If someone were to ask me if I would ever consider online dating, my first natural reaction would be to simply say that the concept of online dating TERRIFIES me…because it does. However, I know that a better, as well as a less dramatic answer to the question is that the process of online dating ignites a great anxiety in me because of how much online dating platforms and profiles require you to put yourself out there for the world to see. I understand that many Millenials, including myself, are already constantly laying our lives out for others through most social media such as Instagram and Facebook. But to actually sit down before a computer and create a dating profile that screams, “Hey, I’m open to dating people! Look at me and my wonderful qualities! You should love my qualities! So DATE ME!” seems to be on a whole different level of revealing yourself (which feels both scary and a little too risky). I am not sure if my close friends have similar views on online dating, but I know that none of them have actually online dated. It may or may not have to do with the fact that most of my friends are religious Christians, but what I know for sure is that none of them have ever expressed a yearning for a partner to the point where they wanted to create a dating profile for themselves. Nevertheless, I do have a friend (who I’ll call Trent) whose current relationship was primarily driven by contacting his significant other on online messaging apps (i.e Facebook messenger, WhatsApp). This fact made sense for Trent and his current girlfriend because based on what I know about Trent and based on how he has described his girlfriend to me, they were not ready to say all the things that they wanted to say face-to-face in the “physical realm”. It felt easier for them to just type their feelings for a while because typing their feelings made it easier for them to “disassociate” from their feelings. I use the word “dissociate” loosely to attempt to describe this weird phase in which people can pretend that they are not representing themselves when they are sending certain types of messages and content over the phone.
Therefore, I think I can speak more generally, and say that any relational developments that occur in the online or technological realm allows you to BE BOLD and step out of your comfort zone due to the fact that it is possible to imagine that you are acting as someone else (especially if you plan on being in the online, “messaging only” realm with that person for a very long). However, even this method of online dating under this type of illusion scares me. (To me, the idea of opening up and not seeing the significant other’s reactions is just as bad and nerve-racking as opening up and seeing exactly how the significant other reacts!)
Additionally, Sharpe’s “Racialized Fantasies on the Internet” provides a more extensive and racial focus on online users playing fictionalized versions of himself or herself by discussing how people have been able to reform and recreate their virtual selves to an extent that surpasses the limitations of the real world. But what does that mean for the dating world? What does it mean to for a white male dating candidate to be able to upload a photo of a black man as his dating profile picture? What does it mean for him to portray “blackness” in the lingo that he uses to attract women or men? Of course, this particular example can easily be read as a horrible case of Blackface. But in a world where the Internet is viewed as a place where those who are not accepted as they are in reality can finally be whatever they want to be online, how can we work towards persecuting those who may commit similar acts to, or even worse acts than Blackface?
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