Posted by:
ThinkingOutLoud
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Date: May 20, 2012 07:55AM
1 in 5 US adults now marries a person they first met online. Not necessarily via a dating site, but thru chat rooms, charity org event planning or news discussion groups--and maybe even sites like this one?
I don't know if anyone's done a study to see if these are mostly first-time marriages, or second-times-around--or if these marriages have a better track record than those between people who first meet and marry IRL.
I know 2 women who dated men they first met online; one via a dating website geared to professionals in the city we all lived in; another via a BDSM BBS. Yessssh, you read that right. Those two lived in different states at the time they "met" online.
Both couples married. Both couples have women much older than the men. All were professionals with jobs when they met up. 3 of the 4 owned their houses when they met, too--but that's because they were all older, to begin with. One lady had been married once and divorced a long time before the online meetup. The other lady had a live-in fiance prior (about a year before). The men in these scenarios, while they both had had long term romances as adults, had never had live-ins, or ever been engaged.
Both marriages doing well, as far as I know.
First couple has been married since 2006. They have a lot of common interests: gambling/Vegas trips, travel, music, reading, dancing, eating out, cooking, independent films, gardening, etc.
The second pair has been married since 1999. I hear they are doing well, too, though in the early days it was a very volatile relationship, at least as I witnessed it thru my POV of being a peripheral, friend-of-a-friend.
Apparently they still do the BDSM club thing. They also love films, books, art, photography, nightclubbing, and tattoos. I guess it helps to have common interests, even if one of those common interests is BDSM! And cats. They both like cats-- A LOT.
2 out of 2 ain't bad!
My advice? Use caution when meeting up and for a good while afterwards, too. Make sure your friends meet them, or your coworkers do, even if casually, briefly, publicly, and that your first few dates are in groups or highly public places.
Meet out at the date place, too. Don't have him or her come to your home for awhile, until you get to know them, see how they handle drinking (if they do drink), and figure out if you really have something in common, or if it looks like this thing is a good or bad idea.
And trust your instincts: if the meetups don't go well, or there is something, however small, making you nervous; if you wonder if something is up with them, then be doubly alert. Tell someone you trust about that "iffy" feeling or thing, and either break things off right away, and also stay public with any other meet ups, to stay safe.
Both of these ladies dated online before, so they knew the drill.
FYI: It took awhile to find the right one for them. In each case, they dated guys who said they were single but were actually married; who had kids though they had said they did not, and also met some pretty weird, 'off' specimens of manliness along the way. Quite a few guys were a lot less like their pics than would be believed! I guess that probably also works in reverse, for ladies, too. One guy was almost 100lbs heavier than he said he was; she was in total shock when he showed up looking that way. Nothing against heavy people, I don't think--it was that she wasn't expecting it, and also he had lied.
I, personally, if I had to start dating again, would probably just do things as before: rely on a friend's introduction, meet via work or at a volunteer job, at a library event, a concert, etc. I might try speed-dating before online dating. My friend recently wen on his 5th date with the same lady, after first meeting her while speed dating.
I like face-to-face interaction and conversation, and being able to guage someone's body language. Skyping before a first date? Yes. Blind dates, set up by friends? Yes, yes, yes! It's how I first met my husband, in 1994; we're happily married, with a child, today.