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I'm surprised so many people are saying it's not a stigma. I would almost guess these are a lot of 20-somethings who are telling other 20-somethings they met someone online. Of course it's not a stigma to other fairly young people.
Well, I did interact with and meet dates on AOL in my teens and later explored dating sites in my later 20s. I'm in my mid-30s. My husband will be 40 in two weeks. It hasn't been a stigma in any place I've lived in probably 15+ years. Heck, my friends in high school knew I met my boyfriend in an AOL chat room. It was no big deal. Neither was meeting my first husband on AOL via browsing profiles. We never hid those details. Why?
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But I'm getting close to 40, and if I told anyone in my family that I met someone online--all of my siblings are older than I am, and my parents are 70--they would all think it was crazy and would assume the person is less safe/more crazy than someone I could meet a "normal" way. My mother would probably say I was crazy for even taking a chance to meet someone in person after chatting with them online. None of my acquaintances who are my age do online dating, either, and the ones who are married typically met their spouse in school. I'm sure these people would rather set me up with someone than hear I do online dating (I don't, but just thinking about if I did and told them).
And it stands to reason that perceptions and attitudes re: dating sites are heavily influenced by a lot of factors, including culture, backgrounds and region. A lot of my acquaintances and friends met their significant other online or on a dating site. My father met my stepmother through a video dating service. My mother has met several of her former manfriends online. She met her current beau in a FB dating group.
My husband met all but one of his girlfriends on a dating site. He never hid the details from his parents or friends.
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There is this sports talk show host I love to listen to, and I remember back in 2014 or so around the time the whole Manti Teo "catfishing" story came out (for those who don't know, a football player claimed his girlfriend died of cancer, and then it came out this was just someone he knew only through the internet and it wasn't even a girl...and then Teo tried to claim he got catfished) him just ridiculing online dating. This host was probably late 40s back then.
So, older people do still look down on this.
Some older people, depending on where they're from and other factors. Small rural town where most people meet in school, college or church, perhaps it is unusual, but major metro cities, military cities, etc., it's just like any other method of meeting people.
What stigma...most people think nothing of it or think it's cool. Now if you're silly enough to tell them it started out as some kind of hook-up on Tinder that might be a different thing but that could happen IRL at a bar too.
It's kind of funny how people who met their spouse in the socially accepted ways and who also criticized online dating, are now divorced. I know quite a few of these people. Meanwhile I'm still married to my spouse who I met online.
I'm surprised so many people are saying it's not a stigma. I would almost guess these are a lot of 20-somethings who are telling other 20-somethings they met someone online. Of course it's not a stigma to other fairly young people.
I'd gather the stigma is more "self-psychological." Certainly, no one will point and laugh at you if you say you met your spouse off a hookup dating app, but you can't help but think their perception of how serious your relationship is will change or how silly you look.
"How did you meet your wife? Hiking? Concert? Church? Mutual friends? " Nope, a hookup dating app. It was love at first chat, we're in it for the long haul.
Even tv shows like house hunters make up elaborate cover stories on how the married couple met.
Do you believe there is a stigma associated with telling friends or family you met your partner or significant other online? Perhaps with the assumption that folks won’t think your relationship will last long or that you were really desperate at the moment.
A lot of folks who have met on a dating app or website really hate to admit they did so and instead use an alternate location like some Starbucks, hiking, or a concert. A lot of dating biographies will say “don’t tell people we met here.”
So do you still believe there is a stigma out there or not really?
There may have been a while ago when the internet was newer, but I don't think there is now.
We enjoy telling other people how we met because it was just so unusual for us. We stress that it was an internet forum, not a dating site because at the time neither one of us was actively looking for a partner. I had just moved across the country to North Carolina to find out the job I just got wasn't very secure (I met him almost exactly 1 month after I had moved to NC). It was just a very chaotic time for me and really would like to have had things better settled down before I got into a relationship. But that was not to be.
We're happily settled now in Pennsylvania though. We'll be married two years this October. After all the chaos (NC was very stressful for the both of us), things have worked out real well!\
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Originally Posted by JerZ
How many times in a given day do you legitimately get asked how you met your spouse? Or in a month? Or a year?
Actually we were (and still are) asked a lot, perhaps due to the visual significant age difference. We also were the newby couple in a few churches we attended so we told the story a number of times. That's probably where we most often tell the story of how we met, so those people who don't go to church may not run into people asking them how they met their spouse too much. I guess it's something people at church ask to a new couple, but I think some people may have been curious because of the age difference between us (so maybe if we were a couple of about the same age we wouldn't have been asked, I don't know).
Last edited by Basiliximab; 06-28-2018 at 08:59 PM..
Its 2018, not 2000. I think the stigma is pretty much gone.
These days, it's actual more strange to meet your SO in person first. Not sure this is something I'll ever embrace. People lie way too much online. I need to assess body language and all that other stuff people don't think about. I'm already an introvert. Talking to people in person is refreshing.
The stigma will likely fade as society gets used to the concept. I may be one of the last generations where people my age did NOT meet online but we did talk online. However, but because of that, I can understand why meeting people online makes sense and can be completely natural. Fast forward a generation - when my kids might find someone online, maybe I'll be more understanding.
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Not sure this is something I'll ever embrace. People lie way too much online. I need to assess body language and all that other stuff people don't think about. I'm already an introvert. Talking to people in person is refreshing.
