In the past, people would talk to friends and loved ones and establish new intimate dating relationships through school, work, or a variety of other places. The world now is online and connected to the Internet more and more everyday. As this change is happening, more and more personal relationships are being established and maintained through online activities. Nowadays, people use the Internet to meet new friends and keep up our existing relationships through instant messaging, blogging, e-mail, social networking sites, and chatrooms, to name a few. It only makes sense that more and more people would now also use the Internet to find dates and new significant others. Internet dating is challenging the role of traditional dating by offering a high-tech, convenient and easy, yet sometimes deceitful, way of establishing new intimate personal relationships.
Traditionally, people would look for that special someone in their life by going out and meeting new people in a variety of different places. Our parents and grandparents didn’t have the internet, as we do now, to find their spouse or significant other; they went out, met their partner, and found love outside of the home. Rebecca Miller said on a DB posting, “If all we did was what our mothers did, then the world and its customs would not evolve.” Nowadays, in our fast-paced and online world, people are changing the dating tradition; they are using the Internet to find love. A variety of dating websites, such as Match.com, eHarmony.com, JDate.com, and many others, make it somewhat easy to find a supposed perfect match. They let a person put in any number of criteria to narrow down their search for the perfect person. Someone also has access to meeting someone they may not ever have known on another street or in another city or state. The next love of someone’s life can be found while sitting in the comforts of their own home or office; people no longer have to go out of their comfort zone to find somebody.
Internet dating, although convenient and easy, has both good and bad sides. Traditionally, when a person met somebody and a date was established, they already knew they were somewhat interested in that other person based on interests or appearances. Internet dating is changing the way we meet and interact with people. When a person meets somebody online, they can take their time getting to know the other person before even meeting face-to-face. This gives a person as much time as they want to figure out if they are even interested in the other person, without putting to much pressure on either party. Unfortunately, this also makes Internet dating somewhat impersonal and it takes a lot of the nervousness and fun out of the beginning of relationships. However, this can be seen as a benefit, because after talking online for awhile, people won’t necessarily be so nervous if they do decide to take it to the next level and meet in person. On the other hand, if the two parties decide, while chatting online, that there isn’t enough interest between them, it is easy to end the relationship without as much explanation because they may not yet have met in person.
In the history of traditional dating, a person usually knows who they are going out on a date with. They had already met the person and established that they have some common interests or at least that they are attracted to each other. Unfortunately, a person doesn’t necessarily have that knowledge with Internet dating. All a person gets to see when searching any number of dating websites is another person’s profile. Through personal stories from friends, in magazines, newspapers, and online, it has been learned that these Internet dating profiles can, at times, be deceiving. A person’s picture can be one that was taken years earlier when, perhaps, the person was younger, thinner, had more hair, etc. The picture on a person’s profile can mislead someone to be interested in that person based on attraction alone, and then a relationship has already been established on lies. Also, a person can type whatever they want on their profile. There really is no true way of knowing whether their information is completely true or made up of fabricated lies to make themselves look better. People are beginning relationships online without really knowing anything about a person; they aren’t truly getting to know each other on a personal level. Many people are a little too trusting online, they may look at someone’s profile and completely believe everything that is on it. People should go into the online dating world with a little more caution because a person cannot necessarily see what they are getting.
Internet dating is the new pop culture trend that is challenging the role of traditional dating. While there is nothing at all wrong with traditional dating ideas and practices, Internet dating makes the process more comfortable and easy but at the same time, impersonal. More and more people are leaving behind the traditional ways of dating and leaving their fate in love to computer programs and website searches to find their perfect match. Michael Ramires, in a DB posting, said, “With our busy lives today, many people find it hard to put the time and effort into upholding the customs that we knew as children.” This is something that people see more and more everyday as more commercials and advertisements are seen on television and in magazines for different online dating services. Although the traditional practice of dating is not dead, it is meeting its match with the new “tradition” of Internet dating. As Jennifer Blakely, in a DB posting, said, “Most traditions are not traditions when they begin.”
