According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, Claudia Connell
'decided to log off - for good' after a series of disastrous dates. But
are her views simply stuck in the past?
We're all aware of the recent phenomena of Match.com and Uniformdating.com, and in 50 years' time, we'll be able to tell the grandkids that 'it all started with a friend request... ' You know the scenario, it's instigated by a poke, which leads on to an inbox and then pretty soon, you're Skyping.
The internet to Claudia Connell is not a historic, global creation but a mind-boggling, anti-OAP, paedophile-friendly discovery. The opportunities it offers to lonely hearts are not opportunities at all, but I challenge her passé, tired perception of romance. She dismisses the profiles of these online daters as some sort of CV-style list of personal antics which purportedly restricts the amusement of getting to know someone, unless you're into that Christian Grey style of almost employing your lover. The enraptured highs and the shitty lows of our lives are broadcast via BlogSpot with just the tapping of keys. Even monkeys operate bloody computers these days! Connell may as well be saying Social Networkers and the regressed mammals are comparable. But then, she'd never insult the apes' intelligence.
Peering in to the mind of Connell, a hypothesis on her perspective can be derived. The social network to her? It is simply a place for the forlorn and quite frankly, friendless to be societal.
Let's put this into perspective; let's say I'm a peacock. I spread my feathers to gain the attention of the opposite gender... it's the equivalent of today's 'booty call'. According to the Daily Mail, that's exactly what a lot of these internet daters are looking for; a bit of casual sex. You sign up with high hopes of your future lover and before you know it, you're overwhelmed with the prospects of what you may be facing. In your head, you've imagined a Greek God, chiselled as only a specimen of perfection would be. The reality, apparently, is that you often find the human being sitting on the parallel side of your computer screen could give Shrek a good run for his money. Could even be mistaken for his ugly step sibling. Sad, sad, sad. It's as though Connell is suggesting that you're lured into a false sense of perception but really, you find yourself meeting on the curb of a dilapidated street, in the pissing rain, staring out at an aspiring Jeremy Kyle Show contestant. To her, perhaps these idiots would have been better sticking to the internet.
Admittedly, I find it perpetually disturbing to read that some people actually blog about their sexual encounters which the internet has enabled. It seems the iconic notches on the bed posts have been replaced with spread sheets and charts of sexual relations. Amy Klein - writer of the renowned and outrageously honest blog 'True Confessions of an Online Dating Addict' - records her experiences for the entertainment of others. Connell must have been in palpitations to read of such exploitations of personal privacy. And I suppose it'd be nice if there was some functioning internet prophylactic to prevent the impregnation of a false relationship prior to getting so far along; but they can't abort it. Whatever happened to the old-school, idealistic view of your stern looking Father sat on the porch cradling a shot gun on his lap, constantly reminding his daughter that 'no man will ever be good enough'?
Is the purpose of these sites truly to amalgamate the lonely? Or is it just for the money hungry internet entrepreneurs to make a fast buck with little to no outlay? The founder of 'datingdirect.com' himself is quite frankly a repulsive man who Connell would surely believe launched the website to help other vile creatures meet each other. Quite recently he sold the site to the founders of match.com for a whopping £30 million! If that's not selling out, I don't know what is.
But of course, dinosaurs are extinct and the world is no longer flat. The internet has arrived. Of course, in the last millennium, 72% of us met our partners via either school/university, at work, or in networks of family or friends. The other 28%... god help them, must have collided in some pitiful binge-drinking night and ended up staying together. Or the internet. Where else may they have met their one and only? Working, single parents with but a moment to themselves have no other choice. But for those of us who aren't in education, have an occupation or don't have many friends, the internet is the perfect place to find someone. But of course, through Connell's eyes, these people are simply the unmotivated, the unsociable and, quite frankly, the ogres.
But I suppose, what else are we to do? Remain desolate for the remainder of our days? Or succumb to the pressures of the internet and, more importantly, the social network? Well, critics of internet dating, it's already here. According to a recent survey carried out by the University of Rochester, the radical revolution has already begun. To go from 0.2% of internet lovers prior to 1978 to a whopping 23.2% from 2007-2009 emphatically reveals the augmentation of such an industry. Regardless of opinion, - ahem, Connell - we must capitulate to such an innovation. Look on the bright side; you're one click away from snubbing out the poor fellow that continues to email you images of his cats as opposed to the old days where you were obliged to at least give the miserable old sod a pitiful dance.
Stuck in the past? She may as well be Mesozoic.
We're all aware of the recent phenomena of Match.com and Uniformdating.com, and in 50 years' time, we'll be able to tell the grandkids that 'it all started with a friend request... ' You know the scenario, it's instigated by a poke, which leads on to an inbox and then pretty soon, you're Skyping.
The internet to Claudia Connell is not a historic, global creation but a mind-boggling, anti-OAP, paedophile-friendly discovery. The opportunities it offers to lonely hearts are not opportunities at all, but I challenge her passé, tired perception of romance. She dismisses the profiles of these online daters as some sort of CV-style list of personal antics which purportedly restricts the amusement of getting to know someone, unless you're into that Christian Grey style of almost employing your lover. The enraptured highs and the shitty lows of our lives are broadcast via BlogSpot with just the tapping of keys. Even monkeys operate bloody computers these days! Connell may as well be saying Social Networkers and the regressed mammals are comparable. But then, she'd never insult the apes' intelligence.
Peering in to the mind of Connell, a hypothesis on her perspective can be derived. The social network to her? It is simply a place for the forlorn and quite frankly, friendless to be societal.
Let's put this into perspective; let's say I'm a peacock. I spread my feathers to gain the attention of the opposite gender... it's the equivalent of today's 'booty call'. According to the Daily Mail, that's exactly what a lot of these internet daters are looking for; a bit of casual sex. You sign up with high hopes of your future lover and before you know it, you're overwhelmed with the prospects of what you may be facing. In your head, you've imagined a Greek God, chiselled as only a specimen of perfection would be. The reality, apparently, is that you often find the human being sitting on the parallel side of your computer screen could give Shrek a good run for his money. Could even be mistaken for his ugly step sibling. Sad, sad, sad. It's as though Connell is suggesting that you're lured into a false sense of perception but really, you find yourself meeting on the curb of a dilapidated street, in the pissing rain, staring out at an aspiring Jeremy Kyle Show contestant. To her, perhaps these idiots would have been better sticking to the internet.
Admittedly, I find it perpetually disturbing to read that some people actually blog about their sexual encounters which the internet has enabled. It seems the iconic notches on the bed posts have been replaced with spread sheets and charts of sexual relations. Amy Klein - writer of the renowned and outrageously honest blog 'True Confessions of an Online Dating Addict' - records her experiences for the entertainment of others. Connell must have been in palpitations to read of such exploitations of personal privacy. And I suppose it'd be nice if there was some functioning internet prophylactic to prevent the impregnation of a false relationship prior to getting so far along; but they can't abort it. Whatever happened to the old-school, idealistic view of your stern looking Father sat on the porch cradling a shot gun on his lap, constantly reminding his daughter that 'no man will ever be good enough'?
Is the purpose of these sites truly to amalgamate the lonely? Or is it just for the money hungry internet entrepreneurs to make a fast buck with little to no outlay? The founder of 'datingdirect.com' himself is quite frankly a repulsive man who Connell would surely believe launched the website to help other vile creatures meet each other. Quite recently he sold the site to the founders of match.com for a whopping £30 million! If that's not selling out, I don't know what is.
But of course, dinosaurs are extinct and the world is no longer flat. The internet has arrived. Of course, in the last millennium, 72% of us met our partners via either school/university, at work, or in networks of family or friends. The other 28%... god help them, must have collided in some pitiful binge-drinking night and ended up staying together. Or the internet. Where else may they have met their one and only? Working, single parents with but a moment to themselves have no other choice. But for those of us who aren't in education, have an occupation or don't have many friends, the internet is the perfect place to find someone. But of course, through Connell's eyes, these people are simply the unmotivated, the unsociable and, quite frankly, the ogres.
But I suppose, what else are we to do? Remain desolate for the remainder of our days? Or succumb to the pressures of the internet and, more importantly, the social network? Well, critics of internet dating, it's already here. According to a recent survey carried out by the University of Rochester, the radical revolution has already begun. To go from 0.2% of internet lovers prior to 1978 to a whopping 23.2% from 2007-2009 emphatically reveals the augmentation of such an industry. Regardless of opinion, - ahem, Connell - we must capitulate to such an innovation. Look on the bright side; you're one click away from snubbing out the poor fellow that continues to email you images of his cats as opposed to the old days where you were obliged to at least give the miserable old sod a pitiful dance.
Stuck in the past? She may as well be Mesozoic.
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