Amour Online: Darwin Wouldn't Have Been Surprised

By Tamara Straus, AlterNet. Posted January 14, 2002.

Is online dating a bleak reflection of an overworked, increasingly alienated, rootless and commodity-oriented society? Or is it the greatest technological love panacea ever created -- a way to use the greatest invention of the late 20th century to cut through the b.s. of bar talk and find what you are looking for, be it a man who will spank you, a woman who enjoys Derrida drunk or a long-term relationship that will lead to a loving, nuclear family?

The answer seems to be both. The popularity of online romance-seeking -- and the vast numbers who are willing to talk about it -- prove that Americans are comfortable with shopping for partners online and that love can spring eternal from the cyber-realm. Also, after only six years of existence, online dating and the services founded to meet the demand have zoomed into the mainstream. Online dating today is like an adolescent in the grip of a growth spurt, and a febrile one at that.

According to some studies, like the 1999 Yankelovich Partners survey (which, mind you, was commissioned by an online dating service), one in 12 U.S. adult singles has used online matchmaking. By next year Yankelovich predicts that number could rise to one in six adults. The Internet analyst Media Metrix also found that 5 million people visited personal ad Web sites in December 2000, up 57 percent since 1999. Granted, these numbers are probably padded, but that doesn't prove online dating isn't big in America or is about to slow. The real proof is: You all know someone who's done it, and maybe you've done it yourself.

Originally, I must note, this piece was intended to provide an anthropology of online dating sites. It was to be a Darwinian project of classifications, dividing the hundreds of sites that have sprung up into a kind of flora and fauna of online personals. But that was just too boring and laborious. The fact is if you have ethnic, religious, sexual, age, gender, cultural, class, career, dietary, appearance and/or any other specifications for a casual, illicit, romantic, platonic, one-hour or lifelong relationship, the Internet is here to help you.

Individual sites do cater to individual needs. There is Latin.com's Carino Connection, Blacksingles.com, JDate.com (for Jewish singles), CatholicSinglesOnline.com, Oneandonly.com (whose users are mostly middle-aged and seniors) and GoodGenes.com (for the Ivy League set who adhere to the Bell Curve theory), among others. But the big sites -- specifically Match.com and Matchmaker.com, which claim to have attracted 5 million registered users each -- allow you, for a mere $25 a month, to pick and choose what you want from an enormous selection and variety of human product.

And that's what's fascinating about online dating. It reflects the human propensity for choice and classification, and the fact that technology is being molded to meet those propensities. In other words, the success of online dating is being made possible by the search engine. You naturally (or technologically) select your choices, and mate accordingly. By online dating Darwin might have been disturbed, but he would not have been surprised.

"We are focusing on search attributes," says Craig Newmark, founder of the award-winning classified ads site Craigslist.org. "That is the future."

Translated into non-cyber-geek speak, this means that Craigslist, as well as many other personals and other sites, are fine-tuning their search engines, so that users can put in many attributes or key words, hit the search button and come up with a list of people, apartments or jobs that meet their specific criteria.

Timesaving is of the essence here; no longer need you wade through hundreds or thousands of personal ads; no longer need you read endless and not particularly descriptive descriptions of non-smoking SWFs, tight-assed BGMs and JWMs with PhDs. Simply type in your type and presto: Up come possible squeezes for the night or for life, with accompanying essays on their favorite films, fantasy holiday escapes and most embarrassing moments. (Nota bene: Most dating services require members to fill out essayistic questionnaires, which can take more than an hour to complete.)

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