They say that only through great disappointment comes true happiness. That it is especially true in relation to love and dating. Here I am no stranger to life’s disappointments but still willing to make the journey toward finding love and happiness. Being absent from the dating scene for about 10 years now myself, I find that although a lot has changed much too much has also stayed the same. Sadly, the one constant in this realm of living that still remains, is the inability to find a genuine individual, who shares the same views and passions for life that I do.

In the past, individuals had many different avenues available to them when it came to looking for a mate. The obvious domain being the local bar or nightclub. For some, this type of environment provided people with a perfect element to seek and find their “desired sweetheart” One was able to be within a surrounding where he or she could walk in, have a look around and try their odds at approaching desired individuals to ask out.

Although this has been the most significant way of the “dating rat race” for decades, in today’s world it is dying off quite quickly. Today many individuals state that the last place they ever wish to find someone is in a bar or nightclub. Claiming that this type of environment, which was once a great avenue in terms of meeting genuine individuals, has now become nothing but a sexual meat market. So where do a lot of today’s singles turn to in hopes of finding someone with substance?   Well the answer seems to be unanimous….On line dating!

Years ago, approaching someone with the idea of possibly finding a life mate over the internet would not only have been considered crazy but also a means of desperation. Today, it is a rapidly growing business in high demand. So why has this type of “cold call dating” become so popular? Simple, because it gives ALL individuals a fair shot at approaching and possibly meeting someone of the opposite sex that they would perhaps never have been given the time of day with in another surrounding. Let’s face it folks! Not everyone can be confident enough to walk right up to another individual they find interesting and strike up a meaningful conversation that could possibly lead to another one. So if someone could be introduced to another type of element that could provide them with an easy “introduction forum” toward meeting new people, it would only be a matter of time before that road would be taken.

After some extensive research in this area, it would be fair to say that, within today’s society, Online Dating has become a very popular and more preferred way of meeting singles in theirs and surrounding areas. Every site seems to have the same table of contents to follow. You find a desired dating site, provided some basic personal information, create a profile about yourself, post a picture and viola! You are now able to start communicating to singles of your choice. Now depending on which site you choose, one’s opportunity can be diminished considerably if they do not subscribe to the site itself.

This means that a lot of online dating sites nowadays are not free. You will find the odd one that has an “open free membership” to join, but the majority of sites have set fees that an individual must pay in order to have full rain to the site. In the beginning most moderators of these types of sites stated that the reason for the paid memberships were because the demand was becoming increasingly overwhelming and therefore was too expensive to operate for free. While others claimed that by making someone pay to use their service it would deter individuals who were not serious about finding a mate from joining and causing havoc on the site for others who were.

Now this may all very well be true, but in my opinion, like everything else in the world, it all comes down to economics – supply and demand. It has become big business like everything else.

After speaking to many different individuals regarding their opinion toward this dating fashion it has become evident that perhaps this avenue, as others, has become somewhat corrupted from its original intent. Many people have turned to online dating because meeting people the old fashioned way (in bars or nightclubs), has become very shallow and demeaning for most. That this way of dating provides them with the confidence they need to approach just about anyone. Individuals they wouldn’t dream of striking up a conversation with face to face for fear of humiliation or rejection.

Basically the original consensus of the public toward online dating was that you could meet genuine people with similar interests in the comfort of your own home, with no physical pressure. Well that may have been the original intent, but sadly it doesn’t take long for the innocence of something to be twisted and lost.

Speaking from sheer experience, what was once a great new ideal and approach to dating is quickly becoming the same “nightclub nightmare” all over again. Not to say that I have completely lost faith in meeting someone special but perhaps we have all been wearing our rose colored glasses when it comes to some people’s motives online. I would like to think that most of us are there with the same genuine intent – to find a soul mate, friend or long term companion. But the more exploring I do, the more experiences I have, the more fact I bring to my suspicions. That is that online dating has become more of a meat market than any local bar or nightclub could ever be.

I have come across and read profile after profile of individuals claiming to be looking for something significant, something substantial. But after close scrutiny, lengthy conversations and possible meetings, it all becomes painfully clear that they are nothing of the kind. All many individuals are seeking is a one night stand or a sexual kind of non committal relationship. Now there is nothing wrong with having certain wants and needs.

Let’s face it; we are all human beings with needs, so this is not terrible. What is terrible is advertising yourself falsely. Painting a picture of yourself as one individual and being another. Voicing a particular view of intentions and having a completely different agenda. These individuals are stereotyped by the online population of as “players” or “dating gamers” Giving someone else the illusion of one appearance, personality, age or gender when it is clearly far from being true is wrong and furthermore cruel.

It only illustrates to the rest of the “genuine population” of the site that this is yet another meaningless avenue. You feel betrayed…let down by a system that was originally designed with good intent. After different deliberations of finding the correct analogy for online dating one seems to continuously come to mind. That is if most of the men and women who religiously use the online dating system to find their prey were arrested for murder, it wouldn’t be a hard case for a Crown Attorney to try. “Murder complete with mens rea” A legal term which means: “an act is a crime because the person committing it intended to do something wrong on purpose” Needless to say, I believe that there are a lot of “murderers” that are apart of the online dating scene today.

Individuals that should not be allowed this type of avenue to seek out their victims. So is this truly the better way of finding true love? Someone say yes and others no. I suppose as with everything else, there are pros and cons to every situation. This is not to say that ALL members found on a site such as this one has cruel or wrong intentions, no. That would be false journalism on my part. There are many individuals out there who have had great encounters and met wonderful people in this way. Many success stories as well. The one piece of advice that I would like to leave all of you trying out this form of dating… LET THE BUYER BEWARE!

Written By:  Poetica copyright 2005