Digital dating

When I was in the seventh grade, I was asked out for the first time. His name was Scott, and we had English together. We had talked about everything — homework, movies, politics, sex, etc. Despite all these diverse and wonderful conversations, I was completely shocked when he asked me out. Namely because all the conversations we had were online. We had talked in person maybe two times. And the typical romantic notion of asking someone out was hindered by the fact that the question was posed in an e-mail containing a link to an e-fortune cookie that when you clicked on it popped the big question: “Will you be my girlfriend?” Needless to say, we did not go out. In fact, a few years later he came out as gay, and thus my beginnings into the dating world were not the fairy tale Disney promised me. \nBut from those first timid footsteps into the dating world, one thing has remained a constant factor — the Internet.\nThe Internet may be used for homework, procrastinating on said homework, Facebook, research and, of course, porn. But now it is also for dating. I don’t know too much about dating sites like match.com or eharmony.com, other than the fact that I associate them with 35-year-olds who still haven’t found love. But that is becoming less of the case, as it is more actively promoted in ad campaigns, bringing it to a new cultural awareness. It has also become increasingly safe. \nDating sites are the obvious example of how the Internet has affected love in the modern world. But I believe that \ninstant-messenging programs also plays a huge role in how we socialize. Thirty years ago, you couldn’t get to know people by reading their Facebook profile, seeing if they had a boyfriend or girlfriend, and IM-ing them safely behind a screen when asking them out to coffee. No, back then even winking smileys couldn’t be used to flirt. \nBut ever since we were fairly young, we’ve connected with peers through IM. Things we wouldn’t dream of saying in person come out more freely online, and we have time to compose our thoughts when normally we might be an awkward babbling mess. \nWhile one obviously has to make a connection in person, IM can keep a person closer or farther away from you depending on whether your Internet personality is charming or creepy. People’s speech patterns online are completely different than they are in person. \nFor example, I say “haha” in online conversations after every joke, lame or not. In real life, I never say “haha.” I actually laugh. I believe that online, I come off as a laughing idiot, maybe even someone who doesn’t know proper grammar, considering I regularly fail to capitalize letters in my IMs for no identifiable reason other than habit. I also hate my screen name, which has the word “princess” in it, making me sound like a 13-year-old stuck up brat. But I made it in the fourth grade and have been too lazy to change it. Yet people who IM me may get the wrong idea about me because all of these things have connotations.\nDating and love have never been clear, but in a modern world where we can literally get disconnected to another person in an instant (Internet connection failure), I’m not sure it has ever been more confusing. Now, instead of a drunk dial, we may wake up to find drunk IMs and feel like we’re getting more mixed signals than we deserve. Nothing is worse than a person who can only talk about certain things online and then get too uncomfortable to talk about those things in real life. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t use the Internet, and I definitely think that the Internet has impacted many relationships positively. I simply think that in our society we need to find a balance. While we may sometimes get asked out via online Chinese food, we still shouldn’t lose hope that there are people out there working to incorporate the virtual world with the real world to form some kind of modern romance.