onlide "dating:" interesting article

[MissT74]

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MissT:

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I will say that I met my first husband online. Dated for 3 years, married for 5, still friends now.

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I created this post because I do want to hear success stories. I am fascinated by psycho-social behavior. I do not want you to feel threatened by the content of this post. One of my original points was that there is much more bad press surrounding this than good press. I would like to think that there is a good counter-balance to the bad press.

I would like to ask you some questions:

What drove you to join an on-line site?

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I actually didn't join a dating on-line site, but rathered progressed from playing games on Yahoo! to entering their chat rooms, at that point I became so envolved and engrossed in the other chatters that I became addicted and realized that I could actually, possibly, meet someone this way. I had never done it before, nor heard much about it, (remember this was about 12 years ago) and so I was intrigued and started chatting it up.

I hung out in the Arizona room where we actually would meet up as a group 1-2 times a month and had parties. I got to meet a lot of different people, from all walks of life, and found it stimulating as I love conversing and I love meeting new people.

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I know that you expect me to think you were desperate, but that is not how I think on this. My first thinking is that you were not able to access men in your own life. I used to take classes where the M:F ratio was something like 1:20. Although I did get hit on often, I constantly deflected them, because I did not want a love life to interfere.

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I don't think I've ever thought of myself as "desperate". I worked for a medical office where the only male to female interaction would be between us girls and the delivery men. (There was one HOT medical supply guy that I got...dated him for 3 months) So I would say it was hard to meet guys, as even though I went out clubbing and met several men that way, I never thought I would or could find a "quality" man from a bar.

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How many attempts did you try before you found the satisfactory man?

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I met/dated about 20 men from online, a rough guestimate. However, I did NOT sleep with them all (I'll be honest and say I believe I slept with about 3-4 of them), the majority of them ended after the first date, even though we thought we would "connect so strongly" after our talking online. However, once we met, it went downhill either on his part or on my part.

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What was your first impression on meeting a man that you could not be sure matched the picture, or did you wing it and just pressed on a person with no pic?

[/ QUOTE ] Eh, I figured they 1. either lied or 2. take bad pictures or 3. gave me a 5+ year old picture. It never bothered me too much. If he didn't look ANYTHING like his picture, which I was attracted too, and I wasn't attracted to what he looked like when we met, then he would be one of the 20 that I never dated again (see above). I never met anyone online without a few pics and without talking/chatting online for at least 2-3 weeks regularly.

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Do you think that getting to know a person before you meet face-to-face creates stronger, inseperatable bonds?


[/ QUOTE ] Yes and No. Yes if both parties are really, truly being honest and up front and down to earth about everything and anything discussed. No if one or both of them aren't. I have played both parts. When I started chatting with my future husbans I was the first one and I found out he was too, which is why we lasted so long together, IMO.

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The fact that you said:

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it does cause me concern and make me pause when I know that my daughter has a My Space page and is meeting (ie talking too) people from all over the country/world. As a mother, YIKES!

As a grown female, I was/am cool with it, for myself.



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impresses me. It shows that you have an actual thinking brain. I would not think that you didn't, nor do I believe that all OL dater's are spaced out.

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We're honestly not, I truly think for the most part that we're just people who want to interact and meet other people without there being a bar involved (at first!) and the convenience of the internet, and being at home, just makes it easier and more accesible!

I've met many many more good people then strange people (I hate to say bad, I really never met a "bad-bad" person, but I've met plenty of "weird-strange" people)online and I absolutly believe that I have exchanged my poker forums for the Yahoo! chat room.....only this time it's not to find love as it has been in the past, but rather to simply converse.

Great questions, thanks for posing them!

T

[Blarg]

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Duckman, Blarg essentially proved your point. I have lived with girls that I would never marry. I don't think that many people are able to understand the need to do this. If there was enough pressure applied, I may have taken the dive. This didn't happen to me, but those who fall into a miserable marriage, this is likely what has happened, and their marriage is effectively bound for failure. It is not the fact that they lived together that they are divorced earlier, it is the fact that on person had no initial desire to me married, and they did. It would seem that this is a better statement than saying that because they lived together, they are less likely to make it, though this does prove your argument, but not for the reasons you are presenting.

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Yup.

[daveT]

MissT, thank you:

You wrote:

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I've met many many more good people then strange people

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This is something that was bouncing in my mind that I didn't write. I believe the vast majority of people OL are decent . If I believe everyone OL is a weirdo, then I have to accept that I am probably a weirdo.

[Blarg]

You probably are. Pretty much everybody is, in their own way. It's generally harmless.

[katyseagull]

Some of you guys are definitely weirder than me though.

[disjunction]

Ha, I find myself yet again reading a lounge thread and finding that I come from a complete opposite perspective. From the dating conversation, not the amusing OP. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] In a way I think it goes back to the same thing, I'd love to hang out with my co-workers outside of work, and others wouldn't.

What I find irritating about the Internet is the lack of trust, even though it is necessary. IRL I am one of the nicest, most trustworthy people you will ever meet. And it's not easy, either. Sometimes doing the right thing is hard work. IRL I think this becomes pretty clear about me pretty quickly. Thus, my interactions are almost always with people who trust me and who like me.

On the Internet it's the opposite. I get lumped in with 20 other jerks who just scammed 20 other jerks out of $20. Or whatever it is that goes on on 2+2. I weighed in, in a small way, to a statistical issue on another forum. The response I got was "just because you can't understand the math here doesn't give you the right to say it's wrong", or something like that. As if I were some jerk opining on things I know nothing about. (for those who don't know me here, I claim to be someone who will be getting a PhD in Computer Science in 2 years, and Computer Science is very little about computers, it's basically math). It's just so hard to have a decent conversation when you have to spend half your time defending your credibility.

A couple years ago I tried dating on the Internet. And the thing I hated was how many girls (about half) felt free to be rude, because I was just some random dude on the Internet. Probably a dude similar to the last guy who didn't call the next morning, or whatever. My worst dating story wasn't with one of those rude girls, it was on a 2nd date. I submit it for your mockery:

The date was going great. We clicked together and had a good dynamic. From a lot of girls perspective, if they are nerds, I was a pretty good catch. I was smart, I liked smart women, physically I was at least some people's "type", I could hold a conversation, and at the time I was making near 6 figures. (now I'm older, I'm a student and I'm lucky when a paycheck breaks 4 figures, so I'm not such a catch anymore!) Only one thing was a little odd, after dinner and before the show she started asking me random questions about myself. It could have been a bad attempt small-talk, I dunno. Or it could have been a result of mistrust. But her questions were the type I ask when I have someone's resume in front of me. In any case, everything else went great, the show went great (we made eye contact several times), and things were well so I offered her a ride home (in my city, with me driving in the other direction and public transportation so easy, this would be a bit of a break of custom if it were a friend or a first date or something). She said yes. Here's where disjunction shows how unsmooth he is with the ladies: I took a wrong turn to my car. After that became apparent she panicked, she said "Now I'm not getting that vibe from you, but if you're planning on trying something, don't"... or something like that. Trying something? Yeah I was going to try something. I was going to try driving you home and seeing if you'll invite me in. I offered to flag her a cab right there but she said it was ok. She did say a minute later, "I'm probably overreacting, I mean I did already agree to get in your car." Good point! The worst part is, her reaction was completely understandable. I was just some random dude she met on the Internet. I felt like crap and cursed myself for never remembering where I park. A couple of minutes later, we found the car and I drove her home. But I never asked her out on a third date, and after that debacle, it's more likely than not that she wouldn't have wanted one. I don't know why, but I lost my taste for online dating after that.

[duckman]

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Duckman, Blarg essentially proved your point. I have lived with girls that I would never marry. I don't think that many people are able to understand the need to do this. If there was enough pressure applied, I may have taken the dive. This didn't happen to me, but those who fall into a miserable marriage, this is likely what has happened, and their marriage is effectively bound for failure. It is not the fact that they lived together that they are divorced earlier, it is the fact that on person had no initial desire to me married, and they did. It would seem that this is a better statement than saying that because they lived together, they are less likely to make it, though this does prove your argument, but not for the reasons you are presenting.

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Yup.

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Sigh.
I gave no "reasons" for the agrument I am presenting. I am making an assertion that I have not seen any statistical relationship linking length of time in relationship and marriage duration. This was Blarg's inital assertion. Since this is not my field of expertise I am open to Blarg or any oneelse showing me statistical support for this assertion.

OTH I have seen statisical data showing that those people who lived together prior to getting married have higher divorce rates than those who don't.
While this is addmitedly not exactly the same as Blarg's contention I do think it is not much of a stretch to gather that couples that live together on average get married later than couples that don't. (The reasons for this should be obvious). Personally, I know of no couple in a long term committed relationship that does not live together.

In others word I think the data I have seen acts as a PROXY that finds against Blarg's assertion.

Finally the (admittedly short) search I did found no mention length of relationship prior to getting married as a variable in determining divorce outcomes.

Now for some possible reasons:
Anecdotely, I grew up as a Mormom. (I no longer am one) Lots of Mormons get married after a short courtship in large part b/c having intercourse premartially can get you excommunicated. Mormons have lower than national average divorce rates. I would expect this is true of many "conservative" relgions Christain or otherwise. I suspect these types of people make up a relatively large percentage of the people that get married earlier than the "Britney Spears" type that get married on a whim after a short courtship.

I am however open to evidence to the contrary.
From an informational perspective I guess I am not sure that there is much to be gained from longer courtship. How long does it take for you to determine whether someone has the same values and priorites as you do? I don't think those who have gone out for 5 years have that much better information than those that went out for 5 months.

[Blarg]

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It's just so hard to have a decent conversation when you have to spend half your time defending your credibility.


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Exactly. Many people deal with differing opinions by simply attacking anyone who holds them.

[Slow Play Ray]

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Slow Play Ray:

This post was created for you sir. I hope to hear more from you also. I think it is great that you found a gorgeous catch. It is sometimes hard to believe that good looking people use these sites as well.

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What more do you want to know? I will say that I have never had much trouble picking girls up, but I just got really sick of meeting brain-dead girls in bars. Those were an eventual failure every time, and therefore a waste of time (beyond simply getting laid, of course). So, I tried something new. As for my girlfriend, in her words "I didn't want to say there were no good guys out there before I tried everything."

[MissT74]

disjunction,

GREAT anecdote, I can totally understand how she felt/reacted and why she did, but can also see how her reaction freaked you out too.

I wouldn't have gotten in the car with you, fwiw. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

T
(not on the 2nd date!)