn the first actual date into a great-book-turned into-lousy-picture experience. Once you learn not to expect more than you actually know about someone (Socrates still rules after all these years) and once you learn to gauge someone’s personality better (chatting rules, emails allow much more for someone to present him or herself as something he or she is not), there’s tonnes of great people to meet out there that would otherwise remain out of your limited social circle.

(and no, I don’t work for one of these websites … :D)

9

Tell her she is a luddite. I don’t discriminate about how I meet people, I send stuff to people all over the world that I have met on message boards. If some Doper was coming to Australia and I could help them out I would. Even Seinfeld picked up a wrong number. Tell her to get modern.

10

Right. Hopefully, you at least know they aren’t illiterate and know how to work a computer. Good skills to have in a mate in the 21st century.

by pokey:

I hate when that happens, too. When I first got into internet dating, I wasn’t troubled at all about the idea. And I’m not now. But every so often I will hear someone say something derisive about it (after whining about their lackluster love life, I might add), and it just puzzles me.

I also think it’s because people don’t want their peers to judge them as being so desperate that they have to hook up with strangers on the net. I guess I could imagine being worried about that…if I gave a monkey’s ass about what other people thought. Since I don’t, then I see no reason to let other people’s misconceptions get in the way of me having a good time.

Wish my friend could see things like that.

11

I did worse; I met my gf over the SDMB!

We tell people we don’t know well it was a blind date.

12

Which begs the question of the topic. I’d be proud to have met my partner on a board that subtexts ‘fighting ignorance since 1973’ and even telling strangers ‘it was a blind date’ (isn’t that worse, if anything?) doesn’t actually honour this board’s credo, now does it? :rolleyes: :smiley:

13

I’m finding it’s not as much of a stigma as it used to be. Basically more of us are online and know that while there are crazy ass people online, there are also normal people online. It’s just another forum to meet people.

I met my boyfriend from Yahoo personals. If I’m ashamed of anything about that process (which I’m not) it would likely be more that I placed a personals ad, not that I did it via the internet.

14

Eh, some of my most fondly-remembered crushes have been directed at people known only online. Finding some gal who’s my type, locally, who’s available, and relatively mentally stable, just doesn’t happen.

15

Ironically enough, there were no spelling errors in your post, so you must have one smokin’ speaking voice…

16

I think there are two things going on, and the thinking tends to overlap. You have people who meet via the internet and then you have people who have relationships via the internet.

While I wouldn’t think twice about someone telling me they met (as in, corresponded briefly then actually met live and in person) via the personals on the internet, I would raise an eyebrow if someone were to tell me they were in love with someone and having a relationship with someone they had never met (as in, never physically met, shook hands, locked lips with, etc.).* It’s just too easy to pretend to be someone you’re not, or even if both parties are exactly who they say they are, the internet isn’t an adequate SOLE substitute for sharing physical space. I think that’s where a lot of the skeptism comes in (and people don’t differentiate between the two circumstances).

On the other hand, my friend actually dated a guy (very briefly) who had “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member” syndrome. Despite having created his own personal ad, he seemed to genuinely look down upon her for having answered it.

You never know.

*yes, I know many people will defend this but my eyebrow remains raised

17

My first foray into internet dating was about 7 years ago, and there was still very much a stigma associated with it then. It wasn’t uncommon to see profiles that said, “you should be willing to lie about how we met,” and I’ll admit I felt that way myself for a long time. I’ve been off and on with various dating sites ever since (mostly off, because there were several years when I just wasn’t interested in meeting anyone), and for the past month I’ve been “on” again with OK Cupid. I notice way less of a stigma these days, and rightly so: as others have said, it’s really no better or worse than any other way of meeting people (no more/less successful, either).

I think it’s still a bigger deal for people my age (30s) and older, as opposed to people in their 20s, because we didn’t grow up with the internet. We’re quite comfortable with it, on the whole, which is part of the reason online dating has become more acceptable, but we have significant memories of meeting people in bars and at parties and having that be our only option.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I don’t think meeting people online is anything to be ashamed about, but it’s only recently that I’ve become fully comfortable with that opinion. In the “old” days I would never mention that I was using an online site unless I was about to have a second date with someone, but these days my officemate, best friend, and a couple of my co-workers not only know, they’ve given me their opinion on profiles. :slight_smile:

18

Longest relationship I’ve had (5 years) was with someone I met and chatted with first over the internet. I had met her a few times after that at small parties the chat-group setup (#Arizona on underNET used to do LAN parties all the time).

Granted, most of the people I knew/know are from the internet, they didn’t really have a problem with it. Oddly enough… all 3 relationships I’ve had in the past were with someone I met initially on the Internet. I find no fault in someone that finds a love interest over the internet. It’s just a bar, without the faces. Or the alocohol. Or the smokin. Or… well, you get the idea. Plus it’s a real boon for us slightly goofy shy guys :wink:

19

As a matter of principal, I see nothing wrong with it. It’s just one more tool to meet people. It’s not a replacement for actually going out and meeting them. I guess that part of my would be a little uncomfortible putting all my personal stuff online and creating a smart sexy profile.

Internet dating - it’s not just for geeks and pedophiles anymore!

20

I shouldn’t be ashamed of it, but I am. Non-geeks don’t get it, yet. It’s changing, though.