Can You Really Find Love Online?

Part 1: The Questions of Internet Dating Over the last ten years internet dating has boomed from being on the fringes and a place where nerds and serial killers lurked to a normal and accepted means of connecting and hopefully finding love.

Currently, if you meet a single person in the UK there is a 50/50 chance that they would be using some form of internet dating to meet people. In 2008, over 8 million singles in the UK used the internet to try to find love – among other things.

The difference…

As the internet has become fundamental to our everyday life, it makes sense that it can be used as a tool to connect; however, it is very far removed from the historical forms of finding love. Rather it offers a Tesco-style online ordering of a relationship. This raises certain questions regarding our traditional beliefs and expectations around love.

Does destiny still apply…

Many of us hold romantic ideals of how we could meet a person and fall in love. This is destiny or what is meant to be. These imaginings tend to take place in more normal contexts such as the work environment or friends of friends or just meeting a person out at a pub. However, the internet has now given us a unique opportunity to find people that share interests, hobbies or whatever it is you’re searching for.

This leads to one of the questions that are often on people’s minds: where does destiny come into something like internet dating? Can searching and finding someone online be fate or is it us making it happen?

Is it real?

Is connecting through internet channels natural? Is the relationship that forms real? The internet is a medium that has the potential to cut us off from each other, yet now there are these so-called connections hiding behind emails and chats.

Love across the internet…

Finally, the main question is: Does it work? Can you find love via internet dating? How can you make the most of and get the most from the process?

Human civilisation has always evolved and advanced. In the last century this has accelerated at rate almost beyond comprehension. How we have typically met the opposite sex has also changed and evolved according to the cultural and social norm of the time. Internet dating is yet another level of this process.