Welcome to the meat market.
Once shunned and labelled something for the socially inept and desperate, internet dating has come out of the closet and found itself soaring with popularity amongst a large majority of people in the dating scene. Though some with hidden pictures on their profiles might not be too keen to admit to their participation within the scene; internet dating has appeared to overcome most of the stigma attached to its culture.
With a Smorgasbord of sites all offering to help you find your soul mate in the relationship stakes, there is also a whole bevy of other sites dedicated to the polygamist. There is dating sites catering for every type of person, from Christians to inmates, from Goths to Fetishists.
With our lives too busy it seems to conventionally date, the world of internet dating seems to offer us a list of pros and cons. People theorize or perhaps the proper term maybe ‘justify’ that internet dating gives you a chance to ‘mentally’ get to know another person, especially in a sober state rather than tackling the club scene where most people frequent in search of something more casual.
The one main con of the internet dating culture is that more people are stating that it has become a meat market. When meeting and forming a potential relationship with one person it is then way too easy and tempting to log back in and continue to search the buffet of other ‘potentials’ always within reach of your finger tips because you think you might be able to do a little better. This itself is on the onset of a vicious circle and leads to issues of trust and the possibility that internet dating is becoming an addiction to some people, rather than a true search for a potential life partner.
In the world of traditional methods of finding a mate we do not have the convenience of a bevy of potential mates within arm’s reach, however with the technology of the internet we have the ability to log on to thousands of different dating sites 24 hours a day 7 days a week from our computers at home and work and even our mobile phones.
What does this convenience mean to the delicate fabric of modern relationships and has the internet dating culture lead to an increase of affairs which inevitably leads to the destruction of already formed relationships and marriages? Especially nowadays when you can register on sites that specifically cater for ‘extramarital liaisons’ rather than having to purposely go out and seek them in say seedy bars or office store rooms. Is this culture now offering the temptation of an affair to those who would not normally encounter the opportunity to partake in one?
Once you have met and formed a relationship with someone via a dating site how do you know they are not logging back on to continue searching and that you will not soon be discarded when someone they feel has more ‘potential’ comes along? Of course with internet dating it has its own style of etiquette and this etiquette states that it is considered the right thing to do to remove or hide your profile from public viewing once you have established a ‘potential’ relationship with someone. Though we may see for ourselves that our prospective partner has indeed removed or hidden their profile as an act of etiquette or sign of faith, how do we know that they do not have a multitude of profiles on other dating sites as it is custom for ‘daters’ to register with several dating sites and not just one. I suppose we could bring ourselves to spend hours searching the data bases of other sites in the hope that we do not find our partner listed there or we could just blindly put our trust in a person we met via the whole internet dating charade.
Yes internet dating is easy and has its advantages but with it a whole new set of troubles and risks brew with it forming a complex spider web of dos and don’ts, plus the whole concept of placing our trust in a stranger that we have met in a world that is a cesspool of deception, fake profiles and players.
