Online dating has worked wonders for Mark Ranzenberger.
Ranzenberger, The Morning Sun’s online editor and Central Michigan University journalism adjunct faculty member, met his wife, Karen, on Yahoo! Profiles in December 2002.
They instant-messaged for hours the first day, then met up in St. Ignace, where the sparks immediately started to fly.
“She turned out to be an overweight spinster who lived with her cat,” Mark said as his wife laughed. “I turned out to be three inches shorter than her.”
The pair married in 2004 and are now raising a family of four kids together.
However, the Internet did not give a straight shot to happiness for Ranzenberger, as he described an early experience that got no further than the first phone call.
“She asked if I had ever been to jail,” he said. “She said that she had been to jail for domestic violence. ‘I didn’t mean to run over my ex with the pickup truck!’”
A sea of potential partners
Ranzenberger is just one of millions of people that use the Web for finding a partner.
In fact, a Harris Interactive survey done for dating site eHarmony in 2007 found that 2 percent of all United States marriages began on the site — a number that is only growing.
And while the fastest expanding age segment is the 50-plus category, lesser long-term commitment-focused dating Web sites such as plentyoffish.com have seen similar growth.
Since the site’s 2003 beginning, it has ballooned to more than 900,000 members.
Detroit senior Bryan White does not think these sites are anything to be afraid of. But he said they certainly are not for everyone.
“I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to meet people who aren’t around anyone they’re interested in,” White said.
White used plentyoffish.com, a free dating Web site, for several years. It has helped him strike up a number of relationships, which have lasted a few months.
Is it for you?
One widespread con of online dating, however, is the honesty factor — some dating site users tend to exaggerate physical characteristics.
According to research completed at Michigan State University, almost 52.6 percent of men participating, along with 39 percent of women, lied about their height in the online dating world. About 64.1 percent of women lied about their weight. Also, 24.3 percent of men and 13.1 percent of women gave false ages.
Many college students with active night lives do not think of online dating as a useful option.
Novi junior Lauren Buckley might consider it if her career eats up her free time after entering the professional world.
“Originally, I thought it was creepy, but so many of my friends have met people (through online dating) — I’m starting to warm up to it,” Buckley said.
She has a family friend who met her husband online, but she still prefers the old-fashioned way to get to know potential love interests.
“I think it’s more fun to meet people in life,” Buckley said.
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Connor Sheridan
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TIPS:
Everybody you meet in online dating are the same exact people you will meet in non-online dating. There is no such thing as waiting for “the natural” moment in the real world. If it existed it would have already happened for you decades ago. Online dating is the best chance to meet single people in any large city.
The single most important thing to realize is that “chemistry” is a series of bio-chemical and audio-visual reactions to the way a person looks and how they remind you of subconscoius things in-person. It does not work-over the internet. Chemistry is not a metaphysical thing. You will not be able to decide about a person unless you meet them in person. The internet is just a place to see that certain people are single. The way that media has programmed you, the type of people the media have told you are attractive and the look and feel of the people you have gathered around you will determine how the 42+ different psycho-visual, olfactory and other sensory reactions determine if you will allow yourself to be attracted to one person over another.
1. Generally: People have made up their mind about whether or not they want to be with you 15 minutes after you have met them. Generally, men make up their minds more quickly than women because they are sensorial reactive. Decision processing is usually dramatically out-of-sync between genders based on genetic hunter/gatherer evolutionary programming. Both genders need to adjust to find the happy medium..
2. Most internet dates end in the first few emails because of misinterpretation. Many people are typing on their cell phone or iphone or they are at work or they are joking and you can’t see it in email. Do not make prejudgments based on the first few emails, they are often wrong or unfair to the other person.
3. A large number of people follow “the third date” rule. This means that if the two of you have not decided to be intimate by the third date you probably never will.
4. Almost a majority of first meetings are cancelled by one of the two people just prior to meeting because people feel no commitment to a stranger. Do not be surprised if people using the service are not too motivated re: the first meeting as many have been through these out-of-the-blue cancellations already.
5. Men are genetically ingrained to be territorial. Women’s men “friends” may suddenly nay-say the new guy, use psychological tricks to create stress and suddenly confess their “secret love” for you in order to cut the new guy off at the knees. As soon as your guy friends, ex husband, old boyfriend, (even your children) etc, hear that you have a date, they will often try to jack-up your plans in order to protect their turf. If you are divorced then you usually already have a conflict relationship over child custody and schedules, watch for the ex-husband to constantly change child pick-up times, days to pick-up and other schedule shifts at the last minute if he suspects you have dating plans. Stand firm on your plans so you are not victimized by the ex-husband’s territorial strategies
6. Many single people have an obsessive relationship with their pets if they are single. Consider how much you talk about or plan your life around your pet.
7. Men have a hard time talking about feelings.
8. Meet as soon as possible. A majority of people that spend time talking, first, on this online dating, seem to be disappointed. The majority have a wonderful set of emails and phone calls and think they have met the love of their life. .. but when they meet, the chemistry is not there and both parties are twice as hurt by the brick wall because they have already created expectations and wishful thinking via advance communication. Most people find each other adorable on hours of phone calls but only 1% of the people said they had chemistry in person and vice versa. That has been the story that most other users on online dating have posted in tens of thousands of blogs so this appears to be the consensus of a general trend. Just an FYI. One would be losing relationships if they try to force a computer system to act human by using it for the initial interaction. You have to meet in the real world to not get screwed up by the computer and its process. One has to get out of the digital/chat room world as fast as they can and into the tangible real world of touch, vision and the other senses. Another reason for meeting soon is that people blog that a large number of people they start emailing with, suddenly cancel future meetings because someone else they were emailing with met them sooner. In many cases, when they have to book the first meeting a week or more out, they will contact you the day before and cancel the meeting because they starting seeing others they dated within that week delay. Most connections never happen because someone else gets there first.
9. Sexual politics have killed off a majority of first dates. While it may seem rude or inappropriate to discuss sex on the first few dates, it is a large part of “dating”. If you get down the road and have actual sex only to find that you have two different styles, then the whole relationship is over in minutes after weeks or months of wasted “dating”. Kissing and petting are key to testing the waters early. Also, if you have not gone into Walgreen’s and asked the pharmacist for the “Home Access Express HIV Test Kit” , gotten a Gardisil vaccination and acquired “Plan B” pills (Google these if you don’t know what they are) then you are not ready to even go there. Condoms leak, spillover and break so must have these back-ups in place.
10. Brush your teeth and take Breath Assure tablets. Bad breath kills off many dates.
11. Know what you really want. Most people are specifically looking for marriages, sex, babies, distractions, fun, social status, therapy or other certain things. Compare notes on your actual needs in the first date. There is nothing wrong with just looking for sex, the volume of people is higher with computer dating so the odds are better, just be clear up front. In fact few people can have “just sex” without falling in love afterwards.
12. People with kids are able to date just as much as people without kids if they have a balanced life. Most single parents are able to get 3 full nights a week totally to themselves. If you can’t pull this off, talk to a parent who does to figure it out.
13. Don’t discuss emotional topics in email with someone you have never met.
14. On spending money: Women expect men to pay and men expect women to practice the “womens liberation” they fought for. Women want proof of stability and men want sexual reciprocation. Men get burned out buying a string of meals for strangers they will never see again. Men feel used and women feel diminished if the man doesn’t pay…This is the hardest subject in dating. Manage expectations on this from the beginning.
15. We live in an age where advertising and media train us to be attracted to certain facial types: sorority girl looks like fraternity guy looks, biker guy looks like biker girl looks, hipster guy looks like hipster girl types. Realize that we are all being forced to be superficial by this. Try to get past this, or you will miss people who are, otherwise, perfect matches.
16. Exchange cell phone numbers for the first meeting. Most people do not look like their pictures and many people never find each other the first time. Use a Google-voice number or get a $27.00 phone from Walgreens if you don’t want to give out your real number.
17. Where to meet is a political consideration. People who have done a few weeks of internet dating know that 99% of the first meetings don’t click and they will never see that person again , so they are hesitant to go too far for a first meeting . Women think men should drive to their location. Men think that they are going to have to pay for everything so the women should come to them. A good fix is to meet half-way.
18. In life you have gathered people that are very similar to you around you in order to create a controlled and comfortable insulation. In online dating you will meet the full breadth of people and they are of every type. Be prepared to broaden your horizons.
19. If you feel the need to tell people that “you need to go slow” (A concept foreign to most men) or “are still hurt from your last relationship”.. you may not be ready to date. Not only are most people on a dating site eager and willing to be in a relationship, but things move much faster online than not online. Don’t hurt yourself, and others, by using a dating site for therapy. People on dating sites go fast, generally.
20. If you are wanting to blow somebody off and you are online dating, do not say you have “met someone” and then leave your profile up. If they see your profile still up or get a notice (such as match.com sends out to everybody each time you go into your profile) they may feel lied to.