The Ups and Downs of Online and Offline Dating

 

Love. The prize in the game of life. Everywhere you go, people are in it, or searching for it, from the couples arguing about what's for dinner, to the random dudes catcalling uninterested women at the worst of times. Love, for all its perks, can be difficult to get, even seemingly impossible. For people who want to find love as quickly and conveniently as possible, there’s an easy option (or so it seems) - online dating. Online dating sounds like a dream come true, minimum effort, maximum satisfaction, but there is also another way - meeting someone in real life, having an actual conversation – gasp - and putting down the phone in pursuit of real relations. So, which is better? Which is safer, less likely to end up with you in the bottom of a gutter or gagged in a basement? Which is more successful, and will guarantee long-lasting love?  

PROS OF ONLINE DATING 

• You can whip out your phone whenever you're feeling lonely (or lucky) and almost instantly score a hot date. Romance is literally right at your fingertips. Online dating comes with a level of accessibility unlike offline dating, and it is generally easier to actually get a date. The success rate must have something going on for it, as between 2005 and 2012, 1/3 of married couples in the US met each other online.  

• Anyone who online dates has access to thousands of suitors, and they can search people who fit their type, for example "25-30 year old saucy blondes looking for hook-ups" may be someone's cup of tea, or "wealthy brunette who loves dogs and wants to settle down," or maybe even "ripped silver fox who won’t hesitate to binge-watch MasterChef Australia." The possibilities are endless. In real dating, you have access to anyone in the right place at the right time. The fact that everyone (excluding bots and catfishes) on dating apps is looking for a relationship (of varying types) opens up options more, and not everyone at the bar is seeking love (or even available.) 

  

CONS OF ONLINE DATING 

• 53% of people lie in some form in their dating profile. Some people lie about their jobs to seem successful, or how many abs they have to seem kissable, but some people will really hit the extreme. Luke, the cute, Canadian surf instructor that you invited over for Netflix and chill might be John, a balding 60 year old with a history in sex offences and bad intentions. When you open the door to your date,  you could be greeted with a complete stranger. Plenty of users are either lying about who they are or aren't even looking to date, just have a laugh. Even a 7-year-old could put a fake name in a profile and search up the picture of some bikinied stranger to insert into a profile. Voila – recipe for a catfish. If you begin to trust a scammer, you may divulge your personal information, like address. As stated by MSNBC, more than 10% of online daters are already married. Imagine the horror someone would experience when they meet up with Vanessa and she's already got a ring on it. 

• A continuation of the liar bit, apps like Tinder are not immune to creeps (creeps meaning pervs, 45 year old married men looking for nudes, and people looking to harm others.) These people could either a.) get straight to the point and say "lemme see your hot body girlll/boiii," or b.)  gain your trust before asking to meet up. 1 in 10 sexual offenders use online dating to meet people, according to a site called phactual...  

PROS OF REAL-LIFE DATING 

• Staring into the depths of someone's eyes sounds a hell of a lot more romantic than squinting into the dots of a digital photograph from a profile, trying to gauge the exact shade of blue from blurry pixels. I know I would rather find love in the authentic way. Sure, once you meet someone online, you may end up meeting for coffee, but you'll probably dive into it knowing exactly what you're expecting, courtesy of their online dating biography. There’s no mystery. How are you supposed to laugh about their most embarrassing memory over coffee if you already received the message, typed monotonously in black and white? There’s no real emotional connection in messages, not like the one you experience in a real conversation.  

• Falling in love the old-fashioned way – sounds cheesy – but there’s something to it that online dating can't match. Thinking back to 100 years ago, when no technology existed, people would court each other, with no assistance except maybe the nudge of an insistent parent. If it was meant to be, it would be, and there was no looking through a picture book of all the dudes and deciding which one you wanted to send letters to based on how impressive their moustaches were.  

• What you see is mostly what you get. Over text, you can't pick up the flaws that make your date, and if they appear perfect through the screen, you'll go into a date expecting that perfect person. It won't be who you get. If you met this person without your phone, you could better guess who they are, and if you are into them. A suitor may seem cocky and confident when you can't actually see them, but when you meet them, they are shy and quiet. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but people can be very different in real life. If you met someone on a dating site, and arranged to meet up, you may be greeted with a less-than-friendly face, and if you did not partake in online dating, you wouldn't have even met that person in the first place, but if you had, you may have been able to judge from their manner whether they were safe to be around. 

CONS OF REAL-LIFE DATING  

• These days, where technological romance is norm, there aren't many places you can meet decent people, let alone decent single people. Sure, there is the pub, the library, cafes, school, but I don't think that anyone expects to have a storybook romance, a sudden meet-cute, as portrayed in cheesy romance media. Most people know that that isn’t how relationships begin. If hot jock boy were to collide with shy nerd girl in corridor, spilling her books and composure onto the ground, he isn't going to kneel, the knight in Nike armour, pick up her books and unconsciously brush her hand, igniting the spark that was always there  - in real life, hot jock boy bumps into shy nerd girl, spilling her books onto the ground, and either hollers like an ape and claps his best boyfriends on the backs if he’s a jerk, or says sorry and continues if he’s less of a jerk.  Romance doesn’t just happen, so why waste your time waiting for a hot jock boy to jostle you when you can find one online, without even having to drop your books on the ground? 

• An "asking out" in messaging might go like this-  

 PERSON A: do u wanna meet up somewhere? It's a date. 

 PERSON B: sure, where? 

 PERSON A: maybe that coffee shop on Queen street? The new one? I'll pick you up at 5 

 PERSON B: sounds good :)       

Sounds easy, right? The same conversation in real life might go like this- 

 PERSON A: hi, um....ah...um....i....do.. 

 PERSON B: you trying to tell me something? 

 PERSON A: yes...um....do....you...ah....um...- 

 PERSON B: speak up, I can't hear you. 

 PERSON B: wait, why’d you run away?! 

 

In a face-to-face scenario, there’s much more that could go wrong. You could catch a bad case of the Stutter and Run like our friend person A, you could turn into a human tomato, flake out, embarrass yourself, etcetera etcetera. Though a message bears the same sting when you’re rejected, your rejecter can't see the tears running down your face or hear the word soup you conjure up in desperation. It takes courage to ask someone out, and online dating makes it easier for many. Online dating gives people confidence they may never have been able to summon in real life, and they could be better for it.  

CONCLUSION 

In my opinion, nothing trumps the feels of a real date (not that I would know). However, I think perfectly good relationships can be started from a swipe right, a life together generated by the click of a button. There is nothing wrong with exploring online dating. It’s also my opinion that neither of the dating methods is safe or has a consistent success rate. They both come with dangers, and anyone who wants to use either should be aware. They both have differences and similarities, and neither can be proven better than the other. It is a matter of opinion which is better.

For some unsettling online dating statistics, visit 

https://www.phactual.com/16-scary-statistics-of-online-dating/




For a social experiment in online dating, visit https://truecrimedaily.com/2015/09/21/cwd-investigation-exploring-the-dark-side-of-online-dating-sites-and-apps/