There is a fundamental problem to me with the whole idea of internet dating.
Profiles; talk about yourself, tell us who you are.
This doesn’t really work in the “real world” so why should we expect it to here?
We’re supposed to write a lengthy profile telling everyone our likes, our dislikes, what we do for fun and all that jazz but who really does that?
You don’t walk up to someone in a bar and say “hey babe how ya doin? I’m a 20 something bloke who likes blablabla, spends my Saturday nights watching blablabla and my hobbies and interests include bla.”
No, you see someone, and if you do talk to them, you buy them a drink, maybe have a conversation and if you *click* you go from there. If you did just spill the beans the other person you’re talking to is likely to think your some sort of kook, roll their eyes at you and walk away. But the internet world requires us to be kooks. You have to tell everything in hopes that someone else will find you interesting enough to talk to and as it turns out I think we’re all on some level pretty shallow so we don’t. You go “Hey that person likes *insert nerdy pastime here*” and the one browsing goes “ewe nerd, I don’t wanna talk to him”
Where in the real world where you get to make *actual contact* with a person, you meet them, you hang out and slowly over time they start to learn all those things about you and likely go: “Hmm, he’s into BLANK” but you accept it because you already like them and so their individual foibles are less strange when you can look them in the eye and go “well they’re still pretty cute and we get along okay so oh well!”
How does it work in real dating?
You let that stuff out slowly, you ease the person into it.
“I like this, is that okay with you?” “yeah, that’s fine”
“I have a habit of doing this, is that going to be a problem?” “not at all, you’re okay”
“really? Because I’ve had ex’s who took real issue with it in the past and if it’s going to be a problem I’d just like to get it out now.” “You’re all good!”
And then you get excited and think
“hey, they seem to be okay with all my craziness, this is great!” and then you think “wait a minute, if she’s okay with my wackiness, then what’s wrong with her?”
Think of it like the whole “toothpaste squeezing from the middle” thing.
But no one’s gonna put that on a dating site right?
And the relationship goes on.
But on the interweb we’re expected to behave JUST like that. Well it clearly doesn’t work.
To quote Malcolm Reynolds~
“You can’t open the book of my life?and jump in the middle. Like woman,?I am a mystery.”
(now if you don’t know who Malcolm Reynolds is that’s fine. The meaning still shouldn’t be lost on you)
There is not enough space to fill to tell one’s life story, and really we shouldn’t expect anyone to do so. It takes away the fun and the Mystery of finding out who a person is. Actually “getting to know them”.
We’ve removed the social aspect of “dating” by removing the people. Pictures are just pictures and text is just text. There’s no feeling behind it. You can’t hear the little influxes in a person voice, you can’t really grasp what they’re passionate about and you just plane don’t learn anything that way. There is so much more to dating than actually just exchanging facts about a person. It’s visual, it’s tactile, it’s odors and scents.
It’s how they twirl they pasta on their fork before they put it on their mouth.
You can’t notice those sorts of things if you don’t allow yourself to be in a position to actually notice them.
Human beings are social creatures, we need to socialize!
Internet dating is really a none-social way of trying to socialize. Let’s get to know each other but lets not actually talk to do it. We’ve taken the dating out of dating and turned it into applying for a job and filling out a resume, well anyone who’s ever been responsible for hiring new employees knows you don’t actually *read* the resume, you simply scan over it looking for the key points and then you decide to call the person in for the interview and see how it goes, if they’ll click.
Internet dating removes the interview, it removes *the click*.
Guys sign up on a Thursday night looking to take someone out on Friday
Women sign up and just want to message you for months and months before they even want to talk to you in person in hopes that you don’t end up being creepy. It’s counter productive. In fact it’s anti-productive.
I’m personally not a fan of dating sites myself, but being where I am (in a brand new city, on my own, no friends or family with in 700 miles) I’m forced to resort to it. I can’t call up friends and say “hey let’s go to the bar” and if you go by yourself you’re looked at as “that weirdo loner with no friends”. Well I guess that assumption must be right. Does that make me any less interesting of a person? Does that mean I have nothing to talk about? Not at all, I simply have no one to share me with.
I have lots to talk about, there’s plenty about me to get to know but I’m not going to spill it out here.
“You can’t open the book of my life?and jump in the middle.”
