I spent this Valentine’s day with my grandmother. Several of my friends spent it with work colleagues or at home on the sofa. Even some of my coupled up friends didn’t have plans.
Why was this?
Because this year Valentine’s day was a Tuesday in half term and everybody had work or family obligations.
At university dating was very much a matter of choice and convenience- social life was easily available, everybody was your age and it didn’t really matter anyway because you were young.
Subconsciously, we all assumed that we would meet our long time partners there at some point (for some reason I persisted in this belief right up to graduation).
Once you graduate and this hasn’t happened you realise two things:
Your free time and social life almost completely disappear once you start work
Other people are starting to get married
These two things can induce panic and/or despondency but they also bring about a dawning realisation that the way we go about looking for relationships is going to have to change. Setting aside chance meetings, fated lovers and kismet, most workers and postgrads meet their partner through work, mutual friends or online dating. Over the next couple of posts I will be examining the efficacy of these three methods using first-hand experience, dubious statistics and the hastily collected testimonies of my friends and co-workers.
Online Dating
Over the last few years the acceptance and utilisation of online dating as a legitimate form of courtship has grown exponentially, blossoming from the last resort of the truly desperate to the smart choice for the modern working girl or boy.
As interest has grown, so too has the number of websites catering to the singles market and you can now find sites catering to the love-minded for almost any hobby, physical trait or idiosyncrasy you can think of, alongside more corporate mainstream forums such as match.com (For an amusing look at your options check out podcast- The Complete Guide toEverything and their episode dating part one).
Just how valid is the choice to go online with your love life though? Do the results support its apparent popularity? Well according to my survey of Wikipedia, 17% of married couples in 2010 had met online, and as soon as I mentioned the topic of online dating at work I was inundated with tales of success from friends and family, far outweighing any disaster stories that might have occurred. In fact, aside from the lingering prejudice that online dating is a bit ‘desperate’, few people had a bad word to say about it.
As I shamefacedly admit to an irrational dislike of online dating as an option for my own love life (despite enthusiastically championing it for other peoples’) I have ‘interviewed’ a friend who has regularly used online dating for a couple of years, albeit to date unsuccessfully, about her experiences with love online (Names withheld to protect the embarrassed).
Q When and why did you decide to start online dating?
A I started when I was still at uni because it wasn’t proving very successful. It just wasn’t very easy to meet people because when I went out I was drunk and the men I met only wanted one thing.
Q Do you think online dating is a better method of getting to know someone then?
A Not properly knowing someone. It gives you a start and it’s a way of meeting people you wouldn’t normally meet. (It’s more) checking the basics, checking you’re compatible.
Q How successful do you think online dating has been?
A For me personally not very, although it’s nice to speak to people. But my friend found her long- time partner that way and I’m quite picky.
Q Do you think online dating is a good option when working full time?
A Yes because there’s less time to get out and it’s nice to meet people outside of work.
Q Have you tried other methods of meeting people?
A Yes, work- its awkward when you split up though. Friends have been good (for meeting people) but again I’m picky
Q What’s your worst story from online dating?
A I’ve got two: one is meeting up with guys and them not looking like they should (from the picture) and I’m picky about looks, the other is the guy who was much keener than me and didn’t leave my house for five hours.
Q What advice would you give to people starting online dating?
A Be open to different kinds of people, be completely honest on your profile, message as many people as possible and when you write a message be interesting- don’t just write ‘Hi, how are you’.
So that’s the lowdown on online dating- a reasonable chance of success and a way to fit your search for romance around your schedule. It might not be the most romantic story to tell the grandchildren but it’s better than never having grandchildren at all… Tune in next time for all the information you need about meeting people through work and making the most of your friends and relatives.
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