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Love, Internet Style

In today's New York Times there's an op-ed article by David Brooks entitled Love, Internet Style.

In case you haven't heard of David Brooks, he's the author of "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There", a book I've been meaning to read; one day I will have to purchase it from Amazon.

He says:

If you're dating in the Age of the Hook-Up, sex is this looming possibility from the first moment you meet a prospective partner. But couples who meet through online dating services tend to exchange e-mail for weeks or months. Then they'll progress to phone conversations for a few more weeks. Only then will there be a face-to-face meeting, almost always at some public place early in the evening, and the first date will often be tentative and Dutch.

I don't think people who meet on the internet actually spend months emailing and phoning before they meet in person. I had a friend from Phoenix who, about eight years ago, told me about all the sex he was getting from women he met on Yahoo! chatrooms.

David Brooks also writes:

Most of the sites have programs that link you up with people like yourself. One of the side effects of online dating is that it is bound to accelerate social stratification, as highly educated people become more efficient at finding and marrying one another.

I have to disagree with Brooks' conlusion here. Social stratification has already reached its peak, I don't think there can be any acceleration. Look at the wedding announcements in the New York Times and you'll see that the highly educated already are quite efficient at finding each other.

The highly educated normally hang out in their own circles and only meet other highly educated people. So online dating will have the opposite effect that David Brooks suggests. Online dating allows you to meet people whom you would never meet in your normal social circles.

posted November 08, 2003