Internet Dating

The internet is the opposite of traditional pub/club dating. On the internet, you like the personality and hope you will be attracted to the person physically. In the pub/club, you chat up someone who you find attractive and hope they have a personality*.

On the Internet, personality is king. Assuming that you have managed to enter a discourse with someone via a chat room or dating site, you have to prove yourself as some combination of charming, debonair, witty, sensitive, caring and considerate (if male) or horny (if female!). This list of attributes is not easy for a guy to fake on a long term basis. In the beginning, communication was via email and you had time to deviously craft and sculpt your replies. Nowadays, with the proliferation of instant messaging programs (e.g. MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL etc.), you don't have the luxury of time. This means that to be funny, your mind has to work quicker than Robin Williams on speed. It also means that if you lie or have several people on the go at once, you're more likely to be caught out!

In the early days of romancing the web, there were no digital cameras, only scanners. These were not widely available, so usually all you had to go on was the personality coming through the emails. Even nowadays, photos aren't always helpful as invariably the pictures displayed are the "best case scenario", i.e. before going off the diet, after airbrushing in Photoshop or exhibit cunning use of light, angle and shade etc. Web cams do solve this problem so it is best to find someone who has one (note: women should be very careful here!).

Over a period of time you can really get to like the personality of your Internet buddy. In your early days online, you sub-consciously begin to project your idea of the perfect man/woman (physically) on this brilliant personality that shines through the ether (assuming no cam or clear pictures). Then you eventually meet and there's nothing, nada, zilch, nowt, zip between you. Those days/weeks/months/years of loving/funny/exciting correspondence disappear instantly in a puff of intense disappointment. The realisation of a complete lack of chemistry/fireworks/je ne sais quoi with someone you thought you clicked with is a swift and brutal return to planet Earth. Of course it doesn't help if the guy a woman had been chatting with claimed to be tall dark and handsome and turned out to be short, fat and bald!

As someone who has spent a least a decade (with only very modest success!) trying to meet people using the Internet, I recommend a strategy of cutting to the chase quicker before the above process kicks in. Get a picture (or better still, view their cam), no matter how grainy, as quickly as possible. If they are not to your liking, try to make a courteous, phased exit and move on without wasting everybody's time. If they pass the picture/cam test, try to organise meeting up at the earliest appropriate time.

The Internet has the advantage of being anonymous and allowing shy people to make moves on others without fear of rejection. It also opens up your dating opportunities beyond the local boozer and chipper to the whole wide world. You have a thing for tattooed Patagonian midgets with one leg? The Internet is your only man!

The Internet has the disadvantage of being anonymous and allowing perverts of all persuasions to openly tout for action. Women and kids are particularly at risk. I believe most opening gambits to women in chat rooms involve some sort of crass sexual remark. Do men think this is going to work with real women? Funnily enough, the "women" it is most likely to work with are those saddo blokes masquerading as women online!


*Note: some guys don't particularly care if a woman has a good personality or not, as long as they get some action. These, err, gentlemen are best avoided.