Is Online Dating Good or Bad for Society?

I’ll never forget my first online date. It went very well. Nothing weird happened. It was a normal date. With a pretty normal girl. Even though I was partially expecting something bad to happen, nothing did. See there’s this dumb stereotype that online dating is dangerous and you’re gonna meet weird ass people who are gonna rape you or tell you their life story 15 minutes after meeting you. Now, for the most part, I’ve been very fortunate in the online dating department. In fact, me and my current girlfriend met on OkCupid (if she knew I was telling you this though I probably wouldn’t have a girlfriend anymore), and I understand that most people who’ve used online dating services such as, Tinder, POF, OkCupid, Match, bumble, have had some pretty fucked up experiences. Especially girls, beause some guys are literal pieces of shit and should be flushed down the toilet of prison to be-butt fucked for 20 to 30 years with the possibility of parole.

On that pleasant note, let me try to answer the question I asked at the beginning of this post: is dating good or bad? Of course trying to answer a question like that is equivalent to trying to figure out whether or not a restaurant is good or bad. The restaurant may have been enjoyed by Mark and Phylis on their 40th wedding anniversary as they simply partook in some light conversation about how their kids are doing in college while they quietly ate the chefs special and thought the waiter was a fine young man but didn’t really care for his tattoos. And Phylis had too many glasses of wine so she gave a big tip to tatted up waiter guy because she thought he was kinda cute. Oh, Phylis. Or, you could have Susan who instantly thought that the waiter was a dumb prick and sent three different dishes back because they were too cold even though she burned the shit out of her mouth on the first bite with all three dishes. Oh and she’s probably going to leave a one-star review on Yelp with along with a whiny 500-word complaint about how much the place fucking sucked and of course how she’ll never ever ever eat at this shithole again.

So, in other words, everyone is going to have their own experiences. Everyone is going to go on dates with people they’ve never met in real life, and have to calm down their nerves enough just to make decent conversation so the other person doesn’t think they’re weird or boring. So as awkward and, quite frankly, dangerous as it is to go out on an online date, there are some positives. For example, if you go to college and you only meet people who go to that college, your dating pool is constrained to just the students (or professors if you’re into that kinda thing) of whatever school you go to. Whereas, if you live in a major city like I do, where there are multiple universities, online dating can broadly expand your dating pool to like literally thousands of other people my age from all around the city. So technically, the chance of me finding someone that I actually like is increased by, well, a lot. I’m not good at math so I don’t have any fancy statistics for you, but you get what I’m saying.

So in that regard, online dating allows you to talk to people you may otherwise have never met before. For example, I’ve met and dated girls from all over my city that unless we met at some random place and just so happened to strike up a conversation, I would’ve probably never even seen that person for the rest of my life. The best example is my girlfriend that I mentioned earlier (she’s totally gonna fucking kill me). We actually live in two different cities. As much as I hate to say it, I would’ve never met her if it hadn’t been for mother fucking OkCupid. We’ve been dating for about five months now and it kinda blows my mind that if it wasn’t for online dating we probably would’ve spent the rest of our entire lives not even knowing the other existed.

Another plus is that you actually get to at least message the other person before you go out on a date with them. So you can try to see if you can tell whether or not the person you just matched with is a rapist or worse they hate puppies. Which you should probably ask them about, cause that's a dealbreaker. No decent person in this world hates puppies. Its written in the bible somewhere. Look it up.

But seriously, whenever I’m messaging someone, I treat it as more of a screening process. I ask them questions. I try to make conversation of some kind with the basic goal of finding out whether or not they’re batshit crazy. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. But I never just say, “Hey, you wanna meet up somewhere and hang out?” I never say that for one, its creepy as fuck, and two because that's literally like going out with a total stranger. Now I’m a guy so I’m not too afraid of being assaulted or whatever. But I am weary of going out on dates with weirdos or girls that I don’t really like. Cause that's time, and money being wasted on someone that if I had just talked to before asking the said person out I probably would not have asked said person out in the first place.

I can’t say that you’re gonna find the one just by messaging them a little bit first, in fact, you’re probably going to end up wasting money and time on the person anyway. But it does help weed out the people that will possibly give you scary ass nightmares after the first date.

Now for all the bad shit.

For starters, most of the time you’ve never met this person. I mean on occasion you’ll find someone you’ve met before, but let's be honest, nothing is more awkward than accidentally matching with someone you know in real life. So go ahead and throw that out the window.

So essentially you have to meet a stranger, in public, for the first time ever. For all you know, they could be a serial killer. Or worse, they could be a vegan, or missing a leg. Then you have to awkwardly ignore it and somehow, despite all this shit, carry on a pleasant conversation while trying to simultaneously decide whether or not you like this person. Sounds fun.

Unfortunately, that’s not even the most “fun” part of all this shit. As I mentioned before, girls have had some bad (bad’s a huge understatement) experiences using online dating, and just dating in general. So on a more serious note, let's talk about this very uncomfortable subject.

I have heard way too many God damn horror stories about guys assaulting girls or being just way too creepy. It makes it even worse when I hear this kinda shit happening to my sister or my friends that are girls. It makes me sick, actually. I find it genuinely sad that a girl can’t go on a simple fucking date without having to worry about a guy reaching over and grabbing her boob without permission while they’re just supposed to be having a nice conversation inside of his car.

This isn’t a subject to take lightly, even in a post like this that's supposed o be funny. This is the main thing that makes online dating bad. Not completely bad, in my opinion, but certainly not perfect by any means.

One can overcome awkwardness on a date, or even the surprise that their date is missing a leg. But its hard to enjoy online dating or reap its benefits if you keep on having traumatic experiences on your dates.

So to finally answer your question, is online dating good or bad? Well, I’ve had two relationships stem from online dating. The first one was fun, if you think being with someone treats you like shit is fun. It only lasted a month and a half. I’ll leave it at that. Maybe Tinder isn’t the best place to find long-term relationships after all. However, second one though is still going and I’m happy to say that OkCupid was actually pretty accurate with our 90 percent compatibility rate or whatever the hell you call it. Cause my girlfriend is pretty damn amazing (maybe if I compliment her she won’t be too pissed about me mentioning her so many times in this post).

And I think that the two first dates I went on using online dating, that actually grew into relationships, are a pretty decent microcosm that proves online dating is actually good. Not perfect, but still a good thing for society.

See, I went out on a ton of dates. Most of them didn’t work out. But that's not a bad thing. Going out on dates with creeps can certainly become a bad thing, especially if they turn out to be dangerous. But finding out what you don’t like or even wasting time on some weirdo who collects his own toenail clippings in a jar can be productive because every time you fail with a date like that, it just brings you closer to the right person whom you could actually date for reals. And who knows, that right person could even be the one…

I know, playing the online dating game can be nerve-racking, scary, awkward, or even dangerous. But so is life. It gives you an opportunity to meet someone from anywhere in the world and takes the awkward bar flirting scene out of the equation. Yeah, it sucks. I hate online dating actually. I didn’t enjoy it at all. But online dating (or dating in general) is kinda like school. It sucks, but you have to do it if you want to ever get out of it and finally graduate, or in this case find your FBFL (Fuck buddy for life).

So go on that horribly awkward date, go and message that cute guy with a dog in his profile, or that pretty girl who’s way out of your league (even though you know that you have absolutely no chance). Cause otherwise, you may be single forever. And let's face it, that would suck some major ass, wouldn’t it?