Online dating is like caller ID on love life
By Janet Kornblum
USA Today
Karina Longworth lives in New York City, where it shouldn't be too difficult to avoid an ex-lover.
Gannett News Service
After all, what are the chances of running into one person in more than 8 million?
Karina Longworth, 24, meets men in New York with the help of Internet dating sites such as Nerve.com.
Pretty good, actually.
That's because Longworth is an Internet dater. And the same technology that makes the Internet a global village also can make it feel like a small town where everyone knows your business.
Except in this small town, your exes don't have to rely on local gossip for information about your new love interests: They can just go online and get it themselves. And the effect may be changing the rules of love. Call it Mayberry meets Big Brother.
"If you're dating online, you are dating in a public forum," says Trish McDermott of Match.com. "We get to peek behind the curtain of people's dating MO's in ways that we just haven't been able to do in the offline world. We do it because we can."
The technology tools provided by online dating sites also allow people to see when and how you update your profile — the site's equivalent of a personal ad.
The online dating universe is growing — last year Americans spent more money on online dating sites than they did on online music and video sites or online adult entertainment, says Jupiter Research.
But while millions are looking for love, most are searching no further than their own back yards — the same way they might go to their local singles bar.
Longworth, 24, a graduate student and freelance writer, regularly uses edgy dating site Nerve.com (www.nerve.com). Even though she dates a lot of guys — the Internet has made it easy to date many more people at once — the pool of potential dates is limited to men who are "straight, 21 through 35, not stupid and live in the New York area," she says.
So nearly every time she goes online to find a new date, she finds the same profiles of the same guys. "I am forced to confront anywhere from one to three profiles of boys that I have made an attempt to date," she says.
Compounding the smallness of the online dating world is the intrusiveness: It's as easy to be found by a former lover who can't let go as it is to be found by a new prospective date.
The Internet makes spying simple, quick and — some would say — far too compelling.
Want to tell that woman you dated last week one of those little white lies that work pretty well in the offline world — like "I'm just not dating right now?" Forget it. All she has to do is check out your activity online. She'll be able to see that you're still regularly logging onto the site. Most dating sites show a person's last log-on date so prospective daters can know the person is still on the market.
If a former flame is no longer on one dating site, she probably can be found on another. You may be able to find her footprints on the Web — maybe she keeps a diary-style blog, maintains a Web site or frequents public message boards.
Often people use the same user IDs — or even real names — on different sites, making them easy to find. And even if they don't, they can often be found by identifying characteristics, such as age, race, occupation, location, even photos.
Bottom line: "You've got caller ID on your dating life," says Evan Marc Katz, an online dater and author of "I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book: A Commonsense Guide to Successful Internet Dating" (Ten Speed Press). "You can't hide when you're online."
