Gay Dating Online

The internet makes many things easy.  Convenience often comes at a cost though.  When it comes to gay dating sites they make it easier to say no than it is to say yes - or, to be more accurate, it makes it easier to say nothing at all.  There's nothing wrong with the realisation that you're not that into someone, or that they aren't what you are looking for, but in the real world if you lose interest in someone or if you just aren't interested at all then you have the obligation to show common courtesy by letting the other person know.  When it comes to the online world however it's far too easy just to delete a message and never even reply.  To ignore someone completely.

I have been on both sides of this, and to be honest most people are passive aggressive, they do it because they don't want to confront the other person, because inevitably they will ask you to justify your decision - something which reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where the town joins a cult and they watch a brain washing film and any time someone stands up a spotlight shines on them and a voice says "You're free to leave but do you mind telling us why?" - this puts you in an awkward position of having to nail down feelings and emotions into concise articulations.  The truth is "it just doesn't feel right" is a sentiment you can feel but in writing it leads to more questions than it answers.  So instead people just avoid it all together and don't say anything at all - or block.  The latter I never saw the point of, except in cases of abuse but even then it's not effective for the same simple reason - they can create another account, or in some cases the site explicitly says they have blocked you.  Back in the days of MSN if you blocked someone you just appeared offline.  They couldn't actually know for sure whether you were offline or whether you had blocked them.

This convenience of cowardice - and I admit that's what it is, even though I have been on both sides - is something that encourages negative behaviour in people.  In the case of being the one to ignore someone, it discourages the development of effective social skills to deal with this kind of conflict and encourages you to simply stick your head in the sand and pretend it never happened.  More fool us as this leaves us ill prepared to confront situations like this in the real world.  If anything the physical barrier the internet provides should encourage you to learn how to do this in a safer environment.  The real world is a lot more risky in terms of the threats that exist.

My experiences of online dating are limited to the gay world, so I can't comment on the straight, but I would assume the same problems exist.  As for the actual process of dating online I have a fair few horror stories of my own when it comes to that, and a few that were somewhat happy, although they didn't end with the stereotypical 'happy ever after' - much to my disappointment.