Online dating websites- How reliable are they?
If you are still looking to the lonely hearts segment in the magazine in a bid to find the love of your life, I can guarantee you that you might be looking for a long long time without ever getting anyway close to a date leave alone a lasting relationship. The answer to finding a suitable spouse could be in signing up for an online dating website. I know there are many concerns that automatically flood your head when you hear online dating. So let me show you why you should not be too afraid of them.
Authentication
When the concept of online dating began, the biggest concern was its lack of authenticity in the sense that one could easily post a fake profile which would deceive the other person. But that was in the times of limited technology. Today, things have changed. The internet match making services come with so much added functionalities like voice recognition, webcam enabled chatting and many other technologies that keep on being added as they are invented. Although it may not be 100% effective in establishing authentic relations, the possibility of being taken on a wild goose chase has greatly been sheared down thanks to technological advancement.
Tech savvy Cupid
Most internet match making websites are today taking a
segmentation approach. For instance, we have websites based on religion e.g.
Catholicsingles.com, cmatch.com, etc based on age groups e.g. hookup.com, based
on political affiliations e.g. Liberalhearts.com and even based on pets one
likes e.g. datemypet.com. This enables you to choose the website that best
identifies with what you are looking for in a partner and once you join, it
will be a community that you will identify with easily.
For instance, let’s say you are a devout catholic. The best place to look for
other Catholics would be singlecatholics.com. The site will need you to have your
own “quiztique” which is a phrase coined by singlecatholics.com to refer to a
kind of a quiz that your connections take before you allow them to connect to
you. Basing on the answers you provide, you will start meeting connections and who knows where it could end? What if you are not catholic? Then don’t join
that one! There are many other websites out there based on religion or other societal stratification. A simple Google search will give you what you are looking for.
You can refer to my guide on how to get quality results from a search engine.
Scientific approach
What I like about most online dating sites I have looked at is the scientific
approach they use in match making. The concept was first introduced at
eHarmony.com. The users are required to fill a questionnaire which is then
subjected to an algorithm built especially for matching purposes. These
algorithms are built following extensive research on the chemistries involved
in relationships and they are deemed to be very useful in filtering out the
potential partners until a user has the best choice left from the many
available options.
Most online dating websites are built to search, to match or to perform a
combination of both. If I was to use the traditional forms like say, post an ad
in a magazine, there would be no way of benefiting from what a website can
offer in terms of searching and matching. The indexing tools come in handy in
the searching process where as the scientifically designed algorithms come in
handy in the matching process.
The search is geared towards establishing the availability of a suitable person
whereas the match function is geared at establishing whether the available
person is compatible with the person to be matched to. One of the ways some
online match making companies achieve this is having their users feel out a questionnaire
with such segments as “must have” or “I can live with”. This makes it
possible to get the person that most represents what one is looking for in a
partner.
The beauty of using online matching services is the fact that one has control
of the entire process. The features on the match making websites allow one to
keep track of the entire matching process. You can be able to tell if you have
people interested in you and basing on that, make the necessary amendments to your
profile. You can interact with you profile and continue meeting people online
until you eventually get the “right one”
The other notable factor is the depth of knowledge you will possible get online
than if it were a face to face setup. When online, one would most likely be
free to share more of his/her information without having to worry about how the
other party will react or respond to it. If one of the parties is shy, then
shyness will not hinder them since the other person is actually not physically
present.
What about the cost?
The best thing about online dating is that it is friendly for your wallet especially
in the initial stages of the dating. Let’s say you are convinced that you have
an equal opportunity to have a son that will be the next Obama. So you hook up
with someone from Kenya. Naturally, it would have been very expensive to
correspond with someone from the other part of the world but the internet makes
it inexpensive both in time as well as in monetary terms. The website will
often have such features as live chatting and video and voice functionalities
that would make the virtual experience appear almost real.
In addition, most internet matching websites come with the versatility of periodic
signups. This means that you can sign up for a month or for a season after
which you will be signed out. This is good since it means that you won’t
continue receiving flirting messages in your inbox once you have gotten the
partner you were looking for. “And what if I was not successful and my signup period
is over?" Well, You can always sign up again.Or you can try to use social websites like Facebook...but that is a story for another day
