Online dating sites are now just one of many ways to find a partner and build a relationship, yet a decade ago the stigma of online dating used to be a somewhat embarrassing factor to finding love online. Nowadays many of your friends or family and even your grandparents’ friends are benefitting by dating online. If this outdated stigma of online dating is holding you back, you should realize it is an outdated myth, and you can now take your first steps toward searching online, finding and meeting the love of your life.
Way back in 1982, Chris Dunn chatted to Pam Jensen on AOL’s CompuServe CB Simulator program, that linked computer users nationwide in an early version of online dating, in a chat room. They hadn’t planned on finding love online, but after a few months of virtual chatting, Chris booked a flight from New York to Chicago, where he and Pam met face-to-face. One year later, to the day, they got married (1).
Their online courtship and subsequent wedding was featured on various television programs and in newspaper articles, including a Chicago Tribune story titled “Cupid and Computers Conquer All.” But it was early days and not everybody understood or accepted their relationship with an open mind – many people, even Chris’s own father, claimed the relationship based on internet dating wouldn’t last. This became one of the first examples of the stigmas of online dating, and it was met with a great deal of caution.
That was forty years ago and defying all the sceptics, Chris and Pam are still in love and happily married, living on the North Side of Chicago. “If it weren’t for the way we met, with online dating, I think we could be any other married couple,” said Chris. “I’ve always adored her. She adores me. It’s very easy to love my wife (2).” While loving your wife should indeed be easy, right from the start, Chris and Pam had to put up with a great deal of sceptics and critique from others who held onto the stigma about online dating.
“The stigma of online dating has definitely dropped because people are advocating for it, talking with their friends about it, and sharing stories with families,” says Lija Jarvis, director of a large survey study on Internet dating (6). Another study, conducted by the research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, shows how quickly online dating, which has existed for nearly three decades, has completely changed the way people find and interact with potential partners, and their approach finding love on online dating sites.
Susan Frohlick, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Manitoba who studied online dating, said “It does seem to have displaced all other forms of dating. I would say that it’s been in the last five years that it’s become hyper-mainstream (7).”
Today, of course, a couple finding love online is no longer newsworthy, but back in 1982 Pam and Chris were charting new territory. Pam recalls: “At the time, computers weren’t as pervasive in our homes and our daily life. To a lot of people, especially my parents’ generation and their friends, online dating seemed very alien, a very suspicious concept to even be communicating like that. There was definitely a stigma with online dating sites in the past.”
A lot of couples who found love online, have sometimes felt compelled to hide the fact that they met through an online dating site, due to that outdated stigma. During a Sunday school function, a group of newlywed wives were each asked, “How did you two meet?” Going around the circle, each woman took a moment to tell her romantic story. When it was time for Tracy to speak up, she said simply: “We met over the Internet.”
A moment of silence hovered over the group. “Online Dating? Really!” the Sunday school teacher exclaimed. “Why would an attractive, outgoing girl like you need to resort to such drastic measures?”
That’s called “stigma” – a socially discrediting means of classifying others as going against the norm. It’s portrayed as an undesirable stereotype which conjures up disapproval, disgrace and shame. And the stigma of online dating associated with finding love online, is based on lack of knowledge and uninformed impressions.
This Sunday school teacher is a perfect example of someone perpetuating an uneducated social stigma. Using the Internet for finding love with online dating sites has turned a corner over the past several years, and truth be told, this was an exchange that took place well over a decade ago. Today, these misinformed impressions about online dating are few and far between.
If you are still embarrassed by the well out-of-date stigma of online dating, you’ve somehow become stuck in the fleeting notion that died out years ago. Yes, it used to be that finding love online was looked at with suspicion, but so was nearly everything about the internet when it first started. Most people scoffed at the visionary idea of using our computers to buy shoes, download music, do banking, or book a hotel room. So the stigma of finding love online was not unexpected.
Of course, that was then, and this is now. And today the stigma of online dating has all but vanished. Practically everyone knows someone who has found the love of their life on dating sites. Even well known celebrities talk about using matching sites to find love. We know from marriage seminars in churches around the country, that in every congregation there are couples who proudly tell of how they were matched online.
Sure, there are still some uninformed diehards that perpetuate the old stigma of online dating and finding love online, but their numbers are dwindling quickly. Sure there are also many scammers out there, but the same can be said for anything on the internet. Common sense and caution is always required, even in real life.
If you’re looking for evidence that the stigma of online dating has shaken off its remnants, you need look no farther than your grandparents’ generation. You may think that they rarely even turn on a computer, but you’d be wrong. Of course, we all know how popular finding love online is for younger generations, but the fastest growing area for online dating sites is with single seniors (3).
70-year-old Hilda Gottlieb decided to try online dating after her husband passed away in 2004 (4). “I was 64 when my husband died, and I knew I was not going to be alone for the rest of my life,” Gottlieb told the Palm Beach Post. Gottlieb ignored the stigma of online dating, found the dating profile of then-72-year-old Marv Cohen, and decided to contact him. That email led to an in-person meeting and an eventual romantic relationship. They have been married ever since (5).
Online dating these days is viewed as socially acceptable even among many of the people who were perhaps the most sceptical of finding love online a few years ago. So if you are embarrassed by a passé prejudice against finding love online with online dating, do your best to move beyond it. Swallow your irrational fear, and soon the outdated stigma you’re holding onto will disappear as you get involved in searching through the many photo profiles and narratives online.
Sources:
1. Stevens, H. “Chicago Couple blazed the trail for Internet love.” Chicago Tribune. May 18, 2008
2. Stevens, H. “Chicago Couple blazed the trail for Internet love.” Chicago Tribune. May 18, 2008
3. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating becoming more common in seniors.” RetirementHomes .com. June 16, 2010
4. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating becoming more common in seniors.” RetirementHomes .com. June 16, 2010
5. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating becoming more common in seniors.” RetirementHomes .com. June 16, 2010
6. Toy, Mary-Anne. “One in four adults finds mate online.” Sydney Morning Herald. April 17, 2010
7. Ellen Mc Carthy, “marriage-minded do better online than at bars, survey claims.” Washington Post, Sunday, April 25, 2010.
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