Ancient History
- Friday, February 22 2013 @ 09:27 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,007
The following conversation is one that happens more frequently than it should:
I’m having a conversation with Rhoda, and the subject of online dating comes up. She wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, I can’t stand online dating. I tried it once and it was terrible; no one looked like their picture and I couldn’t find anyone I was interested in.”
I asked when this had happened. “Hmm, it must have been... probably 2001.”
Take a moment and think back to 2001. It was over ten years ago. You might have still been on a dial-up connection. Pages were optimized to minimize images, because they tended to bog everything down. Looking at profiles probably took forever compared to today’s speeds.
Of course, there were likely fewer profiles to peruse back then. In general, people were more unsure about online dating as a viable addition or alternative to what they were already doing. The average person was also probably less Internet-savvy, in terms of culture, how to express themselves through writing, typing speed, and more. You could pull up an Internet search of your date’s name, but you weren’t likely to find much of anything.
In short, the online dating world was a different place just ten years ago. This isn’t really surprising, given that technology in general has moved in leaps and bounds in the last few decades; still, it’s easy to forget.
The dating world has moved forward. We tend not to have chaperoned dates on the front porch anymore, and we also have alternatives to meeting someone in a crowded, dimly-lit corner bar. Our dating pool has moved out of our small town, and sometimes even out of our state or country. And because we’re even more aware that the world is a mix of good and bad, we balance our romantic optimism with a dash of street smarts.
So next time you chat with someone who once tried online dating, take it with a grain of salt. Online dating is a personally customized experience to begin with (someone who is active about contacting others might not get the same results as someone who isn’t) even today. But when you start talking about something that is a decade or more in the past, you’re truly talking about a different world.
I’m having a conversation with Rhoda, and the subject of online dating comes up. She wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, I can’t stand online dating. I tried it once and it was terrible; no one looked like their picture and I couldn’t find anyone I was interested in.”
I asked when this had happened. “Hmm, it must have been... probably 2001.”
Take a moment and think back to 2001. It was over ten years ago. You might have still been on a dial-up connection. Pages were optimized to minimize images, because they tended to bog everything down. Looking at profiles probably took forever compared to today’s speeds.
Of course, there were likely fewer profiles to peruse back then. In general, people were more unsure about online dating as a viable addition or alternative to what they were already doing. The average person was also probably less Internet-savvy, in terms of culture, how to express themselves through writing, typing speed, and more. You could pull up an Internet search of your date’s name, but you weren’t likely to find much of anything.
In short, the online dating world was a different place just ten years ago. This isn’t really surprising, given that technology in general has moved in leaps and bounds in the last few decades; still, it’s easy to forget.
The dating world has moved forward. We tend not to have chaperoned dates on the front porch anymore, and we also have alternatives to meeting someone in a crowded, dimly-lit corner bar. Our dating pool has moved out of our small town, and sometimes even out of our state or country. And because we’re even more aware that the world is a mix of good and bad, we balance our romantic optimism with a dash of street smarts.
So next time you chat with someone who once tried online dating, take it with a grain of salt. Online dating is a personally customized experience to begin with (someone who is active about contacting others might not get the same results as someone who isn’t) even today. But when you start talking about something that is a decade or more in the past, you’re truly talking about a different world.
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