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LOG on to love. More than seven million British singletons did last year, according to figures released today. While smug marrieds assume you have more chance of hooking up with a psychopath from Texas masquerading under an assumed identity, than Mr or Ms Right, the figures show the internet has become the mainstream way to meet someone special.
There’s now a 50:50 chance that any single person you know is currently romancing on the world wide web. In my social circle there have been at least three online marriages, not to mention cyber offspring. In 2007, 7.8 million single Britons used some form of online dating service to find a potential partner, compared to the 5.4 million who used a “mixture of offline and online services” in 2005.
The research doesn’t specify if “offline” services cover copping off in a club, enforced introductions at friends’ weddings (don’t they just love playing seating-plan Cupid, while your heart sinks rather than leaps) or dubious rugby weekend encounters when you really should have left your Pinot Grigio Goggles at home.
For wage slaves whose extra curricular life doesn’t allow much space for offline activity, online flirting is becoming the norm. “With the busy lives that people lead today the old saying ‘love only comes along when you least expect it’ is at best outdated,” says Dr Victoria Lukats, psychiatrist and dating expert. “The internet now allows single people to be much more proactive in finding a relationship.”
The social stigma of online dating is apparently long gone. And while the process is less consumerist than eBay, the principle is the same. Log on, peer at the picture and blurb, decide whether it’s genuine, then try to bag yourself a bargain. Or even a husband. Simple eh? And unlike anything you get from Amazon, he won’t end up in the postal depot if you’re not there to sign for him. But just remember you can’t package him back up like an unwanted DVD either.
Some chaps aren’t quite sure how to market themselves, particularly the rather scary Valleys bloke on one leading online dating website who is giving a two- fingered salute on his profile picture. Perhaps he’s had his heart trampled on in the past, but his future chances of relationship success may be improved with a slightly more romantic gesture.
Then there are the middle-aged fantasists who can’t cope with females of the same vintage. While women seem oblivious to online ageism, happily ticking boxes 10 years either side of their age, men almost always want younger models. This would be fine if they could prove their Silver Fox credentials, but if you’re more Mickey Rooney than George Clooney, get real.
Yet the gap between fantasy and reality is one of the more amusing aspects of the search for love online. In the old days when we just matched up in the local dance hall, no-one produced a checklist of requirements before the final cha cha. Date on a website and you can demand anything from hazel eyes to high income bracket.
Whether you’ll get all your boxes ticked is another matter. Even if you do, you might not pass their online compatibility test. Yet if you actually met, it might not be quite so crucial to share a love of the Kaiser Chiefs, Thai cooking and be between 5ft 5in and 5ft 7in.
And they might not really want what they say. The less imaginative online daters fall back on a number of stock phrases to express their needs. So in the world of web love almost everyone would like someone with whom they can “chill out with the Sunday papers”; “enjoy a DVD over a glass of red”; and go on “long country walks to a pub with a roaring fire”.
That isn’t a relationship, it’s an advert featuring a suitably photogenic couple for the Debenhams Sale.
Some dare to be brutally honest, like the woman who stipulates “No Merthyr Men please” but this can backfire as much as those bland love-with-a-log-fire wish lists.
The newly-single should avoid the vocabulary of the rebound. “Don’t like arguments and game-playing”. Come back when you’re over the ex. No one likes bitter and twisted divorcees.
But the beauty of letting the computer play Cupid should be the world of choice it opens up. With more than seven million surfing in search of The One, surely the odds of meeting him or her are more favourable than a drunken cruise down St Mary Street of a Friday night. It’s the appliance of science, as one dating website manager explains:
“UK singles, particularly those between 30 to 40, the fastest- growing group of online daters, recognise that as they get older and their social networks become smaller, they need to maximise their opportunities in order to meet a partner.
“Our service has been created to take the pot luck out of dating. Our approach, in some ways closer to matchmaking, uses a scientifically-based compatibility test and has a record of delivering real results.
“Our research suggests that if you rely on traditional routes and wait for a chance encounter with someone special, you could end up waiting a very long time.”
So I paid my money, wrote a sassy personal profile, posted a flattering picture and waited for my online Adonis. “Your dream date could just be a click away,” chirped the email the following morning.
I clicked. And there he was. They sifted through millions of possible partners and delivered – Rob from Cardiff.
Just one problem. I already know Rob from Cardiff. He sits 20 feet from me in the office.
And while we’re both very fond of each other in a bantering colleague kind of way, the chances of us being the next Burton and Taylor are slim. (Don’t worry, the feeling’s entirely mutual from him too). Computer says yes. Rob and Carolyn say no.
Online dating may be the future of match-making, but just like more traditional forms of human interaction, you still have to click on a lot of frogs before you download a prince. Source: http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/01/21/you-have-to-click-a-lot-of-frogs-to-find-a-prince-91466-20373117/
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