Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Who met their other half online?

Status
Not open for further replies. Please create a new topic or request for this thread to be opened.
luckynumber

luckynumber

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
665
Am having a debate with a friend of mine: he maintains that internet dating is not a great way to meet a long term partner, but i disagree. I didn''t meet my OH online but I wouldn''t have discounted it if I hadn''t met anyone through the conventional channels.

Did you meet your partner through a website? Did you ever try online dating?

What are your opinions on this?

All views welcome!
1.gif
 
I''ve been on three match dot com dates in the past four days. The first one was with a perfectly nice guy, but we didn''t really connect. The third one was with a great guy that I''d had a pretty fun and lively email correspondence with already and we had a really good time. The second one was witha guy that scared me so badly I was afraid to go home that night. The conversation with #2 ranged from "Do you want to see the scar from my new kidney?" to "I hope mom''s not home burning the house down right now like she tried to do last night."
23.gif


Good luck.
 
I tried internet dating for a few years, and found an awesome collection of freaks and weirdos. My favorite was the dude who showed up looking ten years older than his picture, spent dinner talking about his drug regimen, weaseled his way into my apartment on the pretext of using the bathroom, told me he liked zaftig women (which, great, but I sort of ... wasn't - we know about negging too, you moron!), and wouldn't leave until I threatened him with my blowtorch. He then anonymously sent me pictures of Mr. Happy and posed as one of my students to harass me via e-mail. Good times!

That said, the guy who I dated before the internet? He found the love of his life on J-Date. So, it really does depend ....

My big rule for happy internet dating: always meet for tea or a drink, not dinner, in case you need to leave early. It's a sad commentary all its own ....

Note: I think "meeting online" like, sharing an interest, getting to know someone, meeting up and hitting it off ... that falls into a totally different category for me!
 
I met my DH on match.com and we will be married 7 years this October. The whole match.com thing ended up giving me a bunch of funny stories. A few crazy kind of guys.. (first date.. telling me about his bad job review and complaining about his ex ....ummmm yeah.. not so much), a few nice guys on the email & phone front, but no connection in person.. I was lucky and probably only went on 4 actual dates before I met my DH. Everyone we know thinks we are absolutely perfect for each other, and to this day, I still think it is still completely bizarre and nothing short of miraculous that we managed to meet & end up with each other. For the record, I was 39 when I ventured into the online thing.. I worked alot of hours and really didn''t have many outlets for meeting men and also thought that it really narrowed down the dating pool to leave it to work environments and friends of friends. I also wasn''t keen on stalking men in bookstores, grocery stores or developing nutty hobbies just to maybe meet someone. I think it just takes some patience, a sense of humor and lots of luck!!
 
I met my DH on Match.com! We are very well-suited for one another, are often amazed that we met this way and are very aware that we never would have met otherwise.

Prior to meeting him, I went on a few other Match dates. One was nice, but boring. One was a jerk and a bit shorter than stated in his profile. One was nice, but boring, and A LOT shorter than stated in his profile, which translated to quite a lot shorter than me, which was awkward (not so much that he was short, but that he blatantly lied about it.)
 
My SO''s dad met his wife online. She lived an hour and a half away, dated for some time, and they married in December.
1.gif
 
My DS never had a successful date let alone a relationship from a dating site. (I think it''s the geek factor)
But he has had two long term relationships with young ladies he met playing World Of Warcraft.
Right now he is interested in someone he met a couple of years ago on Second Life.
As for me I met my Japanese Journey band friend on You Tube last year. We email often improving our understanding of each other''s culture and language.I get to be the first to hear their new songs.

I met my best female friend on an eBay forum seven years ago.we clicked immediately and have felt like we''ve known each other forever. We live less than 100 miles from each other and visit frequently. In fact she was just here yesterday.

So I would say that all kinds of relationships can grow from an internet start.
 
I think the larger and more urban and affluent the locale, the better your chances. I live in a very small town now (but I am leaving it, lol) and the dating pool here is poorly educated and very lower-socioeconomic. Sorry if that offends, but it's relevant to the discussion. The only women I have heard of who married someone they'd met via the Internet were ones who dated guys from Pittsburgh or Cleveland, the two nearest cities. What I learned from trying Internet dating here, is that it's a low caliber pool of losers male that are only looking for a girlfriend for sex. Lots of po'boy players. You'd think that they'd at least know the difference between a college-grad urban professional woman and a prostitute, but my dating experiences say otherwise. I only went out on dates with one man I met here, he was the only one who was a college grad and had something other than a factory job. The rest, I never got past phone conversations with and I never met them. They'd all bring up s*x in the first phone call, and that was the end of it for me. White trash. No manners, and no respect at all for women.

Sadly, in a small town in a rural area, there is only a very small pool of singles to begin with. It's family life, or no life here. So, there is no real way to meet singles except the Internet. The bars are all pickup joints and men's turf, and the churches are full of young families and people age 70 and up.
 
I met DH on e-Harmony.

I don't like to call it online dating though. It's just online meeting. For me at least. No actual "dating" happens online. It is just a way to meet up with people...briefly chat and see if you are both interested in meeting...but you have to take it into the real world as soon as possible, in my own opinion! That is where you REALLY get to know one another. I was never that interested in spending weeks or months talking online before meeting someone. Just personal preference.

Match.com has never quite had the "market" where I lived, but I have done online dating on and off through years (mostly through lavalife). Had lots of interesting experiences (good and bad!)...and a couple long-term relationships.

When I was dating again after my last serious relationship ended, I decided to try it again, but I found a lot of the sites I had tried before no longer "fit" for me. Either they had changed, or I had changed, a lot in the five years since I had last tried them. Tried e-Harmony. It was quite different (and more expensive) but it really seemed to "filter out" just the lookers. I also liked the "guided communication" process. Still some duds and so on, but it was a much better process for me.

Met DH a couple months later. He showed up in my "matches", I was immediately struck by his profile, and admittedly his scintillating blue eyes...I started the communication. He fired some very interesting questions for me in our early guided communication, and set himself apart from the rest(apparently, I did in my answers!). He had just moved to the city I was living in. Was his first time trying it, and he tried it a bit on a dare. He had been on a couple months by that point. We spoke on the phone a couple days later, and we met for our first date a few days later - Friday night coffee which turned into a six-hour date (ending with a smooch!). He flew home for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend early that morning, but he called me as soon as he got back and we arranged for our second date - we went bike riding. Lots of dates, experiences and so on since, and continuing!

Undoubtedly, I feel so tremendously blessed to have him in my life (and him me) that I don't care HOW we met. As cheesy as it is, really, until I found DH, I was really "dating in the dark". I had no idea how amazing a genuine, open, healthy, honest, loving relationship could be.

I really don't think it matters whether you meet online or not.
 
I think more often than not, sucessful partnerships happen between people with similar backgrounds (religeous, cultural, or otherwise).
If online dating enables you to discover human "hidden treasures" in your area that you just never had the chance to meet, then it is likely to be sucessful.
If, through online dating, you only seem to meet people from vastly different walks of life than your own, then your dates will probably ultimately fail.

I''ve never done any online dating - I''m very picky and like to know a person first before I even consider dating them.
 
I met BF on AOL 5 years ago. Not a dating web site. I just got a random IM and we talked online for 5months before meeting. We would have never met had it not been for that. Our paths never crossed, we knew no one in common, etc. I''d say it''s been a success, there is a pretty little ring on his night stand with my name on it!
 
I didn't meet my FI online, but I know several people who met and married their SOs through match.com, jdate, lavalife and eharmony. They likely never would have met each other otherwise. There are a lot of nice people out there, but also a lot of kooks so it takes patience and safety measures.

In one interesting situation, my friend reunited with a guy she had a crush on in junior high school and they ended up getting married. During her first time logging on to jdate, she saw his picture and profile and initiated contact. He said he also had a crush on her in junior high. Turns out that 20 years later, they were living in the same community as each other (but not the community from junior high) and didn't know it. They married within months.

ETA: other than the one example above, the other people I know who met their SO on line did not previously know the person IRL.
 
I must have suppressed this but I did go out on three dates awhile back.

The first one was a widower as his wife had died under mysterious circumstances when his daughter was an infant. His parents who had ben raising his daughter were moving and he was looking for a "Mommy".......NEXT!!

The second was a sheriff who seemed OK till he told me he was currently
suspended for kissing a woman he had pulled over for a traffic violation.
He claimed he blacked out and didn''t remember it......... NEXT

The third guy and I got on like a house afire on the phone and talked for hours. When we met we were even wearing the same thing with no planning. Black shirt, jeans and black shoes. Conversation flowed over dinner and we planned several future dates. After dinner we went to a hotel bar that was supposed to have entertainment but didn''t. It was then that he ordered an O''Doul and told me he was a recovering alcoholic. My ex was an alcoholic.
Hmmmmm. I excused myself to call my son to check on him. When I got back
he said he didn''t want to be with someone who was always checking upon him.
I could swear he was getting high and belligerent off the O''Doul''s.
Fortunately I always take my car on first dates. Exit stage left.
 
I met my DH on Match.com. We both went on a handful of dates that didn''t lead to 2nd dates before going out with each other. We''ll be married 2 years in July
1.gif
 
I met my DH on LDSplanet almost seven years ago. I liked it because I already knew that we had similar religious views. We talked for a few weeks and decided to meet. We haven''t been apart since. I have to say that we have stayed together longer than many of our friends who met in more conventional places. That being said, I came across a few sketchy guys but never told them my real name or met them IRL. I had lots of boyfriends before that I met through regular channels and I know the stigma attached to people who "meet" online but for me, I would never have met DH if it were not for this website. While I am still a little embarrassed about how we met, I get less and less so the longer we are together, proving that you can find real love in lots of places!
 
Me! Me!

I agree w/ previous poster who said you "meet" online, not date online.

I had a few clunky first dates, but nothing horrid. Had two awesome long-term relationships based on online meetings. I married one of ''em. He''s pretty awesome and more normal than I am. (Take that as you will.)

I don''t do bars/clubs, and I was working weird hours at the time. I enjoyed it very much.
THere is still a stigma to it, but really, is it any stranger than any other way people meet?
 
In the past five years, I''ve been to five weddings where the couple met online - three met through match.com and two met through jdate.

I met my FI through match after several years of doing online dating off and on. I moved a few times during those years, so I also used it as a way just to get out to meet people and see my new cities.

During that same time, I also used a bunch of other outlets to meet dates/friends - set-ups, going to bars, taking all sorts of classes (tennis, improv comedy, etc.), and "dinner clubs." I had good dates result from all of them, and I also had some really horrific dates result from all of them. With that said, I had three actual relationships through online dating (prior to meeting my FI) and only casual dates result from the other outlets.

So... I think it''s what you make of it and how "good" you get at it. I think it''s hard to hit the jackpot online right away - if you''ve never done it before, I think it can be hard to write a good profile or to weed through all the potential matches on there. You have to figure out whether you are an email-multiple-times-before-meeting person or a meet-right-away person. After awhile, I think you begin to figure it out and it gets easier and a lot less intimidating.

For me, I found that online dating allowed me to come into contact with a lot of people I never would have met otherwise. My FI and I lived in totally different parts of the city, work in completely unrelated industries, and have different hobbies. We both agree that had it not been for match.com, we never would have met. So I have to give online dating two huge thumbs up.
1.gif
 
Never tried online dating, but I did meet my now-husband online. We played the same online game (not WoW, but not that far from it) for a couple of years, got to talking about stuff outside the game, met up in person and hit it off immediately.

That kind of story is fairly common, and it doesn''t really surprise me. Meeting someone else in a specialized forum ensures that you''re going to share at least one fairly intense interest (it''s a safe bet I''d be able to talk to any other PS''er for hours about sparkly rocks), and talking to someone online for a while lets you cut past all the superficial BS and see what the other person''s actually about. While that''s no guarantee of a good relationship, it''s a better foundation than "hey, that guy across the bar looks cute."
 
I met my DH online, through a local forum of people with similar interests (in our case, German cars). It's been 8 years and some change, and we're plenty happy.

I know so many people who have met their SOs online through dating sites and forums aplenty. I say if you're brave enough to wade through the weirdos on dating sites, plenty of wonderful, normal people who just haven't met the right person yet are still out there.

The weirdos and freaks tend to make one a bit more embittered toward future relationships, though.
 
DH and I met on eharmony. He thinks online dating is brilliant, because I was the first person he ever met online. I think it''s a useful tool for meeting people and we just got lucky (I was on eharmony on and off for about 2 years before we met). I was in a grad program with a pretty closed social circle and demanding schedule, so online dating was the only way I was going to meet someone new in the area. The major problem that I had was that a lot of people that I had good chemistry with talking online, didn''t have the physical spark when I met them in person. But I never had a bad/boring date with someone from eharmony, and I''m obviously glad I stuck with it.
 
I met my FI online through jdate. We actually lived 4 blocks from one another. I found meeting online a lot better than him being creepy and hitting on me at the gym or something and I am confident we would have run into one another since our area was very small. It is almost 3 years and 1 dog later.
My mom met her long term bf on e-harmony. Neither is interested in marriage, but they are buying a home together so I consider it a great long term partnership.
 
My bf of almost 6 years found me on friendster. According to friendster, he's a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. I still can't believe I would actually meet someone off the internet. I'm glad we did. We talked online for a long time before meeting up. I brought a guy friend and a girl friend with me to our first meeting. I was scared that he'll turn out to be a pervert. If it's not for friendster, we would NEVER EVER meet or run into each other. Even though we're just 20 min drive away, we have totally different friends and we live in different neighborhood!
 
I met my DH at american singles. I am forward and tended to ask guys out, problem was, my taste was not always great. A friend convinced me to put up a profile that I mostly ignored for 7 months. Then one day I got an email:
"Ahoy from a distance! You probably can''t see me right now, but I am approx. 150 miles north west of you, standing in a corn field and waving in your general direction. Before you ask how I got a computer into a corn field, consider two things: extension cords and beautiful musings. I am interested in, as the kids say with all their jargon and lingo, corresponding online".

I was intrigued and we emailed back and forth for a month, then started talking on the phone. After a week on the phone, he drove to meet me. Turns out, he lived in a small town and dated all 5 datable women and so had gone online to branch out. We have been together ever since. I had responded to a few other guys, but none were so interesting from the start and I didn''t date any of them because they were so bad on the phone.


PS Can you tell he is a writer?

 
I met FF on an online game almost 5 years ago and we clicked because of our similar sence of humor. It took us two years to meet because we lived on oposit sides of the world but long story short, the visiting is over and we have been living together in one place for a year and a half and waiting for immigration to process his visa so he can stay and we can start planning a life here and a planning a wedding.

I think it was a very good way to meet someone because you have nothing to do except talk/communicate so you get to know a person very quickly.

Random people tell us all the time what a great dynamic we have as a couple. I think it''s because we have all the important things in common but in many other aspects we complement each other well- I am shy and reserved with new people and BF will just talk their ear off so I can get a good feel for them before I join in, BF has alot of big ideas but no follow through where as I am a person who is best at following things through to the end so I keep him focused, He''s a romantic but ''m a realist so we both get each perspective on a situation, an so on.
 
I met FI on Facebook. I poked him. Super embarrassing, but also a cute story. Especially since he still has our first messages to each other :)
 
Me and my FI met online on match.com

I had dated guys I met online before, and I think my chances of finding someone are about the same as my outgoing friends who met a guy at a bar. Most guys were not a good match, but when I saw my FI for the first time, we had that little magic spark. We have been dating over 3 years.

I was never good at meeting people in social situations, I am shy. I am very good with my written word though, so to take away that face to face encounter when learning about something, and giving me the chance to write something out really helped.
 
Date: 6/2/2010 1:56:59 AM
Author: SanDiegoLady
I did!! But I didn''t use a dating site..
9.gif
We will be together ten years come November.
9.gif


I think the internet can be a useful thing.. I also know given my profession that there are a lot of VERY bad people who lurk in wait for people to let their guard down... I believe that you MUST be careful - almost overly so... I also believe I was very, very lucky to have found my wonderful husband
emlove.gif
Click to expand...
My heart is all mushy from this thread, and especially what SDL wrote above!

I didn''t meet my husband online, nor have I ever tried online dating, but I don''t see anything "wrong" with it. Obviously, there are a lot of people here on PS to vouch for it
21.gif
 
Another Match.com success story! My DH wrote to me first, I agreed to meet him about a month later, and the rest is history!
 
So neat to see all the online dating success stories! I worked at a brick and mortar dating service for ten years and became quite jaded from the experience. Most people did not meet someone special despite a large price tag. Online dating sounds like a good avenue for a good price!
 
We met online - but not through a dating website. We met in an AOL chat room when we were both in high school. We started really dating in college and got engaged.
 
Status
Not open for further replies. Please create a new topic or request for this thread to be opened.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top