Online dating: Finding love on the net

Zara Rabinowicz writes:

Orlando Bloom recently signed up to Facebook, saying he wanted to meet someone who liked him 'just for him', and the trend for people to look online for romance just seems to be growing. There is a huge surge in Internet dating with people going online to find their one true love. And why not? Surveys reveal that only 9% of people find their match in a bar or night club... so where else can you go? The much touted evening classes (which are full of women anyway)? Work (tricky, and leads to complications- and in my case an office full of women, so lesbianism?) at the gym, or through a friend? One always hopes it will just happen, but sometimes... it doesn't, and as your single friends rapidly disappear into coupledom and IKEA Sundays, you have to start pushing the parameters little.

A mutual friend recently got engaged.. to a girl he met on Match. 'The stigma is still there,' he blushes. 'People ask how we met, and we're a little bit embarrassed, but I love her, and it's brilliant'. The wedding is in August. The strange thing about this encounter is that the girl in question actually lives around 2 miles from his house, but in this hectic busy busy society, had they not met virtually it might never have happened.

Just type online dating into Google and 799,000,000 sites come up- that's a lot of soul searching singletons out there. A quick poll of the office reveals over 50% of us had looked for love online, be it reluctantly (just for a laugh) or purposefully (this time I’ll meet The One), and with dating sites catering for every type of person there is no shortage of matches to meet your eclectic tastes. Still have the hots for someone from high school? Try Friends Reunited Dating, to see if the class hunk still has his hair, or maybe you are of a more religious slant, in that case there’s a plethora of sites targeting you from JDate (for the Jewish daters) to Asians 4 Asians for the Muslims out there; even Lovebyrd for those with disabilities. The web is the one place which is still judgement free, and whatever you desire it is out there somewhere; you just have to hope it lives up to reality in the flesh.

And more and more people are turning to the net as a way of finding romance, so has a certain Internet etiquette evolved, with rules regarding acceptable netiquette and dating that differs from usual dating. Now it’s not just meeting them in a public place and making sure you call when you get him, you have to remember to check their domain name and of course, to Google them first.

I’m still not convinced that the web is the way forward in interpersonal communications, but as much of my time seems to be spent either in the office or silently crammed next to someone’s armpit on the tube I’m beginning to thaw in my outlook. How much better to get to know someone online, and know if you click, rather than spend a couple of hours sweating in an overpriced west end bar full of suited city boys who are just eyeing up their next shag? It has to be a plus being judged for your personality (and perhaps an artfully photo-shopped picture) than just leered at on a weekend. And if it doesn’t work out? Well that’s life.. and how many men have you met in clubs that have never called you? Exactly.

Zara Rabinowicz writes for Shiny Shiny and Star Trip and will shortly be looking for love online.