While filling out college applications with my advisor Ralph* in 2010, we started talking about the future, which inevitably included how I would meet my spouse one day.
“I never want to meet someone online,” I said.
“Why not?” Ralph asked. “Everything is online now. If you’re always online, wouldn’t it be easier to meet someone there?”
He had a point, although I dismissed it, swearing it would never be me. Later that year, I downloaded OkCupid as a joke. Two years later, I downloaded it in search of love. The story goes on from there.
With an ironic 69% of Gen Z intentionally practicing celibacy, dating is more complex than ever. Although we tend to think of the birth of online dating as a 2010s phenomenon, or even a mid-2000s MySpace catfishing trend, online dating predates the existence of Google.
Kiss.com, the first online dating site, started in 1994. Match.com came around in 1995 and is still popular today. Online dating was once seen as either desperate or peculiar. Some people still feel that way today, but I’ll tell you why they’re misguided about the web of love.
When I was 20, I had just gone through a breakup with someone I met at college who left me for a woman whom he had cheated on me with. Devastated, my roommate, Beth* told me not to worry, because they met people online all the time. In fact, our whole friend group at the time did. I’d just never tried it.
I was attending community college in Bennington, Vermont, working at Chili’s, and still had six months until I turned 21. That gave me limited resources as far as guys went, given how small a town Bennington is. So maybe online dating wasn’t such a bad place to start with healing my heartbreak.
It’s funny, because when this specific ex and I were dating, we had always talked about how strange it would be to meet people online. Ironically, we broke up on Facebook.
With Beth’s help, I created my first-ever dating profile on OkCupid. Good thing I had them there to guide me, because I really did not understand the safety measures involved in online dating at first.
“There are ways of seeing whether or not someone’s going to be an okay person,” Beth said. “There are certain red flags. Like, if someone doesn’t have pictures up, if they put up a lot of sexual information in their ‘about’ section, if they put up things like, ‘I’m a great guy’, or have some sad story about their ex and how women have treated them so badly in the past.”
(And that much doesn’t just go for online dating.)
“Well, yeah, but what if you go to someone’s house and then they kill you?”
“You don’t just go to their house,” Beth said. “You go on a few dates first and then you can go to their house.”
Within the next few days, I got dozens of messages. We set my location to Albany because there might be more options than the small town of Bennington. Most matches were within 25 miles of Albany: Schenectady, Saratoga Springs, Rensselaer, meaning more than an hour away from me.
The closest was Hoosick Falls, so I started chatting with someone from there. We talked casually about various books and working in restaurants. He seemed okay personality-wise. Looks-wise, he was better.
I didn’t have a smartphone, and I wasn’t big on social media in general, so keeping up with these people on a day-to-day basis seemed relatively trivial.
Also, I didn’t have a working L key on my laptop, and OKCupid didn’t let me copy and paste things for some reason, which made talking to these people even more difficult than it already was.
I’ll get back to them when I can, I thought. But one day, the guy from Hoosick Falls stopped responding.
“I don’t get what happened!” I said to Beth. “It’s only been two days!”
“You need to respond to them the same day. People are getting tons of messages all the time, so if someone doesn’t respond they’re going to lose interest,” Beth said.
Finally, I found someone who was cute and chatty. But sadly, the date was a dud. He lived with his parents and had me stay the night, although we only kissed. I was disappointed. He also didn't get it when I picked the original "Carrie" for us to watch.
Clearly not a match.
Not to mention, I found his laugh obnoxious.
But who says that meeting someone at a bar wouldn’t be disappointing depending on what you’re looking for? 90% of people I’ve met at bars or through friends turned out to be one-night stands.
My online relationships have generally evolved into something more substantial, especially with my current boyfriend, whom I love dearly. Our first date was a three-hour coffee date.
And to say the least, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in a relationship. Thanks, Hinge!
Even since 2013, online dating has come a long way. There are some very prominent people who have met online these days. It’s almost more unusual to have never met someone online at least at some point in one’s life, I would think.
Take, for instance, the now universally known mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. He and his wife Rama Duwaji met on Hinge and are the cutest power couple ever.
There’s also content creator and Brooklyn-based bestselling author Isabel Klee, who met her now-husband Jacob Zerhusen online. Coincidentally, they had crossed paths before as she was walking and Jacob was running. There’s even an accidental photo of it, according to her memoir.
New York City isn’t the only place where romance blooms virtually, though. Multi-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and NFL star Jonathan Owens met after Biles DM’d Owens on Instagram. There’s also comedian Nick Kroll and Lily Kwong, who met on Raya. And don’t forget Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas.
However common online dating can be, I still feel that there are some boundaries when it comes to safety.
First and foremost, let your friends or family members know where you’re going and who you’re meeting. Sharing your location, even for a day, can be a useful safety habit. Second, don’t let anyone bring you a drink. In order to avoid the awkwardness of this, I always arrived early if I was meeting someone at a bar; that way I could order my own drink. If they get there first and have already ordered you a drink, you could say you prefer beer, or whatever you need to do to get out of drinking something already on the table.
And of course, don’t leave your drinks unattended with anyone that you just met. While online dating is mostly safe, you still want to protect yourself as best as you can.
There are tons of online dating success stories. Half of my current friends met their long-term partners on Tinder and Bumble.
The number of online relationships that resulted in marriage started at 2% in 1998 and is currently at 27%. More people meet online than ever, and queer dating success is at its all-time high through the apps.
If you think online dating is a last-ditch effort at love, you’re stuck in the '90s. There’s no shame in how you meet someone. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.
Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life at a party. Or maybe you’ll come home from that party, open your phone, and find the person of your dreams is just a click away.