A revelation I had about online dating...

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I'm on the record as being a very staunch opponent of the very concept of online dating sites. I've said many times that I can't trust the Internet to bring me love.

However, many times I've had the feeling that I would have wanted to get to know some women I know online a bit better (many of the women here that I've talked to before, for instance), which doesn't make sense with what I've said above.

While I'm still distrusting of online dating sites, I've come to the realization that it's not necessarily the fact that it's web-based that makes me distrust them. The online dating sites and forums such as this are just internet analogues for bars/clubs and real life, respectively. In both an online dating site, as well as going to a bar, I wouldn't know a woman before being thrust into some uncomfortable (and undoubtedly awkward) situation, while the women I've gotten to know here are more like the women I've gotten to know in real life, in that I see more in them than I would in some stranger that I pass by during the day...

Word.

Online dating seems to be more about finding a sex partner to have fun with than anything meaningful.

Dating sites seem too systematic to me. Instead of arranged marriage, it's like arranged dating. They pretty much shove people in your face and say, "This is your soulmate because we said so! You can thank us later, and in the meantime, fork over some money."

I signed up for the Yahoo Personals website once just because I was bored and wanted to see exactly how a site like that worked, and if the people they paired me up with were actually a good match. They weren't. All the girls on that site were desperate and uninteresting. I hate to say it, but most were below average in the looks department too.

On the other hand, I've met a number of interesting girls from all over the world on myspace and various message boards. Many of them I have kept in touch with over the years, and their online friendship has meant more to me than many of my real-life friendships. Some of my friends I met online through casual conversations that eventually resulted in real-life hangouts and later went so far as to take road trips with them! For Aspies in particular, the Internet seems like a great place to socialize, and who knows what may come out of it!

I don't want anyone to get mad if I post this b/c it's probably different for some people.

IMO, it all seems fake with the expectations so high up. I don't know...I just hate it when people describe their ideal partner in such a way that they're like an escort. It's almost feels like prostitution, however I have gotten to know some nice people.

It's just not my idea of wanting to get to know someone before hooking up with them. At least IRL, once you meet that person, at least you got to really meet them. On sites, people are so unrealistic that it's pathetic.

What good is an online relationship? Anything of value must exist in real life. My own sense of reality about the whole thing, even here, would improve if I actually met anyone in real life. I am convinced that most online activity goes along the lines of selling fake viagra and memberships to sites featuring men served by shill women who may also in fact be men.

Someone I know from college married a girl he met on a dating site. I think it was okCupid. They started dating just before we graduated, and got married at some point, and are still together. A few years ago, they bought their own condo in boston (expensive!).


My own experience has been the complete opposite. On the gay sites, the only responses I get, are from creepy old closeted brokeback gay people. I have been on so many sites, that I cannot name them all. Sometimes I will think I found a new site, only to discover I already have an account there. No one that I have sent a stupid "wink" or "flirt" or "whatever" to, has ever responded. I have gone through enough sites that I see the same faces and pictures over and over again. So I must have run already alienated the entire local gay online dating pool.

I have a good memory for certain types of information, but I am very bad about remembering where I got that information. So I have actually run into some of these people in real life, recognized them as "familiar", but not realizing that it was because I saw them online. Initially I went up to them and asked, "do I know you?", not realizing at that time that that was a common cheezy pick up line. They were not much different than other gay strangers I have encountered. Just completely dismissive of me and ignore me. I determined that one factor to this is that where ever I was, I was usually alone. In some crowds like bars or parities, individuals do not interact with other individuals, rather, groups interact with other groups. It is part of some strange social dynamic that I do not quite understand. Perhaps it is the merging dynamic between the invading group and the targeted group which disrupts the social bonds in the targeted group, at the cost of a similar disruption in the invading group, thus allowing for the opportunity for complete group merger, new forms of balkanization, or specifically the opportunity for an individual from the invading group to interact with his mark in the targeted group.

For whatever reason, it works for NT's, and they seem to implicitly understand and use this technique, whereas my social ret*d self must analyze the situation and explicitly develop a model of understanding the situation which ultimately fails in any effort at practical implementation due my natural aspie inability to improvise.

But still, they don't have to be such bastards because I am alone. But it appears you need to have friends to make friends (a realization that includes other theories and experiences). Some of you aspies are lucky that you have some friends. Use them and engage the set of friends that is the compliment of the intersection between your set of friends, and the set of friends of your friends. Networking is what truly divides the really socially successful from the socially unsuccessful, aspie, NT or otherwise.

But yeah, gays are bastards, online dating sucks for me, and I have no friends. I really love how the people who so strongly profess to be my friend just disappear some time between when classes end and finals begin, and then go off to spend time with their real friends and family. Bastards. Why do they need to lie about being friends.

Blah, random... rant like. I am going to bed. angry.... annoyed.... depressed.... and eager for my upcoming suicide date. hah, yes, irony of words. The first date I will ever have, will be with death.

^I hope you're kidding about that last part...

That's called self-marketing , whores use self-marketing too but not every self-marketer is a whore.
People are like products with specs on those sites.

On sites, peoples are unrealistic ,that's for sure.

not a joke

It's okay, not any better or worse than anything else.

The nice thing about online dating is that you can meet people who fit you well for odd reasons. Like someone who is a molecular biologist who has a sailboat and likes Tuscan cooking. Not likely to run into that at work if you are working in a Widget factory.

The bad thing about online dating is that almost everyone has some kind of problem that makes them be on the site. If the problem is a social skills problem, that is fine with me. But some of the problems go deeper.

I met one guy who seemed great. He was a Harvard Law grad, a partner in an old, historic law firm, had 2 great kids and a big beautiful house. He and his wife were into a several-years long split because she had an affair and he asked her to leave. But then, after a while I realized why she would have an affair. He was like, not there. He had an intense job as an international litigator, and there seemed to be nothing left over, no interest in anything going on in the ordinary world. He was so wonderful -- I could speak French w/him and everything. But there was nothing there to engage with in the moment when spending time with him. The sex was competent, not engaging. The conversation was intelligent and mature, not fun. Everything was good, but short of being anything in particular, if that makes sense. Like a hotel room.

So the online people I think you can get random ones that are great -- anyone pops in and out to try something out. But any long-term member of a dating site, who's been on there a long time, has reasons for why they are longtime members. So it's good to meet people who are trying out the service and passing through, but the real dating site people (longtime members) are not so good.

My first relationship started after meeting someone from a band forum that we both frequented. We met after a few months, hit it off as friends, and seven years later we're still living together. I'd like to think we'll be together for the rest of our lives as friends -- BFF LOL!

My second and current relationship is more strange, but also internet related, since we didn't meet until after we talked on the internet.

I have a lot of friends I've met from the internet that I've either talked to on the phone, have met or will meet eventually. I personally don't find the internet different in regards to socializing, except the very obvious fact that it's more limited in non-verbal communication. I don't feel I have a problem reading people across the internet, though, but I realize not everyone is capable of reading nuances like I may.

To me, the internet is valuable for meeting people with similar odd interests and quirks, and I'd say it's about equal to real life in how much I value the people I meet. But I have to admit that I always want to talk on the phone or meet in person once I've hit it off with someone; there's always that 'next level'.

In short, people are people to me, wherever and however they're communicating. I feel a strong bond to some people on the internet, and I'm disheartened that so many feel the internet is something to be separated out from so-called 'real life'. It's not unreal to me.

/vouch

Wonder why they're so popular among men

I think I still have an AA account up somewhere, suppose I should erase it..

Last edited by 886 on 15 Dec 2008, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The point I was making in the OP wasn't so much about how I thought that online dating was bad in any particular form, I was more referring to the fact that online dating sites act just like real-world dating: dating before you even know the other person involved in it...

That's just plain idiotic if you ask me... I want to know a woman before I start dating her, so that I at least have an idea of what she's like (so I have an idea of whether we're compatible in any way), what kind of things she likes or doesn't like to do (so that I don't take her some place she hates), and whether there is really any interest there to begin with (so I don't waste time for both myself and her if interest is not there)...

Yes, I always did better with people who were friends first. Activity friends.

I agree.

That sucks.
I think you're really cool. ("Cool" means "interesting" and "having much to contribute")
For what it's worth.
(No, I mean it)
Not that that would keep you from your plans.
Not that you desire to be cool, in my eyes.
But, it was worth saying.