Online dating came along well after I was married and started a family. If it had been available when I was single, I would not have hesitated to use it.
Why? Simply because I believe that fate has little to do with finding someone who is "right." Online dating makes it possible to connect with people across the country as well as people in your same town who you might never had met, if it were left up to chance.
Online dating allows a person to maximize the probabililty of finding someone with whom they can be happy.
Online dating does have its drawbacks, to be sure; it includes individuals who are interested in assembling a pool of dating partners with whom they have no intention of serious committment, individuals who are married posing as singles, people who post photos taken 10 years earlier, and so on. In spite of its drawbacks, it is still the best game in town.
And partly because of its current drawbacks, it has had a difficult time overcoming the initial stigma of online dating. What was the initial stigma? It was the perception that only "losers" who couldn't get a date by traditional means would use an online dating service. I didn't see people who used the classifieds as losers; rather, I saw them as innovative and adaptible.
The alternative to the classifieds was to use very expensive dating services that matched people after interviewing them. Among the people I met who used these services, not a single one had had a good experience. They felt deceived and ripped off.
So, now the stigma appears to include the perception that participating in online dating aligns an individual with both dishonesty and being associated with "losers." I doubt if this poses much of a problem for those who have used online dating services. But it does present an obstacle for individuals who could benefit from online dating, but hold back because of this stigma.
Online dating has a lot in common with politics. Political parties, politicians, and politics have both noble purposes and ignoble means of achieving their purposes, including misrepresentation, outright deceit, and economic ripoffs. Because of its flaws, politics has earned a reputation for deceit and those who pursue politics are not always viewed as honest and forthright, even if they are actually honest and forthright people.
Online dating and politics are both less than perfect, and both can stand some bolstering of their images. How can online dating develop a more positive image? I believe it is through individuals who are honest and responsible participating in the process.
We live in a country whose underlying strengths are freedom of speech and freedom of the press. "Truth in advertising" needs to be the motto both for online dating services and for their participants. Ultimately, we can only take responsibility for ourselves