Some thoughts on cyber-dating:
Over the last year I kept a personal ad running in cyberspace almost continuously. During that time I cyber-dated over 20 guys and met 8 of them face to face. Although this might well qualify me as an expert I'm just now feeling capable of seeing the forest instead of just the trees (which is wonderfully ironic since I've been winding down in cyber-space in favor of more real-life activity lately). Maybe sharing my insights here will help me decide whether I think cyber-dating works for me and whether I'll start another round of it. It's been interesting to say the least!
Cyber-dating, at least as I've known it, consists of finding each other via online ads, email exchanges and real-time chat. I have used Match.com for the first step almost exclusively because even though it costs $9/month it has a lot of good prospects and the software is very well thought out. I have used PowWow for most of my real-time chat. It has a number of handy features and it "feels" more intimate. (As a software designer I have tried to figure out why this is and the only thing I can ascribe it to is that they show each letter as each participant types rather than a line at a time and that somehow this difference creates the air of intimacy). I have also always kept a homepage on which I try to accurately reflect my uniqueness and to which I direct the guys I meet. This seems to do a pretty good job of attracting the right ones and running off the others. Finally, although I've had some guys who seem to want to substitute telephone for email, I resist it. I do most of my getting acquainted via email and reserve the phone for the last step before meeting. This saves money and helps me better understand my partner's communication skills before we get into the charm and seduction stuff that can happen on the phone.
Demographically the internet crowd at this point has more men than women which is a feature as far as I'm concerned. As compared to the real-world population it also seems to include more intelligent, successful and technically savvy folks. All of which I find appealing. On the downside there are also more young ones and more geeks. I'm 40 something and I'm not interested in people who really prefer the company of their gadgets over other people. Finally, since I prefer tall guys (being 6'2" myself) I appreciate that there seem to be more tall guys here. In any event, using a system like Match.com you can set preferences for things like height, age, etc. to improve your initial contacts. That is definitely an advantage that cyberspace has over real-life.
Inside out is a description I have heard used for how it goes when you're getting acquainted in cyberspace. This process of learning about each other before meeting face to face is pretty unique. In the real world, normally, we would see each other, make a number of judgments based on appearance and, if we liked what we saw, we would approach each other to learn more. The cyber-dating experience is almost backwards of that. We learn about each other via email self disclosures that usually cover such things as careers, values and histories first. Even though we frequently exchange photos before we meet, we still don't get that first impression (with all the opportunities for intuition it presents) until we finally meet face to face. It definitely takes some getting used to. I have learned that for me the best way to handle a first meeting is to pretend it's a blind date with someone I've heard a lot about but don't really know. Knowing is mostly about feeling how someone feels for me. If I believe I already know the person I am much more likely to be disappointed (see the note about idealization below). But this inside out aspect isn't necessarily bad. Just different. It's like making a lover out of a friend rather than a friend out of a lover.
Honesty should be an instant casualty in a world where you can validate nothing and you can "improve" reality with a well turned phrase. However, the worst I have seen is some innocent misdirection (or denial as my therapist would call it). I know there are certain cyberspace environments specifically for the folks who invent virtual selves that bear only a slight similarity to their real selves. Fortunately, I've only met guys who shaded the truth. However, a friend told me about meeting a woman who described herself as a tall, thin, redhead and when she showed up short, fat and brunette she told him "Everybody lies". Thankfully that's not true. On the other hand, as someone who has a skeleton or two in her closet, I'm aware that even privacy and discretion can be taken as deception by some. Overall, cyber-dating has been about as prone to misrepresentation as the real-world. I take reasonable precautions when I meet guys but cynicism doesn't seem at all warranted as far as I've seen.
Spam in cyber-space describes the willful overloading of a system with too much data. That definition has been expanded today to include the fact that you are being spammed anytime you get email not really meant for you. Email wasn't meant for mass distribution. Since much of the interaction in cyber-dating take place via email there are some curious opportunities here. Unlike the real world, people in cyber space can carry on numerous conversations simultaneously or save old ones to replay them for new candidates. There are folks who get carried away by the opportunity to keep meeting more prospects. It's like they're at a dance and since none of their partners can see that they are simultaneously dancing with others, they go overboard. One guy bragged to me that he had over 60 conversations going at one time! That's the extreme and even if he didn't divulge his situation, it was evident anyway. His notes were more like form-letters than personal notes. Usually it's not quite that bad or obvious. However, anytime the email I get only loosely relates to the email I send I figure we're on shaky ground. As a result I'm now getting wary of beginners. Experienced dancers attend to their partner instead of their feet and are not easily swept away by the music (to stretch the dance metaphor absurdly).
Idealizing is not unique to cyberspace but it certainly has plenty of room to grow there. A recent insight I had about cyber-dating pertains to the expectation of perfection. Because the tools we use in cyber-matching let us specify certain characteristics for our matches, the process of finding a partner can appear to be one of accurate specification. I recently heard an author on NPR talking about her book (I unfortunately don't remember the name). She was saying that great relationships are not about finding a mate who matches our list of ideals but about learning to love others (and ourselves) without reservations. A related point about cyber-dating that I've noticed is that along with the shortage of certain kinds of information about our cyber-date comes the opportunity to project our aspirations on them. We often fill the vacuum with our hopes and wishes. So, we not only create a specification for our "ideal" but we are also idealizing the person we are interacting with. I'm not sure how to "fix" this problem but my latest strategy has been to keep cyber-courtships pretty brief and to get to the meeting stage sooner. The face-to-face seems to be when realism confronts idealism and hopefully with less time to develop the fantasy person we can better accept the real one. And speaking of fantasies, I have one last bit of glib pontification to share. This one is particular to the case of a very tall woman meeting tall men. For all of the guys I've met, I'm the tallest female they've ever been out with. They seemed intrigued by the idea of seeing eye-to-eye with a woman but nothing prepared them for the losses involved. Tall guys have always had women looking up at them and they probably didn't realize how that situation contributed to their sense of themselves. I hadn't really noticed this "stature shock" in real-life since my height is obvious from the first. Only guys that can handle it approach me and ironically, guys under 6 feet have less problem since their masculinity (and my femininity) wasn't "programmed" by the height difference. At least this is my latest self-serving explanation that protects my delicate ego.
In summary, despite the disadvantages, I think cyber-dating has something to offer a number of people. In particular, folks with unique situations and aspirations will probably find it a fertile area for developing romance. That includes women like me who travel a lot and think brains are sexy. In cyberspace I don't end up meeting guys for whom I have to pretend to be a dumber and less successful so they won't be scared off!