hating on online dating!

Trust the New Yorker to take on a hip, progressive subject and give it an unnaturally depressing, smug and aged spin. Nick Paumgarten recently chose to tackle the epic phenomenon of our times - online dating. As we excitedly began to read, the very beginning signaled trouble! The dull historical approach became evident with the first sentence:

"In the fall of 1964, on a visit to the World’s Fair, in Queens, Lewis Altfest, a twenty-five-year-old accountant, came upon an open-air display called the Parker Pen Pavilion, where a giant computer clicked and whirred at the job of selecting foreign pen pals for curious pavilion visitors. You filled out a questionnaire, fed it into the machine, and almost instantly received a card with the name and address of a like-minded participant in some far-flung locale—your ideal match." [ Read article here]

It was not just that Paumgarten was referencing antiquated notions like World Fairs, pen-pals, staid pavilions and machines that whirred but the fact that it seemed like this article had very little interest in the tantalizing psychological and social intensities of online daters that make this phenomenon exciting. Instead, he chose this fuddy-duddy historical route talking about programmers and pseudo-science behind it all. We were not wrong in getting all of this from the first paragraph.


The author then proceeded to regale us with heavy-handed, typically New Yorker style lines such as "They (online dating sites) approach the primeval mystery of human attraction with a systematic and almost Promethean hand." Or worse, "But if you really are eager, to say nothing of desperate, for a long-term partner you may have to contend with something else—the tyranny of unwitting compromise" Ouch!
 

The article interviews many founders of online dating websites at length and while some of the research and experimenting behind it all makes quite an interesting read, it is the perspectives of actual people who date online that are absent. We keep waiting for insights from those that have had success and failure on these sites and we get nothing, There is also an overarching sense that the author himself and some of the inventors of these sites that he interviews are, in fact, rather smug about having found mates without having to resort to the desperate chaos that reigns on the worldwide web. It seems that it is the pesudo science and the pseudo historicism that Paumgarten finds credible but not the actual experience of dating online. About OK Cupids founder Chris Coyne, he writes, "The Coynes’ marriage has a whiff of a phantom variable that the matching algorithms don’t seem to take into account: fate. Serendipity and coincidence are the photosynthesis of romance, hinting at some kind of supernatural preordination, the sense that two people are made for each other." Alas, Paumgarten cannot extend his imagination to the serendipity and fate which are at play when you log on, whom you click on, how that date pans out and what your mood was that day....

By now, if you're tired of us cringing and cribbing about the disappointing New Yorker article, below is what we would have done differently!

1. Actually date online: What we want to really know about online dating is how it has changed the sexual and social mores in our times. Are the old mating rules and rituals still relevant? The author who wants to understand the phenomenon will actually do some online dating and see how the interaction shapes up. How do people communicate, connect and in what way does the online aspect add to or deter actual chemistry between two people?

2. Embrace the idea: The author needs to accept that this is how people meet nowadays and not be so judgemental and cagey about it. There is nothing to be ashamed of and if people its alittle awkward and shameful, the author should be trying to understand and deconstruct that particular line of thinking.

3. Figure out the lies factor: There is a constant perception that online dating is a perfect place for liars and imposters. None of the people I know who've dated online for a long time have ever experience any kind of identity theft or been caught in a net of lies. Of course, this does happen to people but at a statistical level it needs to be proved or disproved.

4. The straight and gay equation: We need more insights into the way straight and gay folks use online dating whether differently or similarly. It seems to represent very different things for different communities.

5. Ponder the art of letters: It is clear that online dating demands a upgrade in your writing and communication skills. Most dates don't really take place without a few preliminary rounds of emailing. The better your writing skills, the better the flirting and general setting up of chemistry and charm. There may be a grand paradox here; while the worldwide web seems to eclipse old fashioned modes of communication, online dating is bringing back the oldest kind - the art of the letter!

If you pay me and and Lux to conduct a thorough investigation, we would all be rewarded with some answers. Until then, this is just a blog about cringing at whats out there, and Nick Paumgarten, we aren't happy with what you've put out!