A Caller ID On Your Dating Life

from the unintended-consequences dept

A few years ago, someone I know shared a story of how he jumped into the online dating world with a bit of gusto -- replying to a post on Craigslist in great detail, spending quite a bit of time perfecting the reply, as it appeared that the woman in question matched everything he wanted. He included a link to an old photo (the only one he could think of that was available) in which he had a shaved head, though he pointed out in the email that he had since grown back his hair. After not receiving a reply, he visited Craigslist the next day, and discovered the identical ad from the same woman, with one small adjustment: "no bald guys." Now that online dating has gone mainstream, one unintentional consequence of online dating systems is that it's easy to spy on others' dating lives -- whether it's people ex-significant others or people you've met via online dating. The article includes stories of people logging in to find small adjustments to profiles following a date (similar to the story above) to others who realize that the claim that the person "isn't interested in dating people right now" is easily disproved via their constant access to dating sites (which apparently display the time of last login). Still others find the problem is that everywhere they go for online dating, they run into the same three potential dates -- each of whom they've already tried and rejected (or been rejected by). For all the opportunities of online dating, it sounds like some have found it just as stifling.

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