The Age of Online Dating

Anushka Mehta
3 min readMay 9, 2021
Pic Courtesy: (unsplash.com)

Times have certainly changed. Gone are the days when people used to plan dates in advance and get all excited about meeting their girlfriend or boyfriend after weeks.

There was no access to text messages, no video calls, no Whatsapp, no social media and thus people had a hard time not being able to meet their Significant Other. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a boon for introverts certainly but it has also created a whole new space for online dating.

With people unable to go out to colleges, offices and even clubs and bars, the scope of meeting new people and potential connections offline has reduced significantly. This is where Online Dating came and grasped the centre stage!

The question here is- does online dating even work? Well, it depends! In many cases, people have had an online date and then turned back and never looked at each other. But surprisingly, many online dates have gone exceptionally well and people have even married each other!

So, my dear readers, everything that comes has its flaws but that does not mean that we ignore the bright side of online dating. People who have not been very socially comfortable have chosen the path of online dating and have found their ‘special person’. Also, in times where many have had to quarantine for 2–3 weeks, online dating has certainly helped them cope with the fear of being alone and isolated.

Another beautiful aspect of dating online is the plus side of getting to know the person before you actually meet them! Have you ever asked your friend to set you up on a blind date and the person that came called the waiter by saying “Hey Hero”? Or even worse, they did not show up? Well, this certainly can be avoided through online dating.

You can certainly minimize such risks in the case of online dating. Both people spend time talking (or texting?) and get to understand each other’s likes and dislikes. You understand their character, whether they are loud or soft-spoken, and this determines the future of the bond and you get ample time to decide if you would like to meet them personally or not.

Online dating becomes useful in determining the bond that you will have or will not have. The motives of online dating can become clear as you swipe left and right. People clearly write what they seek- friends with benefits, casual dates or something serious and long term. This is also something that becomes harder to figure out in cases of online dates. While ghosting is not new to both online and offline dates, it is much harder to meet someone and them to ghost you rather than find someone online and them ghosting you!

While online dating has its perks, there are plenty of downsides to it too. It becomes very easy to pretend to be someone that you are not. With social media advancing at a fast pace, stealing someone’s pictures and uploading them to one’s own bio on dating apps has become extremely easy. This has certainly caused a spike in catfishing and people can also pretend to lie about what they want, simply to get a night of pleasure and never call them back again.

Not only this, but online dating has also contributed to a rise in cases of robbery, rapes and other heinous crimes. People can fall in love online, meet their partner offline and find out that the other person was just in it so that they could harm you in real life. It is very crucial that one remains cautious of whom they decide to meet. Meeting them and keeping someone in your circle updated about your whereabouts can prove helpful.

So, it becomes obvious that while the age of old school love has passed, online dating has come to the rescue in tough times such as the pandemic. One can find their partner with the exact expectations because of the filters and criteria that dating applications provide. But like every other thing, online dating has its downsides too but what sort of dating does not? The nitty-gritty of love are everywhere but what is better than meeting people you never would have expected to meet in real life?

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Anushka Mehta

I am someone who appreciates honesty and humanity. I love writing & drinking a glass of Red Wine! https://patreon.com/AnushkaMehta?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm