|
 Once upon a time online dating was considered lame and unfashionable. It was the domain of the socially retarded, the ugly and the inept. It was a misanthropist’s dream. It was where freaks met other freaks. Online was where young queer kids, social misfits and independent music lovers attempted to find their place in the world. Apparently ‘normal people’ didn’t need that shit.
Well, the times they are a changing. Like Myspace and Facebook, online dating is taking off faster than Tom Cruise beats off gay rumours. While the social stigma attached to online dating is slowly being chipped away, and relationships initiated online are now regarded as quite ordinary, there remains a glint of mainstream apprehension to what is regarded as the domain of the different.
For minority social groupings, the internet has long provided an anonymous forum for discussion and advice. The internet provides queers a safe space in which they can explore their sexuality independent of the harsh, homophobic environment they often experience offline.
For most queers, online dating is not weird and neither is it all that new. Online interaction within the queer community has been available in a variety of forms for years.
Participation in an online queer community does not take over from traditional modes of socialising, nor convert those who use it into uncommunicative cyber daters. The emergence of online dating sites for queers has undoubtedly changed the nature of queer socialising; they have facilitated a safe space for people to meet and interact that bypasses the rigorously homophobic society they all too often experience. And the notion of the personal profile is nothing new; just like in real-space, people judge potential partners on a limited set of social parameters such as looks and profession.
As a self-confessed online ‘meeter’ I am the first to admit it’s not easy explaining to those unfamiliar with online communication just how I met an online friend. For years, I used to tell people we’d met on the train. Now people think I’m even crazier when I say that, given that nobody talks to anybody on public transport these days.
I’m not a hermit, socially awkward (well, just a bit perhaps) or unable to meet friends in the ‘real’ world. In fact, I find it pretty easy. However, I have also made lasting, rewarding and stimulating relationships with people online who now feature prominently in my everyday real world existence. And for that I am extremely thankful.
- Erin Riley
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
