# Would you have used a dating website if they existed back then? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469 "2015-06-02T19:15:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/1 "2015-06-02T19:15:52Z")
This question is for those of us of a certain age for whom dating websites were non-existent. Thinking back to your carefree, single days, do you think you’d have tried out a match-up website if that had been an option? When I was in college (late 70s) one of my classmates used a computer dating service with virtually no success. I was poor, so I couldn’t afford those services, and frankly, I was suspicious. It was a new and strange concept, therefore scary!!! :eek: But if I was a college-age woman today, I’d probably at least give a site or two a try. So, yes, if today’s technology was available to me in the 70s, I’m pretty sure I’d have used it. Then again, if I had, I might not have met my husband, who was the instructor when I decided to take sailing lessons. I might not have ventured to the marina if I’d been on line… ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/2 "2015-06-02T22:22:50Z")
There were ‘‘single’’ newspapers. I never got a response to an ad. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/3 "2015-06-02T22:33:33Z")
I advertised in the personals of the Albuquerque Journal in 1980 and met someone I had an on-again off-again affair over a 4 year period. We’re still in touch. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/4 "2015-06-02T23:03:59Z")
I would have given it a go back in the '70s. The possibility of making an intellectual connection and then (hopefully) following it through with a more physical connection would have interested me. I can remember going on a lot of one-and-done dates back then with guys who were nice to look at but had nothing interesting to say. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/5 "2015-06-02T23:41:35Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > There were ‘‘single’’ newspapers. I never got a response to an ad. I tried that in the mid 80s. I had some hits, and a few second dates, but nothing worthwhile came of it. If I was to become single again in the future I’d certainly try the various sites & apps available now. Even though I think I’m at the old end of their age spectrum. So I have to think that back in the day I’d have tried those apps & sites had they existed then. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/6 "2015-06-03T01:24:37Z")
College in early '80s. Monogamous since then. No; in those days I was virtually awash in top-quality quim. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/7 "2015-06-03T06:43:50Z")
I placed several personal ads back then, and actually had quite a few responses. I met my ex that way. I would have loved to use a dating website. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/8 "2015-06-03T07:39:24Z")
Probably not. But then again I didn’t do ads in the papers, singles events or any of the kind of things we had back then either. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/9 "2015-06-03T08:28:50Z")
I was married and divorced before the internet pushed it’s way in to our homes. I’ve been single since. I’ve only minimally dabbled with them while single. I have dated people I’ve met online in other formats but not from dating websites. I doubt I would have used it before they existed. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/10 "2015-06-03T10:06:55Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > No; in those days I was virtually awash in top-quality quim. The classy guys always are! 😉 Some of us (OK specifically me) were kinda shy and awkward in our youth, so the anonymity of Teh Intrarwebz would have been appealing. I only recall one “date” of a sort and he turned out to be pretty skeevy. At least I had my health. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/11 "2015-06-03T10:25:17Z")
I tried a lonely hearts column in _Bike_ magazine for some years, and a dating agency for bikers (of which I technically was one in my youth, although never part of the scene, if you call it that). So I’d probably have tried internet dating, but from all I’ve ever heard it would have done me about as well as anything else ever did. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/12 "2015-06-03T21:09:11Z")
I looked at ads in the Village Voice and on Internet sites in the early to mid nineties, and it tended to run 5 or so men for every women. My self esteem was pretty low at that point, so I wasn’t even going to try with that kind of odds. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/13 "2015-06-03T21:25:38Z")
No, because when I was single I was in HS and then university - and I met plenty of women there. The notion of advertising for a relationship like for a job or something would never have appealed to me. There were so many opportunites then to meet people hanging out, partying, or pursuing various activities - both in school and out - that such advertising would have seemed pointless. It would be a lot different, though, if I was single and working like I do now. I meet no-one much but business contacts - not generally a source of romantic leads in my field - and I’m too busy to hang out, party, or attend to various activities. So advertising would make more sense now than it did then. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/14 "2015-06-03T21:28:40Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > I looked at ads in the Village Voice and on Internet sites in the early to mid nineties, and it tended to run 5 or so men for every women. My self esteem was pretty low at that point, so I wasn’t even going to try with that kind of odds. Heh, I had forgotten about that. In the early 1990s, the local newspapers (NY Daily News and Newsday in particular) had pages of classified singles ads (maybe three or four pages on average). A few times I counted up the ads in the age rangesof women I was interested in (then, early to mid 20s), along with the competition (males around those ages), and the results, although not quite 5:1, were pretty bad as far as I was concerned - IIRC 3+ to 1 men to women. I don’t remember much about those little classified single ads except the abbreviations (SWCF, the category I was looking for; SHCF and SAF would have worked too, but those were rarer in the Long Island listings), “age” (24, not what that meant in reality) and I think a few flattering adjectives following that (lively, fun-loving, educated, etc.), and then the contact code number. They switched from mail-in to telephone (1-900 I think), then the web became common and we got things like Craigslist, which may well be the last place those “SWF” abbreviations live on…(haven’t searched on that site in a long time…don’t plan to look now). ---
**Author:** ![Lee\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aeb1de/32.png) [@Lee\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lee_Q)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/15 "2015-06-03T23:08:14Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I advertised in the personals of the Albuquerque Journal in 1980 and met someone I had an on-again off-again affair over a 4 year period. We’re still in touch. I married someone I met through a personals ad in the LA Reader. Wonderful, longlasting marriage. So, yes to OP’s question. 😃 ETA: this was circa the very late 80s. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/16 "2015-06-04T02:55:16Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > Heh, I had forgotten about that. In the early 1990s, the local newspapers (NY Daily News and Newsday in particular) had pages of classified singles ads (maybe three or four pages on average). A few times I counted up the ads in the age rangesof women I was interested in (then, early to mid 20s), along with the competition (males around those ages), and the results, although not quite 5:1, were pretty bad as far as I was concerned - IIRC 3+ to 1 men to women. > > I don’t remember much about those little classified single ads except the abbreviations (SWCF, the category I was looking for; SHCF and SAF would have worked too, but those were rarer in the Long Island listings), “age” (24, not what that meant in reality) and I think a few flattering adjectives following that (lively, fun-loving, educated, etc.), and then the contact code number. They switched from mail-in to telephone (1-900 I think), then the web became common and we got things like Craigslist, which may well be the last place those “SWF” abbreviations live on…(haven’t searched on that site in a long time…don’t plan to look now). Going to a librarian keg party and hanging out by the keg worked a lot better. Met somebody and we were married less than a year later. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/17 "2015-06-04T03:31:08Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > Going to a librarian keg party and hanging out by the keg worked a lot better. Met somebody and we were married less than a year later. Was this party during college or after graduation? Cause (and more in response to Malthus’s post than yours), I received engineering degrees at two different colleges (Bachelors and Masters), and the ratio of men to women in those schools made the newspaper ad ratios look good. I even worked in the school’s libraries as a student, and they sure weren’t wild beer-fest parties (some of the middle-aged full-time lady employees would bring in fresh-baked cookies now and then :p). “Cindy, the prettiest woman in robotics class”; well, yeah, the only woman in robotics class… For the heck of it, I just checked Craigslist, and it seems very few ‘personal’ listings use the old-school “SWF”-type abbreviations (the most common abbreviation used is…BBW :eek:). I also noticed that the number of ‘W4W’ ads in my region nearly matches that of ‘W4M’, which I had first noted several years back. Now I remember why I don’t bother with Craigslist…:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/18 "2015-06-04T13:59:38Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > Was this party during college or after graduation? Cause (and more in response to Malthus’s post than yours), I received engineering degrees at two different colleges (Bachelors and Masters), and the ratio of men to women in those schools made the newspaper ad ratios look good. I even worked in the school’s libraries as a student, and they sure weren’t wild beer-fest parties (some of the middle-aged full-time lady employees would bring in fresh-baked cookies now and then :p). > “Cindy, the prettiest woman in robotics class”; well, yeah, the only woman in robotics class… Heh, it definitely helps - in that respect at least - doing an undergraduate in the humanities and then moving on to law. 😃 But even if someone was in a program that was near totally male (if you think engineering had a bad ratio, try physics and mathematics like my brother!) university was a time and place in which it was very easy, with a bit of effort, to get involved in any one of dozens if not hundreds of extra-curricular activities aimed squarely at students … where the ratio was a lot better. In point of fact, I met my future wife not in any of my classes, but going out to listen to a jazz recital at Hart House (a student activity centre attached to U of T). University had tons of that sort of thing going on all the time - filled with single women of more or less the same age, and often with lots in common - being students just like you. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/19 "2015-06-04T17:44:00Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Heh, it definitely helps - in that respect at least - doing an undergraduate in the humanities and then moving on to law. 😃 > > But even if someone was in a program that was near totally male (if you think engineering had a bad ratio, try physics and mathematics like my brother!) university was a time and place in which it was very easy, with a bit of effort, to get involved in any one of dozens if not hundreds of extra-curricular activities aimed squarely at students … where the ratio was a lot better. > > In point of fact, I met my future wife not in any of my classes, but going out to listen to a jazz recital at Hart House (a student activity centre attached to U of T). University had tons of that sort of thing going on all the time - filled with single women of more or less the same age, and often with lots in common - being students just like you. Aha, I see the confusion here - you’re thinking in terms of reality (CANADIAN reality, even). My undergraduate school was geared toward engineering and other sciences (physic, chemistry, et. al), and had only become co-ed 15 years prior at the time. There was a small business degree program that had a somewhat more reasonable gender ratio, but lots of those women either had boyfriends from different colleges, or just didn’t hang around campus much (we had commuter as well as live on campus). Come to think of it, a large percentage of the few women in the engineering & science programs also had boyfriends from home (at least they said they did. ☹ ) My graduate school featured engineering, architecture, and art. Believe me, I tried my manly charms on the female art students with less than spectacular results (as did all the other guys from engineering and architecture - sort of a prototype for today’s women on on-line dating sites getting swamped with attention from men, wanted or unwanted). I understand things have improved somewhat between in the intervening decades…didn’t help me at the time though. To answer the OPs question, although it was 5 years after I graduated, In 1995 (or 1996, don’t recall) I posted a profile on that newfangled new [Match.com](http://Match.com). So the answer is Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469/20 "2015-06-04T18:36:39Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > Aha, I see the confusion here - you’re thinking in terms of reality (CANADIAN reality, even). > My undergraduate school was geared toward engineering and other sciences (physic, chemistry, et. al), and had only become co-ed 15 years prior at the time. There was a small business degree program that had a somewhat more reasonable gender ratio, but lots of those women either had boyfriends from different colleges, or just didn’t hang around campus much (we had commuter as well as live on campus). Come to think of it, a large percentage of the few women in the engineering & science programs also had boyfriends from home (at least they said they did. ☹ ) > My graduate school featured engineering, architecture, and art. Believe me, I tried my manly charms on the female art students with less than spectacular results (as did all the other guys from engineering and architecture - sort of a prototype for today’s women on on-line dating sites getting swamped with attention from men, wanted or unwanted). I understand things have improved somewhat between in the intervening decades…didn’t help me at the time though. > > To answer the OPs question, although it was 5 years after I graduated, In 1995 (or 1996, don’t recall) I posted a profile on that newfangled new [Match.com](http://Match.com). So the answer is Yes. Harsh. I bet they didn’t mention those facts on the student recruitment brochure for your alma mater - at least, the version they give to the fellas. 😃 But yeah, I went to U of T, which has a gynormous student body … and half at least of those bodies were female. Remarks are, plainly, not necessarily universally valid! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-used-a-dating-website-if-they-existed-back-then/721469.md?page=2)