Online daters, don’t be embarrassed!

April 23, 2014 | Young Voices
Rachel Bergen | Young Voice Co-editor

Match.com, OkCupid, eHarmony, Plenty of Fish, ChristianMingle: These are just some of the sites that more than 25 percent of all Canadians are using to meet new people and start relationships.

If those statistics translate similarly to Canadian Mennonites, there’s about 7,750 of us looking for love online, not including those who attend Mennonite churches but aren’t baptized in the church.

Yet when I tried to find people who would talk about their online dating experiences, people were pretty reluctant to talk. I know you’re out there. Don’t worry, you aren’t alone.

Meredith Hutchinson, 30, met her husband Scott on the Plenty of Fish dating website in 2009.

It all started when she and a friend decided to try Match.com for something fun and new after they graduated from university. Hutchinson, who grew up attending Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, Man., had just graduated with a degree in music education from Canadian Mennonite University. She was working full-time and was single.

“I was still in contexts or environments where I would meet people,” she explains. “I don’t know if I would have done it if it wasn’t something I was doing with my girlfriend.”

Hutchinson thought paying a nominal monthly fee to try Match.com meant it was more legitimate and trustworthy, but she was disappointed because it drew a crowd of much older men. She decided to switch to the free Plenty of Fish alternative.

For those of you who are contemplating online dating, it can allow you to meet a lot of people in a short amount of time, and you can focus your search and screen out a lot of people you definitely aren’t interested in. You can also get to know people pretty well before you actually meet in person, because they put their hobbies, interests and some of their beliefs on their profile.

Hutchinson says it also allows users to trust their gut: “I realized quickly that your gut is a powerful force when you’re online. The first contact is in the chat. I wouldn’t pursue any conversations when my gut was telling me, ‘This is not someone who is worth your time.’ ”

From my own personal experience—don’t judge me!—there are a lot of weird people online. There aren’t a lot of Mennonites or people from similar cultural and religious backgrounds online, either. Finally, it can be discouraging  if you don’t meet anyone that you click with.

Hutchinson met three people from Plenty of Fish in person, but had no luck.

“We had nice dinners, conversations, but they were nobody who would change my world in any way,” she says. “I never met anybody weird.”

But then she got a message from Scott Hutchinson, who would later become her husband. They added each other on Facebook and texted before they met in person.

“Suddenly it didn’t feel so . . . online-ish,” she says with a laugh.

When she first introduced Scott to her family and friends, she was embarrassed to tell many of them they had met online. She is not alone. People who have tried online dating may have experienced the awkward first question when you introduce the person you’re dating to your friends or family: “Where did you meet?”

Numerous studies suggest Canadians are some of the most active users of social networking, including online dating. But the stigma persists. Many people still think that people who choose to try online dating are those who have poor social skills, have difficulty meeting people, are desperate, or are just looking for a sexual tryst.

Hutchinson says she notices this quite a bit when she talks to people about their new relationships. “I will talk to strangers or acquaintances about their relationships,” she says. “If I ever get a sense that they’re humming and hawing, I’ll say, ‘I met my husband on Plenty of Fish.’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh me, too!’ I’d say four out of five conversations go that way.”

So, what do you say, Young Mennos? Shall we all shed our embarrassment?

--Posted April 23, 2014

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