There are plenty of positive aspects to online dating in Australia, mainly meeting new people from the comforts of our own home with whom we’d probably never cross paths in real life.
Online dating is exciting, fun and extremely easy to get ‘addicted’ to, because it can lead to countless dates, some of which are good, some of which are questionable, without any club or bar hopping.
Or being set up by friends. Ugh!
On the other hand, online dating in Australia, and in most parts of the world really, has been heavily criticized for killing romance and objectifying people.
Today we examine some of the most visible ways how online dating in Australia has been killing romance for over a decade. We’re not saying we’re not down with internet dating, but we’d like to point out some of the negative aspects of it for the sake of maybe one day avoiding them altogether.
Reason #1: Online Dating Breeds Laziness
When you can meet new people, start flirty conversations and set up dates in your pajamas with hair that hasn’t been brushed in three days as you’re sitting in your kitchen with a pile of dirty dishes giving you the stink eye, how romantic is that?
Sitting back and relaxing every once is a while is perfectly ok, but living one’s life in the virtual reality without even lifting a finger is not.
Meeting someone new is exciting and if you don’t even have to take a shower to leave a good impression, where does that leave romance?
Finding balance is key!
Reason #2: Online Dating is Antisocial
The online world is phenomenal because it offers a great deal of confidence as we hide behind the anonymity that it provides. On the other hand, the lack of real face-to-face human contact leads not only to objectifying the other side or being objectified by them, but to the greatly reduced social skills.
Think about it, living in the world in which most of the things we need are just a click away makes human contact absolutely obsolete. And online dating isn’t helping the situation at all.
What’s more, it’s making it worse.
Human interaction is based not only on verbal, or in this case, textual communication. Body language conveys more messages than we can imagine and reveals personality traits often undisclosed verbally.
For all these reasons and more, online dating is ruining our social skills and making us as antisocial as ever. This is in direct conflict with our nature and we need to be careful how much we let technology rule our lives.
Reason #3: Online Dating Can Make You Paranoid
Being careful is one thing, but being paranoid can quickly turn into a clinical problem caused by the strange events of the world we live in.
Not very romantic at all, now is it?!
Our right to privacy has greatly been jeopardized and more and more people are feeling too insecure for their own good. And again, online dating isn’t helping much. It goes without saying that smart people are always careful, both on and offline, but the abovementioned internet anonymity helps pervs hide behind it just as it helps anyone else. So it’s no wonder people are extra careful online.
But a huge number of reasons for being extra careful can definitely lead to paranoia, and we don’t want that. Be the case as it may, online dating, just like any other phenomenon, has its positive and its negative sides.
Enjoying the positives while understanding the negatives is the best combo to keep us safe, sane and romantically satisfied.
Again – finding that balance is key!