I just followed a link to this commentary and would love to hear from a few real people . . .
How the Internet Ruined Dating: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-internet-ruined-dating.html

I'd love to read and comment but it's too late for that.. without reading I can tell you by the headline that yeah it's partially true but at the same time it's opened a whole big world.. Think of how many people have found love from far away and moved to be with one another... ok a lot of screwballs too but still...

yep i might be the bigest screwball of them all oh hello my princess

Hi Linnie.. How are you dear?

great

It's an interesting article, but I tend to hear "mindless ranting and bad experience" than any meaningful "this really sucks".

First off I'm new to internet dating but I also have a goal, and that's to meet people, not just to find new online friends. I had enough of those. I wouldn't mind some long distance pen pals, but the pure reason I'm on here is to potentially meet new people, which is harder in person.

That all being said most of the other criticism is pretty poor, people other than singles can date? Tell me if it's any better than married men and women who go to bars and remove their rings. At the very least there's a chance of some honesty online.

Besides which anyone remember tales of long ago when people dated multiple people before choosing a boyfriend or girlfriend. Variety isn't a bad thing, having more options than one can only increase and potentially keep more marriages away from . There was a stage "going steady" (which is pretty exclusive, which people now assume is "dating" Dating (where it's not serious) has become "hanging out". It's all become more exclusive and faster but the end of relationships arn't exactly booming with success stories. Multiple "dates" isn't a negative in my book people have been doing it for year, people still do it outside of online. That's not a bad thing. There might be some chronic online daters, but there also are a lot of really interesting people that are looking for more than online friends.

Online dating is a good thing as it allows people who might not have "it" to find other people looking to date. It's harder for me to walk up to a girl in a bar and buy her a drink because she might be married and I haven't seen the ring, she might be dating someone seriously, she might just be there to chat with a friend. However on these sites at the very least we can tell what the other person might be looking for.

Sorry about the "rant" but I dislike when one person assumes something they haven't really took the time to think about is the ruining something such as dating, when at the same time it might be the only way some people might make a meaningful contact.

I'm not sure that the internet ruined dating, but I'm not sure it's really helped out either.

The authors basic take seems to be that online interaction encourages relationships that are superficial, compared to those that are developed in the "real world" on "real dates". I've always felt that someone who uses terms that way, as the author did 7 times in 9 paragraphs, is showing a Luddites bias. The accusation of course is that online relationships are built only upon fantasy, lies, and self-aggrandizing. Yes, that does happen. It also happens in person. Online dating has, perhaps, streamlined the process, but there are plenty of face-to-face speed dating events as well.

Making a deep meaningful connection with another person is a difficult thing. It takes courage and self discipline to honestly express and expose who you are to another person. That leap of faith is always difficult, whether it's across a table, a phone line, or a cable modem.

i'm with ya there. no long reads right now, i'm sleepy

the world is just as large as it ever was and there are more people in it now than before the internet.

if it's truely a prob, go forth and meet real peoples!!

Considering I've never had anything even close to a date until I started using the internet, I disagree. For me at least, the internet has improved dating.

The Internet has opened the world... to information, online shopping, banking, dating, entertainment, sources... good and bad.

So much of information we can discard as useless and biased and so much we can utilize and find value in. This topic shows quite clearly you have to take the good with the bad.

The age of technology has depersonalized so much. Some people never leave their cars anymore, simply going through drive throughs and everything else is done on the computer. It seems easier to meet people this way as well, as it does open the possibility to encounter people you would not otherwise have access to. Now, this also opens us all up to people we'd rather not meet, who might be dishonest, not "real" or otherwise not desirable. But again, I repeat, you have to take the good with the bad.

I think overall, Internet dating is a good thing. You just have to have realistic expectations.