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In spite of its somewhat dubious and unpredictable nature, users seem more than willing to pour money into the Internet dating market. Since its inception in the late ’90’s, online dating has grown from a series of glorified personal ads-once seen as the last-ditch effort of the meek and the desperate-to highly detailed profile lists and highly organized, calculated compatibility and matching systems. U.S. residents have spent some $460 million in 2004 alone, according to a study conducted by the Online Publishers Association. But according to at least one free upstart, the paid subscription model may be on its way out.
"Nearly all of the content you can consume online is free," says Sam Yagan, founder of OKCupid.com, "and all of the top the top dating sites are pay sites. And we thought, why? It doesn’t make any sense! Online dating should be free!"
And Yagan did just that with OKCupid, through a grassroots-style campaign of eschewing marketing and customer service (their national office employs eight people as opposed to Match.com’s three-hundred) and relying on word of mouth for nearly all of their promotion. Yagan says they are able to turn a profit on advertising revenue alone.
"Not only do people accept the ads, they expect the ads, because they want us to stay in business," he says.
OKCupid has drawn mostly rave reviews from the public and has reported record-breaking usage statistics in December; the site currently averages 2,260 concurrent users a day. Yagan also attributes their success to a simple mathematical matching system that works very much like a search engine, allowing users to discover who is right for them; something he sees as a happy medium between veritable free-for-alls like Match.com and highly systemized sites like eHarmony, through which subscribers are force-fed potential matches.
"It sounds simple enough, but no one’s thought of it," he says. "Now, are you going to fall in love with this person? I don’t know. But when you go out on a date, you’ll have something to talk about."
Whereas most of the online dating market has actively sought out gay subscribers, there have been some surprising holdouts, particularly eHarmony.com, the leading dating subscription site geared towards serious, long-lasting relationships. Citing a conservative, pro-family agenda, the site not only refuses to allow gay subscribers but also actively rejects straight users who fail to show strong marriage potential. (eHarmony representatives did not respond to repeated phone calls as of press time.)
"It’s really offensive for them not to allow (same-gender matching)," Yagan says. "What we’ve found is that the gay community tends to be early adopters to new ideas and new technologies."
Perhaps surprisingly, Outpersonals.com (and Edge columnist) writer Jack Mauro isn’t as impassioned.
"I don’t see segregation as necessarily an evil," he says. "For every site that excludes gay traffic there’s six other gay sites. It’s tough enough searching for a relationship with all the other variables involved, so I have no problem if a site wants to restrict along those lines."
Mauro is the author of the upcoming "M4M: The Gay Man’s Guide to Finding Love Online," to be published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment in April. The book began as something of elaborate joke, he says, a reaction to the stultifying similarities of profiles on numerous gay dating sites, but it quickly evolved into a guide helping the average gay man navigate through the rocky terrain of sex and dating in the online world.
"The Internet was born for gay life," he says, alluding to the numerous anonymous sex sites that have sprung up on the Web. "But if you’re talking about finding that perfect partner online, that’s a different scene. It’s certainly no easier for a gay man and now I think we’re getting to where it’s harder."
So does he think the stereotype holds true-that today’s young urban gay man is more interesting in hooking up than developing a stable, monogamous relationship?
"I wanna say ’Yeah,’ but I realize that’s not fair," Mauro says. "It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. Is it that we’re more notoriously interested in fast sex because it’s the only thing we can ever have? Very possibly. I think we’re conditioned for that. It was pretty unthinkable, certainly in a public context for a gay couple to just be known as a couple in the ordinary world until relatively recently.
People want to put up the best picture of themselves so they end up using something taken while they were in college.
Nevertheless, he sees the internet as an invaluable tool for helping to further forge monogamy in the gay, even if he is slightly ambivalent about the results.
When you’re looking for Mr. (or Ms.) Right, as opposed to Mr. Rightnow, honesty is the best policy. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make sure that you don’t put yourself in the most flattering light possible.
"People obviously want to advertise themselves in the best way possible, but the best way to do that is to just say ’here’s the realistic me,’" says TrueDater.com community relations director Jamie Diamond. "If you go to Sears and get the glamour shot in the perfect angle in the perfect lighting that’s probably going to throw somebody off."
TrueDater is an online dating watchdog group of sorts, developed as president and founder Mark Geller became dismayed over the misinformation, misrepresentation and outright falsification that kept cropping up on the personal profiles on online daters.
"Almost everyone dates online, so the issue is not whether it’s acceptable anymore or whether the questionnaires are useful," Diamond says. "The number one issue with this giant cultural phenomenon is honesty."
After surveying its users, TrueDater found that physical appearance was most misrepresented in online profiles, followed by age and marital status. Of those polled, male voters ranked weight first with 45 percent, and general physical appearance second with 20 percent. "Marital status" ranked third with 13 percent, while all other categories mentioned-height, income, marital status and other-received 10 percent or less.
With female voters, general physical appearance ranked first with 36 percent of the vote, followed by weight (19 percent) and age (16 percent). Surprisingly, female voters said men were more likely to exaggerate weight and appearance than height and income level. Also, more men than women complained that online daters had been dishonest about their marital status. The results are not scientific; True Dater is simply a free site that allows its users to post reviews and critiques of online pictures and profiles and provide support for isolated web wanderers who find that their match-ups had been less-than-forthright.
"A lot of times, people don’t even realize what they’re doing," Diamond says. "They want to put up the best picture of themselves so they end up using something that was taken eight years ago while they were still in college."
Nevertheless, Diamond also says that true frauds abound on the online dating scene. "You’ll see someone posting a supermodel photo and a fancy IM name, and the next thing you know they’re asking you to put money in an ivory coast bank account," he scoffs.
Louisa Praver is straight, but her experiences match up with the kind of experience many--too many--people, straight and gay, have in trying to find dates online. In March 2006, she flirted with a guy she met on Match.com. After posting pictures and a profile of herself up, Praver, 26, who lives in Parkland, Fla., got a response from Matt. The pair began exchanging e-mails and then instant messaging.
"We talked for three hours," she recalls. "He kept saying he wished I was at his house at that very moment, that he wished I was sitting in his lap, that he wanted to massage my shoulders, run his hands up my sexy legs."
Intrigued, she arranged for a meet-up and planned to go out with him that Wednesday night. She thought he seemed nice enough when he picked her up. As they were about to leave, she realized she’d forgotten her purse. "I’ll be right back," she told him and left him waiting in his car, its motor still idling in the driveway. When she returned, "He just drove off!" she says laughing. "I didn’t even see him leave!"
She suspects that she’d chosen an exceptionally flattering photo and failed to meet expectations in person. "I don’t care," she laughs. "He was ugly anyway."
Sound familiar?
"Ultimately it’s another doorway, another tool," Mauro says of meeting online. "It gives you access to people you ordinarily wouldn’t have access to. But all the other situations and scenarios involved in getting to know someone and forging a relationship comes into play. The Internet masks a few of these because nothing is more impactful than chemistry. All your stats and inclinations could match up perfectly with somebody else, but it could turn out to be lifeless. You simply don’t connect. That’s a tough thing for a lot of men to digest."
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