Online Dating Secret Sauce

Judging by my spambox, online dating push-marketing overtook Canadian drugs and Nigerian "lottery" scams a while ago. Every day it seems a new website matching singles in progressively smaller niches is born.

At this rate, the dating demographic will be so atomized that by next Christmas every one of us will be running our own dating sites, all with the same photos, profiles and secret-sauce matching algorithms. Each one will guarantee a connection with your dreamboat, or your money back. Here are some of our success stories...

...et cetera.

I've never been convinced of either the value or the longevity of even the best online sites. They always looked to be the answer to a question that no-one was asking, namely; how can I effortlessly find a decent mate? Effortlessly in the sense that by inputting our vital details and a few photos, the cleverness of computers combined with the awesomeness of the internet should spit out the right person in less time than it takes to order up a pizza.

Can our biology and instinct be so easily circumvented? Is this the experience of discovery we want?

After we found that hardly anyone pairs off instantly, the online dating model morphed slightly to reflect the notion that browsing lots of profiles and meeting lots of people would up the odds of finding #1. Note the sites' subtle change of emphasis to...

Here's a bunch of people who say they're single: good luck. 

Unfortunately, widening the dating river didn't necessarily deepen it, and some backwaters normally cut off were suddenly re-connected to the mainstream. Heaven for the previously high and dry, not so much for everyone else - there was a reason they'd been abandoned.

From this thin gruel of self-selectors, one could choose at one's leisure the most likely candidates to date and then figure out if they were suitable.

I don't buy it. And apparently I'm not alone, because this article in New York magazine asks:

Has the Online Dating Backlash Arrived?

(Worth the time to read.)

NB: Of course there will be many successes in the online dating world, but it's way more fun arguing an almost indefensible position.

Bottoms Up, In Your Facers.