Online Dating Rants
This is where I rant about things I find annoying in the online dating world. From annoying site features, to unsavoury practices and ways people shoot themselves in the foot while online dating, it’s all in here.
John Walters recently wrote a piece in the Guardian about how online dating sites are “eroding humanity”. This is where I would be expected to get in to a big rant about how he’s wrong, which I do believe he is, though I do see where he’s coming from as well. If the world was really as he seems to see it, then we’d potentially have a problem on our hands.
Walters claims that by using online dating, we’re trying to control the uncontrollable thing that is love and turn it more into a business transaction, the way arranged marriages were, but worse. Personally, I think it’s an exaggeration, possibly for the purpose of making headlines and sparking off a debate. But if online dating really did manage to take the unpredictable out of love, it would indeed be quite a change from what we know of as humanity. Unlike Walters, I don’t necessarily think that would be a bad thing. To me, the reason people have so much trouble with love is that as a species, we’re struggling to combine our primal urges (remnants from when we were living in the jungle and love was free and a free for all) and the confines of an advanced society with rules, regulations and religion. Much of what we see as beautiful art and poetry grew out of real misery of the people involved in creating such art. Ultimately, wouldn’t it be nice if for most of us, there’d be a way to eventually say goodbye to the perils of incompatible love affairs and have a way to conveniently pick the people who were right for us at this moment in time? Wouldn’t we be able to do more creative and productive things with our time if the love aspect was taken care of?
Of course, that is not the case and could never be the case. The human element is far from nonexistent in the online dating world. Even on sites where you rely on a computer to connect you with “compatible” people, there is a random element. Would there be someone compatible for you on the site? Would anyone compatible on paper actually be attractive to you physically, or even genuinely compatible? Would there be chemistry? Would you manage to keep a relationship together through the years? Would you remain compatible or drift apart? As long as there are people involved, humanity is present. Using an electronic tool to find another human is hardly eroding your humanity any more than using traditional matchmakers, some of which would make you fill out a form and never actually meet you in person. At least with online dating, as opposed to arranged marriages, you get to choose your own partner based on your own intuition. If the description you read is accurate – you’ll have a happy, long lasting relationship with someone who wants to develop and grow in the same direction as you. Otherwise, well, that’s pretty unpredictable and random right there.
I have to say that I personally prefer dating sites where you can run your own searches, exactly because of the element of randomness (and I say this even though I write regularly for a dating site of the other sort, which uses what is actually quite a decent and in depth test to send you matches). In my experience, though, people meet and fall in love on both types of sites and sometimes even on really crappy sites you would never have thought would work. If that’s not the unpredictable nature of love at work, I don’t know what is.
July 31st, 2011
Recently, more and more people have been commenting on this blog and saying they’ve met scammers on Facebook, pretending to be British or American soldiers stationed abroad. It seems social networking is turning into a battle ground as well.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a recent study has revealed that social networking sites have overtaken dating sites when it comes to stalking. Cyberstalkers can target complete strangers on social networking sites such as Facebook and the victims can be both women (60%) and men (40%). Unlike real life stalking that’s often the result of a past relationship or an actual acquaintance, cyberstalking does not depend on the victim having more than a casual acquaintance with the stalker. Sometimes, the stalker can be a total stranger.
Unsurprisingly, cyberstalking has overtaken real life stalking. After all, it’s easier to do and you don’t actually need to know the victim…
This cyberstalking can involve repeated unwanted messages or it can involve serious intimidating and even death threats. It would seem the Internet is the choice of weapon for weirdos who think the anonymity it offers puts them above the law or under the radar.
You can read the Guardian article about the survey here, which offers advice on what to do if you’re being cyberstalked.
But I’d like to offer a different sort of advice. Websites like Facebook are notorious for compromising your privacy in all kinds of ways you’ve never even dreamed of. If you want to protect yourself from stalkers, consider taking the following steps when using Facebook:
* In your privacy settings on Facebook, avoid using the “everyone” setting for sharing anything such as your status updates, photos, etc.. Show as little as possible of your profile to strangers.
* In your “connecting on Facebook” settings (also in the privacy settings), you can decide whether you want everyone to be able to send you a friend request, message you, see your friends’ list, etc. It’s up to you how private you want to be. If you’re happy just being in touch with your friends and their friends, you can stop anyone else from every contacting you or adding you as a friend.
* I know people love all these checking in services, but personally I think they suck. The right to privacy is something that was bought in blood from big brother totalitarian governments. Now whole generations are happily broadcasting their whereabouts to the world without giving it a second thought. Apart from the businesses themselves, the only people who care about the fact that a person’s checked in at a supermarket or a petrol station are obsessives and stalkers. Seriously. I say avoid using these services completely, not just because they’re compromising your privacy but also because any tiny benefits they could give you are totally outweighed by the benefit to the businesses involved and the fact that they are using you for free advertising. Your privacy is precious so don’t sell yourself short.
I know a bar that offers people a free drink if they check in there 15 times. I’d rather stick with a paper punch card or, a radical thought, buy my own drink and maintain my privacy (and dignity). No free drink is worth advertising to the world where I am at any given moment 1984-style.
If you must use these services, for example, Facebook’s one, make sure you limit who can see your check ins (also in the privacy settings). I suggest limiting this to your friends only and choosing your Facebook friends wisely.
April 12th, 2011
Online dating company Gotham Dating Partners has apparently decided to start scraping random people’s details off places like Facebook and make them dating profiles on their sites. Wait, what? Really?
Their marketing vice president, Damon Jordan, was even quotes as saying they do not expect any privacy issues as a result.
My Facebook privacy is cranked up all the way. Let me tell you, though… If anyone tried to make me a dating profile somewhere without my consent or my knowledge, I’d sue the hell out of them, as I hope anyone affected by these guys will. I dread to think of all the non-single people who’d find themselves having to explain to your BF or GF why they’re dating on some dating site somewhere.
Luckily, the Oz privacy commissioner (the article I was sent is on an Australian website) seems to know the score and said people should be sent a notice before their details are used and also that the details should not be used in the first place.
I am not sure how these things work in the US, but I’m pretty sure it would be illegal in the UK as well.
Gotham Dating Partners own a few dating sites, some of which are:
Dons and Divas, Faithful Lover, Marry Me First, Prison Hookup, and Ugly People Date.
Actually, looking at their website, I find it hard to believe these guys are for real. They actually have a site called Whitepeopledate.com that talks about how black men are “stealing your white women”. Is this all some kind of sick joke?
I suggest you don’t use their sites. If it’s a joke, it’s not funny. If it’s a marketing trick, it sucks. If it’s serious, then it’s a huge violation. Who knows what other privacy laws they bend on their sites.
The question is, I guess, which site is going to end up with your unwanted profile. Will it be Ugly People Date, Prison Hookup or KKKlove, sorry, white people whatever? So many fine choices.
Full article is here.
January 18th, 2011
I’m sure no one would be surprised to hear that I find so-called professional pick up artists and schools for picking up women pretty damn lame.
They occasionally make the news and raise a debate about the morality, as well as the effectiveness, of their method. I’ve been following the latest case, in Israel, where a forum post from 2006 has been causing quite a stir.
Continue Reading December 19th, 2010
Is eHarmony going to destroy the human race by use of its patented compatibility algorithm? Are we all doomed to a life of marital bliss…with disasterous results?
Continue Reading November 15th, 2010
Rhodri Marsden wrote one of those Internet dating articles in the Independent. You know, the ones that slag off the industry and tell people’s horror stories and failure to find love.
Continue Reading November 8th, 2010
Here’s a hilarious, tongue firmly in cheek Youtube animation dealing with the more annoying, frustrating site of online dating. Cupidian Raphsody is a story about dating on OKCupid.com, narrated by spoons, dressed as Queen.
Continue Reading July 31st, 2010
New research suggests online daters have a false sense of security when dating online. But is the increasingly popular trend of pushing for intrusive background checks the way the online industry should go?
Continue Reading June 30th, 2010
I was really disappointed with this article that asks whether marriages following online dating hook-ups are more likely to end in divorce. When the headline asks a question like that, I expect it to deliver some sort of hard-hitting research. The answer in this case, however, is “probably not, but we have no way of knowing”. Add that to some PR plant blurb about eHarmony and Mary.com and all you get is a giant yawn. Did we really need to know that “it’s too soon to tell” whether relationship that stem from online dating are better or worse than “standard” relationships? Does having no formal data warrant a whole article dedicated to discussing this non-topic? Poor. Very poor.
Personally, I don’t think there is much of a difference between the results of either of these dating methods. I would be grossly surprised if either turned out to be more effective than the other on a large scale. Traditionalists and luddites will slate digital interaction until they’re blue in the face and online dating academics will claim to have reinvented the wheel, but in reality it’s all much of a muchness. Once you meet your match, the medium or method you used to facilitate that meeting is not really that important.
Some people have better luck meeting others online, while others do better in bars. It’s as simple as that.
April 29th, 2007
A new report published in the UK, has shown that most British Internet users do not trust online services, but use them anyway because they believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Add that to the fact that many UK users are simply not safety aware and it’s no surprise that people keep getting scammed. Are dating sites doing enough to ensure their users’ online dating safety?
Many dating sites employ moderators to weed out the scammers, but that is not always enough to stop all of them from getting through. Nasty, unethical sites lull their users into a false sense of security, but really what we need is some serious online dating safety education.
How much information is available on your site to educate people about potential dangers? Is it available somewhere obvious, or is it hidden somewhere at the back of the site? The potential existence of scammers on the site is not something any site owner would like to talk about, but really, it’s something that has to be done as part of our responsibility to our customers. Like everything else that is not a positive feature, it should be handled delicately, but it should definitely be handled, rather than swept under the carpet.
Continue Reading April 21st, 2007
I came across an interesting article today about the way mobile text conversations and online interaction supposedly affect teenagers’ views on relationships. By “interesting” I don’t actually mean intelligent and well thought-out, unfortunately.
Here’s an example:
Professor Doreen Rosenthal said mobiles and the internet had created an accelerating intimacy between adolescents, with many making relationship decisions more swiftly than previous generations. Electronic communication tended to shrink the time span in which friendships developed, leaving teenagers more exposed to risky decision-making.
The article seems to suggest that, as a result, teenagers get a “false sense of intimacy” and tend to sleep with each other faster than they otherwise would:
“For many teenagers, this acceleration of intimacy is occurring without the usual checks and balances of face-to-face contact. It’s a pseudo-intimacy. You don’t create genuine intimacy through these mediums.
Continue Reading March 26th, 2007
Following on from my earlier post, I just came across an interesting discussion on reddit talking about personality testing, horoscopes, etc.. I think it illustrates my points quite well. Here is what someone got as his profile, without actually answering any questions:
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them.
You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
Is there anyone out there who could not see themselves in that?
This is obviously quite an extreme example of a bad personality test, but it does show how easy it is to fool people into believing you actually know something about them.
March 12th, 2007
So the market is levelling out in the US, what are you gonna do about it? Apparently, you go back to the very roots of marketing and talk about sex sex and more sex. So first we had the whole female orgasm brainscan email thing from chemistry.com, then lavalife decided to go even further and talk about male orgasms in a poll that just reeks of PR stuntness (Not that I’m saying they faked the results or anything. I mean, that’s as unlikely as men faking orgasms, right? Oh wait…). Today, my Google news alert delivered me this. What next??? Dare I even ask?
Luckily, the UK market is still going strong, but I do have an idea for a new spokesperson in case business goes slow and we need to uhh… pump it up a bit…
March 12th, 2007
There’s been a lot of talk on the industry sites recently about personality testing and matching on various dating sites and whether or not they work. For people who run dating sites, personality tests provide that little bit extra they can offer their customers to get them to choose you over others. In the US, where the online dating market is now leveling out, there is obviously a need to provide extra services and to create the impression that there is a real need and a real demand for such services. America is a country where marriage is now seen almost as a business transaction. There’s even books out there that tell women to leave a man unless he’s proposed within a set duration of time. It’s all about “sealing the deal”. It’s also a society in which people are taught to expect a lot more for their money and, as a result, take a lot less responsibility for their own welfare. The proliferation of fast, processed food is one example of this, as well as the fact that people have actually won lawsuits for having their coffee served too hot. It doesn’t take marketing rocket science to see how simple it would be in an environment like that to create a market for a service that offers to do some of the “hard work” for you and save you time, so you can get back to your “busy life” (cause none of us want to admit our “busy lives” are so empty, we spend most of our free time trying to pick up people online).
Continue Reading March 10th, 2007
