The Dynamics of Digital Dating

With Web 2.0 taking an increasingly large role in the lives of Americans, the idea of online dating, a minuscule niche just a few years ago, is rapidly attaining more respectability in the mainstream.

Couples are no longer ashamed to admit that they met online (not that they should have been in the first place - where else could you find such a precise match?). Those eHarmony and Match.com ads are now ubiquitous.

But even the dynamics of a meatspace rendezvous are being drastically altered by the Internet. You can Google your date's name and essentially find out all about him or her before ever engaging in a prolonged conversation.

This puts you in the awkward situation of already knowing your date's interests and what they are going to talk about, but not being able to say anything without looking like a stalker.

Of course, you shouldn't praise or condemn your date based upon a simple Google search, for obvious reasons. One being mistaken identity (having the name Josh Smith, this has happened to me more times than I care to remember.) Another reason being that people often lie or embellish on the Internet - about themselves and about each other. Everyone has an agenda.

Due to the preponderance of digital deception, the cottage industry of online background checks was born. Dating sites like True.com run criminal background checks on their subscribers. True.com plans to sue a Florida subscriber who was revealed to be an ex-con via a background check.

True.com has lobbied hard to get state legislatures to require online dating sites to have prominent postings that tell users whether they conduct criminal background checks on their subscribers. It's an idea that state lawmakers in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia have been flirting with for the past couple of years, but none has passed any legislation yet.

Of course, True.com is likely serving a corporate interest more than it's trying to curb crime. The site, which charges $50 a month and is notoriously hard to drop, used to this ploy to make a name for itself and stand out from the other services.

In another note of hypocrisy, the supposedly family-oriented service uses scantily-clad models in provocative poses (akin to those found on porn sites) to lure potential clients. And it also sends out fake, automated "winks" (which are user-to-user IMs meant to express an interest in each other). So if clients aren't really paying attention, they'll erroneously think that the site is paying off and they're getting their money's worth.

It's kind of ironic that a site selling itself on the premise of protecting users from deception is in fact methodically deceiving its own users. And it's even more ironic that the site is named True.com.

But the beauty of the Internet is that you can research all these companies beforehand, filtering out the frauds before you hand over your hard-earned cash in search of a romantic connection.

Whether dating in meatspace or cyberspace, risks will have to be taken and likely much money spent. But in both realms it's always a worthwhile proposition.