Internet Dating

With more and more advances in the field of social networking, it would only be natural that internet dating would become more and more popular. According to projected numbers, Americans will spend $932 million dollars on internet dating services. The stigmatism formerly associated with internet dating is no longer there and it is now seen as a legitmate way to meet the love of your life. While there are plenty of success stories with dating services, there is a long list of problems with concept as a whole.

1. Since people normally engage in several emails back and forth before they actually meet, it is very easy to lie and keep a lie going without getting caught. People create multiple personalities online and are easily able to scam others on the site. A recent study showed that women assume a false degree of safety with internet dating that can lead to some horrific situations.

2. These sites can be very unbalanced gender wise with males usually dominating the playign field. A balance in age can also be a problems as many of the women who use these sites can be older.

3. Gays and transgender people have accused several sites of discrimination. Most site's profile builders do not have ways to indicate bisexuality, homosexuality, or transgenderism.

4. Problems with these sites often go unreported due to feelings of humiliation. Many terrible acts of sexual violence and rape go unreported from internet dating users. People are too embarrassed to admit what happened and will not make a report on their abuse. Not all sites do background checks on their users, and sexual predators are still able to get by these securities.

5. Users will still appear on a site even if they have no accessed their account for years, making it appear that more people are using the site than what is actually going on.

With the busy lifestyles that many people lead, it can be hard to find time to find love. Internet dating is supposed to be the answer to this so that you can "date" from your home without having to go out. The emailing process is designed so that you can quickly find matches and not waste your time with people that you know you will not get along with. While these are all good ideas for our modern world, I do not think that internet dating is a valid replacement for acutal in person dating. People decide if they are attracted to someone within the first 5 minutes of talking to them in person. No matter how many emails you send to someone, you never know if you will actually be attracted to them. Pharamones are a very important part of human attraction, and without really encountering them from another person, you will never know if there is a true sexual attraction with someone.