During our discussion about Auto-Ethnography, we briefly discussed internet dating. I recently saw a commercial for a cell phone carrier in which a father confronts his three daughters about their telling everyone that he's on an online dating website now that they have unlimited minutes. The character appears embarrassed that people know he's on the site, however, I feel that now online dating as moved into a realm of greater acceptance.
Growing up I don't remember any commercials for online dating. I do, however, remember my parents getting little surveys to fill out and send back to a dating service. These cards were always treated as a joke (maybe this was because they were married), yet it was still easy to see that my parents, probably along with many others, saw this sort of process as an extreme last resort; something that "losers' would do.
There is the notion out there that college age and twenty-somethings should be able to easily find Mr. or Mrs. Right. In college you spend the majority of the year surrounded by attractive people your age who (at least by attending the same school) share common interests with you. Why, then, would a young twenty-something college student need online dating?
The answer is that people want to see what's out there. Match.com says it perfectly in their "It's Okay to Look" campaign. Even five years ago it would have been "lame" to look at online dating sites and it would imply that there was something so wrong with you that you couldn't find a date the college and young-adult setting. Now, however, with the prevalence of the internet and several catchy and interesting ad campaigns, men and women are joining these sites at younger and younger ages. Because after all, you never really know what's out there until you look.
The stigma has certainly been lifted from what it was when dating services first started to become popularized. I can now name several couples who I know met on online services such as eharmony and Match.com. In fact, my roommates father and his fiancée met via Eharmony.
It seems only natural, especially for college aged men and women to look to the internet for dating. After all, we spent the majority of our time on the internet looking at Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other networking sites, so why not join just one more?
I think that this acceptance of finding love online is a response to increases in technology, how busy our daily lives are, and the place the internet holds in our lives. It is amusing because 5 years ago people would have looked at people who try to find love through internet dating sites such as eharmony as pathetic and weird. My own aunt found her husband on eharmony almost 5 years ago. I remember when she told our family where she met him her brother, my father was very critical but now I feel like that would not be the case. I also think that the commercials that eharmony puts out are very well done. They feature real matches not actors. This lets the viewer see how authentic the experience can be.
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