It's easy to meet people online, but it's much harder to form genuine connections. I started online dating in , at the tender age of I was a fan of TheSpark. SparkMatch wasn't like the other online dating sites I'd seen before. It was friendly, it was unintimidating, and because of its affiliation with The Spark, it was easy to say you'd signed up just for laughs. Emboldened by this degree of plausible deniability, I made a profile and started perusing the site.
Within a short period of time, I was on a date with a man who'd ultimately become my first serious boyfriend.
Over the years, I've also set up profiles on Nerve. Though I haven't exactly kept count, I'm sure my number of personals-enabled first dates ranges in the three digits. Given those stats, it might seem natural to lump me in with the constantly searching, never satisfied online daters profiled in Dan Slater's " A Million First Dates. My reasons for online dating are pretty simple, and rather neatly summed up by an early slogan of Nerve Personals, which reminded potential users that "Bars are for drinking.
Online dating offers access to a wide swath of people I might not otherwise come into contact with. More importantly, it offers access to a wide swath of people who I know are also looking for dates. More than anything, it's an efficient way to cast a wide net in the search for a potential partner.
Is it a flawless system? Of course notβbut as far as methods of consistently finding new people to date go, it's the least flawed one I know. My attitude towards the world of internet dating tends to follow a rather predictable cycle: At some pointβbecause I'm fresh out of a relationship or otherwise feeling a renewed interest in putting myself out thereβI find myself approaching the task with a strong sense of vigor. Paging through profiles, it seems like there are numerous people who, even if they aren't my future life partner, might still be fun to hang out with for an evening.
