By Erin Riedel
I met my boyfriend on the Internet. When people ask us how we met and we reveal this, it’s always followed by a slightly embarrassed smile. After all, we know how dorky it seems. But we’re okay with that. We’re pretty dorky ourselves.
Online dating, however, has largely shed its reputation for being the last resort of hopeless losers or a haven for sexual predators. But consider this: a 2004 study by Sperling’s BestPlaces (http://www.bestplaces.net) ranked Louisville as the sixth-worst city for dating in the country. With the odds stacked against us this way, why shouldn’t we turn to technology for a little help?
The biggest advantage of online dating is that you have a chance to actually get to know somebody a bit before you have to sit across a dinner table from them, something that can’t be said of dates that friends arrange or that are the result of a drunken phone number exchange at a bar.
While it’s entirely possible that your date will be completely different in person, you can usually get a pretty good feel for someone online. At the very least you can ascertain if her or his interests and sense of humor will jive with yours.
And creepiness or flakiness often shows through in the form of overdone flirtation, inappropriate sexual innuendo or too-frequent e-mails.
After a few weeks of online exchanges, you should have a pretty good idea about whether or not you’ll have fun hanging out with someone, as well as plenty of fodder for conversation.
The obvious place to start looking for a date in this town is Louisville Mojo (http://www.louisvillemojo.com). Almost 18,000 people (most of them Louisvillians) have profiles on Mojo, and the number grows daily. You can create a profile, then use the search function to find new friends and potential dates. Send messages.
Add friends to your “posse.” Post in the forums and join online groups organized around specific interests. Attend Mojo events. Mojo’s actually much, much more than just a dating site, but it serves that purpose pretty well. And it’s all free.
MySpace (http://www.myspace.com) is another good place to meet people. It has a lot of things in common with Louisville Mojo, but people from all over use it. The nice thing about both of these sites is that rather than being “singles” sites, they’re really just venues for meeting cool people. Thus they don’t have the sense of desperation that is sometimes apparent on sites like Match (http://www.match.com).
In fact, there are plenty of people on both Mojo and MySpace that are in relationships and are only looking for friends. This leads to something of a sense of community rather than just a bunch of people looking to hook up. And within these communities you will find plenty of single and interesting people that you might like to get to know.
As with any date that involves a person you don’t know that well, use common sense. Don’t reveal too much personal information too quickly. Meet your date at a public location; no dinners yet at either of your homes, and no picking each other up.
If you’re a woman, especially, it’s an excellent idea to tell a friend where you’re going, who you’ll be with, and when you expect to be back. There are creeps on the Internet, but those same creeps are lurking out in real life as well.
As long as you keep your wits about you, you shouldn’t encounter more than your fair share. And you just might meet someone you really hit it off with.
Erin Riedel is a graduate student majoring in Women’s Studies and a biweekly columnist for The Cardinal. E-mail her at: erin.riedel@louisville.edu
