Online Dating: The Stigma Persists

The ultimate sign that online dating has gone mainstream came about two years ago when Dr. Phil joined forces with Match.com to offer dating advice. But even with a stamp of approval from television's leading psychologist, and its participants blessed with his artificially homespun wisdom, a stigma surrounding online dating still persists.

For Exhibit A, consider my fiancée Bridget and me, who met each other on Match.com. Recently, we were out to dinner with a group of about ten people, and after we got into a conversation with the couple across from us, the question was asked, as it almost always is: "How did you two meet?"

As I scrambled to come up with ways to deflect the question, Bridget jumped in: "We've been together for about two years." This was her method of dodging the subject: answering a different question than the one that had been asked. In response, the woman looked at her as if she had two heads. Meanwhile, I sat there quietly hoping the moment would pass.

Now that Bridget and I are engaged, it seems so very long ago that we were among the legions of online daters who switch on their desktops and laptops and go looking for love, yet it is something that we still make a concerted effort to hide.

Internet dating has been a booming business in this decade. The industry grew by an astonishing 73 percent in 2002 and 77 percent in 2003, and although it has leveled off somewhat in recent years, it raked in a whopping $900 million in 2007, a figure that is expected to increase to $1.9 billion in 2012.

Three of the most popular Internet dating sites are Match.com, Yahoo! personals, and eHarmony. Dozens of other sites have sprouted up, such as TRUE.com and Nerve, and others even cater to specific segments of the dating population such as Jewish (JDate.com), Indian (IndianDating.com), Christian (Christian Singles) and interracial (InterracialMatch.com). There's even Online Dating Magazine, a site dedicated to in-depth coverage of the industry and tips for those who date online. Is the advice it offers as good as Dr. Phil's? Well, you be the judge.

In short, online dating is not only here to stay, it's a vibrant and growing enterprise. There are plenty of people who do not hesitate to admit that they surf online for love; yet despite its prevalence in our culture, why is it something that at least some of us still try to conceal?

Dr. Norval Glenn, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, says, "There is a stigma associated with online dating. The stigma has lessened, but it is still there to some extent." He adds, "Internet dating serves a very important function. The traditional ways of getting people together certainly have broken down in recent decades. Most people are not beginning to search for a spouse until they are working and have lost contact with a lot of the people they knew in school or in college."

Let's face it, in most cases one enters the online dating scene because the prospect of finding a date through friends, family or coworkers has failed them. This is understandable in the modern world, where people work long hours, civic involvement is declining and our population has become much more transient, all of which whittle away at the foundations of community.

As a result, people have been driven to create online profiles that are publicly-available, include photographs and reveal highly personal information such as body type, desire to have children, religion, political affiliation, daily diet and turn-ons. It is a bold step to take. Most of us would not want, say, our neighbors or co-workers to have access to such information. Hey, did you know that Nancy in the next cubicle actually thinks she's slim, and her turn-ons are thunderstorms and men with tattoos?

Sven Meier, 37, a computer engineer in Boston and Match.com member, says, "I discuss dating online with friends, but it's not something I bring up with coworkers."

Indeed, despite the tight-knit, sometimes emotionally and romantically-charged workplace environments depicted in sitcoms from Mary Tyler Moore to Cheers to ER, for the great majority of us our workplace would not qualify as a close and intimate place. Our friends understand us better than our co-workers and are much more likely to be our confidantes. We feel more open about telling them about our online dating experiences, but the folks at work, well, they might not understand. Or, if we tell the people at work who would understand, they might tell the ones who won't understand.

In an interview with The American Interest, Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist and author of the classic Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, said about dating in the modern world: "In this area as in so many others, we've substituted financial capital for social capital. You no longer have an Aunt Sadie to help you find a date, so you turn to an online dating service, paying for the services of Match.com or eHarmony."

Is this one reason the stigma persists? Implicit in Internet dating is that a person is paying a corporation for assistance in finding a love interest. In effect, dating is facilitated through a monetary exchange. Still, this can't be the whole story; there are some free Internet dating sites such as OkCupid. Anyway, the fees charged by most services, generally between $15 to $60 per month, are not exactly head-turning figures. More to the point, when you join an Internet dating service, you are there for one reason only: to find a partner. You are bluntly putting yourself out there before a large community of strangers and saying, I want a partner but I have been unsuccessful through conventional means.

While marriage was once an arrangement that satisfied the social and financial goals of two families, in the modern age finding a partner is supposed to be about romance and love. We talk of love at first sight and mention that all-important word "chemistry." We are inundated with romantic movies that provide a model for the ultimate type of love relationship from Casablanca to Titanic to the famous "nobody puts Baby in a corner" finale of Dirty Dancing.

Shopping online for a partner, much in the way one might make a consumer purchase, does not exactly live up to that standard. For those Marxists out there, call it the commoditization of dating.

There is also the fact that Internet dating services arose from the primordial ooze of the personal ads that used to be in the back of the newspaper. Remember them? The last person I remember placing a personal ad was Ronnie McGorvey, the sex offender in Little Children, and on his first date he whipped it out in the car and started masturbating. Hardly acceptable conduct.

Among the various online options for finding love, it can be argued that there is a greater perceived legitimacy in landing a date through social networking sites such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook, where people can initiate contact with friends of friends and alumni networks. Such courting is not done in social isolation, like it is with online dating services, but rather has more of a community feel to it.

In addition, like going to a wine tasting or joining a running club, there is ostensibly a reason to be there besides the single purpose of looking for a date. And if you meet someone, you can always claim it happened by chance.

Simone, 25, of Raleigh, North Carolina, agrees that a stigma surrounding online dating still exists. "I have gone on a few dates with men I met online," she said, "but as soon as you tell people, it gives them room to judge the person you met. A few years ago they may have judged me but now they tend to judge the 'stranger.'"

"I don't tell my family or coworkers about Internet dating," says Tom Smith, 38, of Queens, New York. "I don't want my family to judge me or think that I'm desperate. It's a generational thing. My parents didn't online date. They wouldn't understand it or be able to relate to it. They barely know how to go online."

But many in their golden years have decided to take the plunge into the world of online dating. Says Dr. Glenn, "Online dating especially serves a good function for older persons who have already been married and are back on the market, because they have even more limited opportunities to meet good prospects than do never-married persons in their twenties and thirties." He adds, "My impression is that the stigma associated with online dating is less among older people, but that is an impression only."

Drastic times call for drastic measures, after all. But for many the romantic ideal still persists — as does the stigma surrounding online dating.

By the way, several websites have sprouted up that cater to older singles such as SeniorMatch.com, SENIORPeoplemeet.com and SeniorsCircle.com. Unfortunately, none offer a senior citizen discount.