Final Post

Back in the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York, Lewis Altfest had come across a pavilion that had been popular with so many attendees for the duration of the fair.  Each of the visitors was given a questionnaire for them to fill out of their information and interests and they had to feed it towards a machine.  After waiting for the information to process through, they were given a name and address of a participant, who came by earlier, whom had similar interests to be “the ideal match”.  This intrigued Lewis and he had called his close friend Robert Ross, an I.B.M. programmer, to work together to come up with ways to do some matchmaking solutions through the computer.  After working along side some Harvard students, they were able to come up with the first prototype of the computer-dating service, which would led towards the dating sites we have today.[1]

Throughout the years, dating sites have started to become more of the ‘Want Ads’ in our social lives since people that would be putting down of what their qualifications are for going out with someone else along with their personal interests.  It has become one of the favorable ways for singles to share their interests or cultural backgrounds; wither they are Jewish, Asian, European, Christian, Gay/Lesbian, Hindu, or others.  Most of them think that this way is a lot easier for them to find someone to go out with.[2]  There are even political dating sites like Conservative Match, Democratic Match, Liberal Match, and Republic Match because they would like to go out with others who are in the same political party or interests.  Conservative Match proclaims, “With a culture that is often hostile to conservative values and to the people who hold to them, our goal is to provide an alternative resource.”  This means, to me, that even though you would like to keep your own goals for meeting with someone else, but it can be fine every once in a while to change some of your values to feel happy with someone else.[3]

            Most people would like to give online dating a shot sometime since it’s like a numbers game of meeting someone by chance and you may or may not enjoy it from the results.  It has gotten to the point that most people would say that it is the job-hunting experience in the social network.  You would be spreading your information towards every possible person that you seem interested to be with until you are able to get into a relationship with him or her.  It’s a bit better than going to bars or clubs since its easier to weed out those who doesn’t seem interesting and sort things out with the other potential people that you could go out with.  But it would be disappointing for most people since they would be missing some opportunities of meeting people over there and see the attempts of trying to pick up with them.  Some information can be falsified since some people would be desperate on trying to get into a relationship.  There was a study saying that there are some people who would pretend that they are single online, but they are in a relationship in real life since they want to have fun with people other than with the person they are currently with.[4]

There is a problem with a lot of these sites since most people would not be who they are online from them being older/younger, looking different, or having different interests.  Being online has become a parallel world for most people since it can introduce so many possibilities from being a completely different person or having different experiences.  For example a person can be a wizard or a warrior on the online games and feel great or get out of their shell and feel happy of who they are every so often from expressing themselves of who they really are.  Jeana Frost from Boston University and M.I.T. said that approximately 20% of online daters have admitted that they had lied to others about who they really are.  But if you get more into it, its closer to around 90% since more people will come out and admit that they haven’t told the whole truth on everything.[5]

There have been stories on the news in the past years about some online users being the opposite gender and would be complete perverts so that they can fulfill their sexual urges from time to time.  There was even reports on the news recently of some people from Europe who has had 100 online profiles each and would scam men or women into giving them money so that they can afford their travel expenses so that they could meet, but it would not happen at all.  They were caught, were sent to jail for stealing around a quarter of a million dollars and got a jail sentence of a couple of decades.

It’s interesting how things have been in the past years from being all so simple of trying to meet someone great online so that they can get into a decent relationship.  This has started out with a person wanting to find someone with similar qualities and interests so that it wouldn’t be that awkward with someone who is the complete opposite of whom they are.  They could be telling the truth or not on most of their information in their online profile so that they could get into something easily or cause something worse later on.  For example, a lot of perverted people these scam artists online have caused harm towards so many innocent people would doubt later on of dating someone nice could be something else.  It is their choice on signing up on these sites, but they should at least be aware of most of these things ahead of time so they can know what they are getting themselves into.

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[1] Paumgarten, Nick. "Looking For Someone." New Yorker 87.19 (2011): 36-49. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

[2] Glausiusz, Josie. "Adventures In The Petri Dish Of Love." Discover 28.2 (2007): 40-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

[3] Fairbanks, Eve. "Mr. Right." New Republic 235.1 (2006): 21-23. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

[4] Lucas, Demetria L. "When Love Clicks." Essence (Time Inc.) 42.7 (2011): 78-80 Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

[5] Epstein, Robert. "The Truth About Online Dating." Scientific American Mind 18.1 (2007): 8-35. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Video Blog Post

Arguing about Intimacy

            Intimacy has been an important part in society for many years, from earliest recorded history to today, which everyone would be in relationships with one another to keep society alive.  It has been getting very odd in these past years that many people would be going online to search for a relationship.  Its not that great with a lot of these dating sites nowadays with all of these matches with people that have similar qualities that you have, towards the point that he/she might not be that interesting as you had thought he/she might have been.  There would even be problems that would even go on from the prices you would have to pay to even be on those sites towards that they would be a complete waste of time.  This is just my opinion, but I think that we should just shut down these sites just so that a lot of people won’t have to waste their time with them on all of the problems.

            EHarmony, Zoosk, Cupid, and LDSingles are just some of many dating sites that are provided on the Internet that many people became members on so that they hope they can be able to get into a relationship.  They would be having all of these commercials on TV lately to help promote their sites from saying such things as “its not that difficult as other dating sites” or “I was able to find that one person very well”.  Of what they aren’t telling you is that you will still have those difficult moments you would still deal with being on those other dating sites before the current one you are on.  There would even be problems that a lot of customers would not be satisfied at all on being a member, so they would just quit and move onto yet another dating site hoping he/she will get somewhere.  That routine would keep on going for a while and there would be no stop towards the point that he/she will realize that they had wasted so much time for nothing.

            Another problem with these sites are the prices they would put on so you could either upgrade your membership so you can have access to “special” privileges or being able to activate your account for a monthly fee.  There would be times when you are member on such a site and you would hit a certain limit on messages that you can send and receive.  So you would purchase a specific membership for a certain amount of months so you can have unlimited messaging to send and receive.  As an added bonus, you would be able to have access to chat with other “special” members and see certain information that they would only let certain members see.  One day, one member would realize that he/she has thought of that it would be time to quit being a member.  They would soon remember that he/she has wasted a lot of money for a long time and would never see that money ever again.

             It is all of a waste of time in my book since you would spend so many hours a day being on these sites hoping that you can get somewhere with someone from becoming friends with them towards being able to go out with them.  They would even waste a lot of money just for nothing that they would soon regret of ever doing.  Even if they were able to find someone on one of these sites, each of them would have to decide if they would cancel their membership or not to keep getting more friends or finding some potential dates later on.  It won’t be that great in the long run in my opinion, but they should just stop doing these sites since so many people will not go anywhere with other people that would not be that interesting towards the other person.

More into the Topic.

           Throughout human history, we all have formed bonds with one another in different ways so each pair can conceive the next generation.  Certain relationships can be formed when couples meet by chance or are arranged by others.  They get to know each other for a certain amount of time until they feel comfortable enough to bring it to the next level by performing marriage to make it official.   Now things have changed from firstly meeting in person towards meeting online.[1]

Online dating, of what most people would know, is simply a name given towards the process of meeting and socializing with other people on the web.  The term is inaccurate since people don’t really date over the web; they use it to make contact with each other.  The term would be more of ‘online introductions’, but it really doesn’t sound that catchy.  It does have its challenges since it is different from dating offline.[2]

Dating offline wouldn’t be as awkward as most people would realize from meeting them for the first time without using computers to meet them there.  If you would meet online first, you would sometimes have an odd feeling towards them at first and not trust them for a certain extent of time.  But things would be normal to meet offline first so there wouldn’t be that problem at all.

            With online dating, people put down their basic information from: ethnicity, hair and eye color, height/weight, etc.  They would soon put down detailed information of talking about their lives and whom they want to meet.  They do this for different reasons depending if it is: making new friends, finding someone to go out with, finding new sexual partners, or finding someone you would like to maybe marry one day.  The majority of the people write down their information truthfully hoping they can meet that “right person for me” and live happily ever.  But most people would falsify their information on certain criteria so they can raise their chances of getting in bed with the other person.  They would sometimes falsify their hobbies towards not using a real photo of themselves so that event could happen.

            Most men, who are straight, go online to meet women who are “youthful and beautiful” that would fit their criteria of similar interests and sometimes would like some differences as well.  They would also prefer women to have subordinate-type jobs from a secretary or an assistant so the men can feel in-charge and in control unlike some men would like women to be in an executive type position being in-charge.  Women, however, want similar interests, but they would want men who are well educated and earns enough money.  It is so the women can feel happy that they won’t have to deal with financial problems later on in life.[3]

            When each person views the other’s profile online, they feel interested in meeting and message them via email or through the dating site.  They come up with a message that could try and speak towards the one person they would like to meet and try and stand out from the others.  Not a lot of them are not that great since they would have a hard time trying to figure out of what to say to them to get them interested in wanting to respond towards your message.  When they do get ahold of each other by messaging a lot, it does tend to not work out that well.  Since most conversations would lag on and not be an immediate response while talking in person would make the responses quicker and more efficient.[4][5]

            Once they decide to meet, it can be a huge problem at certain occasions since it can prove if the other person is truthful or not on their information that the person might be the person who they were online.  They can appear to be really cute/hot online and be a great match for them, but they could actually be not of who they appear to be in real life.  In reality they can be a complete pervert that would want just sex, be a criminal that would be a huge problem towards them, or would be the complete opposite of who they were online.[6] 

            Online dating can be useful for most people who have a hard time trying to go out with certain people in the real world.  It isn’t that great since you would have an equally hard time trying to go out on dates since a whole lot of people are very picky on the dating sites.  They have their own things of which they want for their potential partner to be and it can be all a lie depending on the person.  It doesn’t really matter at all since so many of those sites are useless.  It should be a last option for certain people who are desperate for getting into a relationship and to me it’s a complete waste of time on some cases.

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[1]  "Dating." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating>

[2]  "Online Dating | Everyone’s Guide to Online Dating | Wellbeing | How To | Read Free Online Books at How To." <http://www.howto.co.uk/wellbeing/everyones-gudie-to-online-dating/>

[3]  "Dating." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating>

[4]  Anderson, Christopher. "Online Stud, Offline Dud - Dating Relationship & Intimacy | Click By Lavalife - Dating Sex and Romance Articles for Singles." Click by Lavalife | Romance Online Dating Sex Advice Horoscope - Single & Dating <http://click.lavalife.com/intimate/feature/article/Online-Stud-Offline Dud/w6Zo/118939/p1>

[5]  "Dating Online vs. Dating Offline." Dating Advice, Dating Inspiration, and Dating <http://www.dating-inspiration-online.com/dating-online.html>

[6]  "Online Dating Vs. Offline Dating." Online Dating Tips And Advice - How To Find Love On The Internet <http://www.onlinelovehunt.com/online-dating-vs-offline-dating.html>

Intimacy is getting pretty odd.

Hello, my name is Jordan Best and this is my first year attending the University of Utah after transferring from Salt Lake Community College.  I am currently studying to be a Photographer and hoping that I would have a great time doing so.  This is my first blog even though I do have experience on forums, but nothing on a regular blog.  It is fascinating that intimacy is becoming an odd experience for a lot of people. Its just that it has changed so much of how people try to get into it and it wasn’t so complicated back then while its hard to do so today.

For a long time, intimacy can be touchy at times between different people.  Before the Internet was used by the public; men and women would call each other to see if they would wanted to hang out or go out on dates, have a good time, and they would feel that it would be alright to have sex.  To a lot of people, of all generations, it is much of a hassle with the Internet changing so much of how we date and how intimacy has changed. The Internet is starting to make a lot of people antisocial to a certain extent, and they have a hard time talking to each other from time to time.  Some of us would be nervous and not able to communicate with the opposite sex.  This can prevent the chance of going on dates and being intimate with someone.  

With dating sites, each of us interested in a relationship with someone would either have no luck in the real world with someone or just trying to see if it would work out with them.  With the profiles put on sites, most members tell the truth while others can put false information so that they can get into another person’s pants.  This can bring up people’s social defenses so they become too cautious of others and not want to date anyone.  I am even a part of one of the dating sites, but I am not like those men who want just sex.  The real purpose of these sites is to find others with similar interests and get along with them so you can build a good relationship.

Others don’t trust these sites at all, so they focus on talking in person and hope they can be friends at first to maybe going out with them.  They may know them from work, school, friends, or meeting the first time at different places by striking up a conversation to get things started.  This way can be helpful since there wouldn’t be much awkwardness if you were meeting online. It’s just that they wouldn’t really know of what to expect from the other person if they kept looking at their information online.  With not using it, you would just do as you do on a daily basis by talking to a regular person.  It all depends if you are able if you are able to communicate with them without the odd cheat sheet that is provided online.

The ways of intimacy has changed a lot; from knowing the person as friends, to wanting something more by from meeting online and being nervous and screwing up later on.  Most people try to balance the two by chatting online for some time in order to feel comfortable enough to meet in person and carry on a relationship from there.  Others do it the other way around by knowing them in person without an online connection and having a good relationship that could carry it on online if they are traveling. It does get complicated thinking about it, but this is why it gets me interested.  How do others get into intimacy?