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Guys Go Online To Find A 'No-Strings Fling' Gal |
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The Record / Herald News
Saturday, February 4, 2006
By CATHERINE HOLAHAN
If a single woman posts an online profile and is contacted by 200 guys in about a week, what are her chances of finding her soul mate?
The answer is … not as good as you might expect.
According to a recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 30 percent of men are using online dating services to find a “no-strings fling” – compared with 8 percent of women.
“To me, online dating is more of a meat market,” said Stan Suszynski, a 30-year-old Ridgefield Park resident who recently was involved with six women he met through multiple Internet dating sites. “Online it’s easy – you can just e-mail and say, ‘How was your day?’ and keep in contact like that.”
Online dating sites typically promote themselves as alternatives to bars, a place where real love connections are made.
With more than 40 million Americans using online dating sites, true love is not uncommon. But dating experts say many men who use the sites are not just searching for the one. They’re looking for the ones – for right now.
“The online meat market is no different than a bar,” said David Wygant, author of the book “Always Talk to Strangers.” “People can now cruise and shop for people with a click of the mouse.”
“Basically what people do is they look at the picture, they cruise, they fire an e-mail to see if someone is going to take the bait.”
Wygant said men will often send form letters to hundreds of women at a time, expecting responses from several. These guys just want a date, Wygant said. If it leads to something more, great. If not, no big deal – there are thousands of other women to e-mail.
“Whenever a woman puts her profile on these sites” – the largest include Yahoo Personals, Match.com, American Singles and eHarmony – “she can have anywhere from 25 to 150 guys contact her,” he said.
A reporter tested the theory recently by putting a profile on Match.com, which was launched more than 10 years ago. For about $30, she bought a one-month membership and posted several flattering photos of herself from a recent vacation. She truthfully described her hobbies, occupation, likes and dislikes.
The profile went up on a Thursday evening. Seven days later, it had been viewed more than 780 times.
One hundred-sixty men between the ages of 21 and 35 made contact. About half e-mailed, and the other half sent “winks” – a nearly effortless exercise enabling dates to send their picture and profile to potential matches by clicking the word “wink” beneath members’ photos.
While many guys contacted said they eventually wanted to settle down, others confessed they were content playing the field. Nearly all said they regularly pursue several online relationships at once.
“There is so much selection,” Suszynski said, “that [people] soon find somebody else and disappear.”
Many of the sites are engineered to encourage people to pursue multiple people at once. Simply clicking on the “more like her” or “him” button at the base of a Match.com photo (or the “view similar profiles” button at the Yahoo Personals site) will bring up similar merchandise.
Suszynski – known as Nitrostan on Match.com – is the tall, dark and handsome type. His photos cut an imposingly masculine figure: broad shoulders, strong jaw, large hands. He cooks, writes poetry and wants children.
But, if he’s not Mr. Perfect, Match.com is happy to suggest others with similar profiles. Want the same eye and hair color in a slightly shorter package? There’s Jrock1024. How about a bit younger? Try Mvlex from Little Ferry.
If you are looking for a soul mate, many dating experts do recommend giving online chat a try – particularly on more targeted sites such as Click2Asia, which caters to the Asian market, or the Jewish singles site Jdate.
“Niche sites like Jdate have a high success rate as far as marriages go,” said April Masini, author of AskApril.com, an online dating and relationship advice site, and “Think and Date Like a Man.”
Still, Match.com spokeswoman Kathleen Roldan insisted that the majority of the site’s members aren’t pickup artists.
“Our research shows that most people that use Match.com are looking for a committed or long-term relationship,” she said. “But we certainly have members that are in different stages of their dating lives and looking for different things.”
Forty-two percent of women are looking for a long-term relationship through online dating services, compared with 46 percent of men, according to the recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey.
Jerry, a 31-year-old divorced man from Teaneck, said he is open to finding the one, but he doesn’t just talk to one woman at a time; often, he corresponds with two or three.
“I’m not in a rush to fall in love,” he said over e-mail, declining to give his last name. “I’m OK with e-mailing and talking on the phone for a while, and if there’s chemistry then we move from there.”
Lisa Daily, a syndicated dating columnist and author of “Stop Getting Dumped!,” said younger men are more likely to be looking to casually date multiple women. “Men tend to cast a wider net,” she said. “You have people who have five or six dates every week.”
With so many dates, it’s easy for online daters to treat potential prospects as disposable, Daily said. Daily and Masini recommend that women date several people at a time to ensure they don’t get attached to any particular online player.
“It is like shopping,” Daily said, adding that the volume of users on dating sites makes many feel that “it is not necessary to settle for an imperfect relationship because you know there is a new one, or a new 30 messages, in your inbox.”
Dating experts caution online daters, particularly heterosexual women, to be aware that many of the men they pursue online are likely to be promiscuous – at least in terms of Internet interactions – and to remain a little guarded.
“I think a lot of people are looking for sex,” acknowledged Kevin Paglione, 28, of Bergenfield, who said he casually dates online. “I have gone on a couple of dates and they have been pretty much blunt about it… Nobody really looks at your profile that much.”
Even so, Paglione would recommend the site to friends. “There’s a ton of people you can meet.”
E-mail: holahan@northjersey.com |
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