I suppose there are multiple downsides (even for those who are fans of online dating), but what strikes me about this one is that the very thing Mike identified earlier today as “the advantage” seems like the biggest drawback to me. I’m sure he’ll have more to say on the subject (you may already have noticed that he doesn’t concede a point easily), but in a nutshell, he suggested that the advantage to online dating versus meeting people organically was that you already knew they were looking for a relationship.
In a way, that seems like a sensible weed-out, but I think it has a very negative impact on the way relationships evolve (or don’t). I think that we relate to people very differently when we’re sizing them up as prospects than when we’re getting to know them as humans, and that online dating forces us to size people up as prospects before we get to know anything about them as humans. That means that we’re compelled to make preliminary decisions based on almost no information that really matters. Worse, it creates a situation where the first contact clearly says “I’ve sized you up as a prospect and you’ve made the first cut”–hardly my view of a great way to get to know people.
Notice that my concern applies only to online dating, not to meeting people online. In less purpose-driven environments, you can get to know people naturally and find out who you’d really like to interact with more based on things like humor, personality, character and the all-important ability to spell.
After all, I met Mike in an Internet discussion forum, so I can’t write off the concept entirely. It wasn’t a dating site, though, so there were lots of conversations about different topics where people were interacting like normal human beings instead of posting their dating resumes and most flattering headshots and trying to close the deal.
I’m skeptical that browsing the shelves will ever be an effective way to choose a mate–or even to find a viable prospect.
[...] but notice that some people have a difficult time making decisions in life if they are faced with too many choices. They delay the decision making process to carefully weight the pros and cons, putting off making [...]