In 1982, Chris Dunn put Pam Jensen on a CompuServe CB Simulator program that connected computer users across the country in an early version of online dating in a chat room. They hadn’t planned on finding love online, but after a few months of virtual chat, Chris booked a flight from New York to Chicago, where he and Pam met face-to-face. A year later, to this day, they were married (1).
Their newsworthy courtship and wedding was featured in numerous television shows and newspaper articles, including a Chicago Tribune story titled “Cupid and Computers Conquer All”. But not everyone accepted his relationship with an open mind; Many people said that a relationship based on online dating would not last, even Chris’s father. This was one of the first examples of the stigma of online dating, and it was met with great suspicion.
These days, of course, a partner finding love online is not newsworthy. But Pam and Chris were charting new territory. “At the time,” Pam recalls, “computers weren’t as widespread in our homes and in our daily lives. For many people, especially my parents’ generation and their friends, online dating seemed very strange, a very strange concept. very suspicious to even communicate that way. There was definitely a stigma with online dating. “
That was about thirty years ago and Chris and Pam are still in love and happily married, and they live on the north side of Chicago. “If it weren’t for the way we met, with online dating, I think we could be any other married couple,” Chris said. “I’ve always adored her. She adores me. It’s very easy to love my wife (2).” That part may be easy, but early on, Chris and Pam had to endure a great deal of criticism from others clinging to the stigma of online dating. And so have many other singles currently finding love online, and couples who have sometimes felt compelled to hide the fact that they met through an online dating site.
It’s called stigma
During a Sunday school function, a group of newlywed wives were asked, “How did you two meet?” Going around the circle, each woman took a moment to tell her romantic story. Then it was time for Tracy to speak: “We met on the Internet.”
A moment of silence hung over the group. “Online dating? Really!” The teacher said. “Why would an attractive and outgoing girl like you have to resort to such drastic measures?”
This is called “stigma”, a socially discrediting means of classifying others as contrary to the norm. It is an undesirable stereotype and evokes disapproval, disgrace, and shame. And the online dating stigma associated with finding love online is based on misinformed impressions.
This Sunday school teacher is a perfect example of someone perpetuating the uneducated social stigma of online dating and using the internet to find love. Online dating has taken a turn for the worse in recent years and, truth be told, this was an exchange that took place over a decade ago. Today, these misinformed impressions about online dating are few and far between.
So if you’re embarrassed by an outdated stigma of online dating, you’ve somehow gotten caught up in a fleeting notion that died out years ago. Yes, it used to be that finding love online was viewed with suspicion. So was almost everything related to the Internet. Most people scoffed at the visionary idea of using our computers to buy shoes, download music, or reserve a hotel room. So why the heck would you be interested in finding love online?
Of course, that was then and this is now. And today the stigma of online dating has all but disappeared. Virtually everyone knows someone who has found the love of their life with online dating. Even well-known celebrities talk about using matching sites to find love. We hold enough marriage seminars in churches across the country to know that in every congregation there are couples who proudly identify as mates online. Sure, there are still some uninformed strongholds that perpetuate the stigma of online dating and finding love online, but their numbers are rapidly dwindling.
Your grandmother’s Internet?
If you’re looking for evidence that the stigma of online dating has been lifted from its remnants, you don’t need to look beyond your grandparents’ generation. You may think that they rarely turn on a computer, but you would be wrong. Are you ready for this? Of course, we all know how popular finding love online is for younger generations, but the fastest growing area for online dating sites is with single older people (3).
Hilda Gottlieb, 70, decided to give online dating a try after her husband passed away in 2004 (4). “I was 64 when my husband died, and I knew I was not going to be alone for the rest of my life,” Gottlieb told the Palm Beach Post.
Gottlieb ignored the stigma of online dating, found the dating profile of Marv Cohen, then 72, and decided to contact him. That email led to an in-person meeting and an eventual romantic relationship. They have been married ever since (5).
The point is, online dating these days is considered socially acceptable even among many of the people who were perhaps the most suspected of finding love online just a few years ago.
Online dating is now Hyper-Mainstream
“The stigma of online dating has definitely decreased because people stand up for it, talk to their friends about it, and share stories with families,” says Lija Jarvis, director of a large survey on Internet dating (6). Another study, conducted by research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, shows how quickly internet dating, which has been around for less than two decades, has revolutionized the way people find and seek potential partners and move closer to finding love online.
“It seems to have displaced all other forms of dating,” says Susan Frohlick, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Manitoba who has studied online dating. “I would say that it has been in the last five years that it has become a very generalized current (7)”.
So if you are embarrassed by a passing bias against finding love online, do your best to overcome it. Swallow your irrational pride and the old-fashioned stigma you cling to will disappear.
Cited works
1. Stevens, H. “Chicago Couple Paved The Way For Internet Love”. Chicago Tribune. May 18, 2008
2. Stevens, H. “Chicago Couple Paved The Way For Internet Love”. Chicago Tribune. May 18, 2008
3. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating is becoming more common among older people.” RetirementHomes.com. June 16, 2010
4. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating is becoming more common among older people.” RetirementHomes.com. June 16, 2010
5. Farley, Meredith. “Online dating is becoming more common among older people.” RetirementHomes.com. June 16, 2010
6. Toy, Mary-Anne. “One in four adults find a partner online.” Sydney Morning Herald. April 17, 2010
7. Ellen Mc Carthy, “Marriage-minded people do better online than in bars, survey states.” Washington Post, Sunday, April 25, 2010.