All you need is love...

The World of Online Dating

Nowadays, online dating have become ingrained in the life of everyone, especially the younger generations. It is completely unsurprising to see couples-in-love and hear them talk about the time they first laid eyes on their partner, the moment that made them swipe right right away.

In this era of Tinder love affairs, almost everyone knows of a couple who has met using online dating services. Meeting your true love online, or using the internet to have sexual adventures, are not so taboo anymore.

However, it must be noted that the flirting online should not be considered a replacement for flirting offline or in real life. Single portals can be an excellent complement to meeting in the offline world. A text is great, but there is nothing that speaks more than a warm smile, touch or embrace. A video call or a chat could suffice as a great date but a kissing emoticon will never match the real thing.

Can Love be Directed?

Love is something that has been so romanticized by this world. It should be noted that while love is definitely a feeling and emotion, it is also sometimes a rational choice. Imagine why do some people who have just been arranged by their parents to get married manage to have more love in their household than those who underwent the usual stages of courtship? Love must arise, yes. But sometimes, conditions can also be manipulated in order to make love possible, if not uncontrollable. More importantly, love is a conscious and informed decision to be made not just in one definitive moment but everyday of our lives.

A famous scientist and psychologist in the name of Arthur Aron did a study on this phenomenon recently and it was republished in the New York Times. It describes how two strangers can fall in love based on a questionnaire, in which only 36 questions must be answered mutually by the strangers. It’s almost magic the way this very simple parameter was used to ensure that the strangers will fall in love.

The matchmaking industry works in a similar way using scientific methods to introduce and pair-up people that have a very high chance of fitting well with each other.  This makes it very easier, not to mention quicker, to meet someone with a higher chance of being compatible with you. Your other option is to ask these questions to the people you meet on the road everyday to see if they are your match but the online dating portals just take the time and effort to a minimum. The process of selection is strategically cut into a shorter amount of time because of these tests and because of these dating sites.

It is given that these studies and methods do not exactly give a 100% guarantee of success. (What does?) However, having these psychological knowledge within our reach already proves to become an advantage in increasing the chances of us finding a suitable mate within a shorter amount of time. Those things, plus the developments in connection, the internet and the online world, make dating less threatening and less a chore than it was for some before.