Online Dating vs. Real-Life Relations
By Angela - December 15, 2019
Relationship
Social media dating, dating apps, or the old-fashion way of meeting offline at work or with a little help from your friends or grandmother, which method would you choose to identify your Mr. or Mrs. Right in the crowd? The purpose of the dating missions is to find your future lover. Nowadays, more and more people tend to use dating apps rather than going on a “real” date. In a 2013 study, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago even showed that marriages that start online were less likely to end in break-up and were associated with higher levels of satisfaction than marriages of the same vintage between similar couples who had met offline: the difference was not huge, but it was statistically significant. However, what are the significant differences between these two types of dating patterns? In the following contents, this essay is going to focus on three main differences to compare that people might care the most when they are seeking for a relationship.
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First, in the issue of convenience, online dating is no doubt more convenient than real-life dating. Most of the dating apps that we can download are free to join. We can download the app, complete our profile information within just a couple of minutes, and then we are ready to “hunt” for the one. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! What’s more exciting is that we can easily avoid people we don’t like or don’t have interests in common; on the contrary, it’s also easy for us to contact with those we like only by swiping left or right on the smartphone’s screen. On the other hand, in real-life dating, we have to make an appointment with the person we’d like to meet or the person only our friends or grandmother knows well. After we meet the person, we have to spend a period of time getting along with him or her. The time we can arrange is not as flexible as that online. Besides, many people may find it terrible that we have to stay with the person until the date is finished even if we don’t take a fancy to him or her. In terms of connecting with people and arranging the time, using dating apps is more convenient than dating traditionally.
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Secondly, in the issue of safety, real-life dating redeems itself. Many people using online dating apps to seek for a hook-up instead of a serious relationship. As a result, research has shown that some people may have got sexual abuse meeting with friends on dating apps. In 2016, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) released findings on data from police forces around the country. According to the report, there are some big gaps. Not all the forces collected data specific to dating apps. Not all people who report attacks mention whether an app was involved. Victims, as well as perpetrators, hide crimes: Only an estimated 17% of all rapes, app-linked or not, are reported to police, the NCA said. Nevertheless, while app-related assaults were still rare, they were rising fast enough for the NCA to flag the emergence of “a new type of sexual offender.” The data warns us that we can never be too careful when having this kind of dating linked with the use of dating apps. On the contrary, during real-life dating, we get to see the people themselves. When communicating and getting along with someone, we can tell generally whether they are kind or not. Moreover, at our very first time meeting someone, we may ask our friends or even families to keep us company so that the whole date would be safer, and sometimes more comfortable.
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Lastly, in the issue of authenticity, real-life dating would be no doubt more authentic. On dating apps, many people make fake profiles; they can lie about all kinds of things. For example, their names, ages, interests, or profile pictures would possibly be fake. What’s worse, there is no way that we can testify online. In my opinion, the only way to really know a person is to go on a real-life date. If one lies about his or her profile, we would know immediately the time we see the person. Also, we can verify whether the person is lying by talking to the person or observing his or her facial expressions.
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All things considered, both online dating and real-life relations have pros and cons in terms of the three aspects discussed above: convenience, safety, and authenticity. Not because online dating has many hazards, it is not worthy to try; not because real-life dating is not so convenient and awkward, it is not a good way to find “the one.” Most important above all, either ways we use to find our future partners, we have to be careful and we should know how to protect ourselves. It is definitely not worthy if dating someone cost you your life or leave you a terrible experience.
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References
SIMPKINS, S. (2017). We Broke Down The Pros And Cons Of Online Dating v Real Life Dating. Retrieved from:
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Werber, C. (2017). Nobody knows how dangerous online dating really is—and dating sites won’t talk about it. Retrieved from:
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