By Clare Shreve
"Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch," sang Hodel in "Fiddler on the Roof." For Hodel, there was Yente, the village matchmaker. For singles today, there's Match.com, the matchmaker for the new millennium.
With chocolate-crammed, flower-filled and poetry-prone Valentine's Day fast approaching, some may be inclined to look into online dating in order to fill that spot across the candle-lit table.
With a student population of just over 3,000, and a female to male ratio of 60 - 40, the University of Portland has a relatively small pool to choose from.
Geography plays a significant role in the meeting of new people, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project Online Dating survey. This can cause some to turn to other outlets, like online dating.
"Online is just one more avenue," David Brodie, junior, said. Brodie has a membership at two online dating sites that he said began as point of curiosity for him.
"Online daters believe dating Web sites help people to find a better match because they can get to know a lot more people," the Pew Study stated.
However, online dating broadens and narrows the pool of possibilities, said Elayne Shapiro, communication studies professor. There are more people to choose from while also specifying desired attributes. There may be thousands of Portlanders on the Portland Mercury's Lovelab, an online dating service through the Portland Mercury newspaper, but only a certain fraction of them are between the ages of 19 and 24, some who consider themselves a "discriminate omnivore" and are politically affiliated with the "Whigs." Despite the requirements of some, the various online dating resources expand the options of people who meet those requirements.
Bars, clubs, on the street, work, classes and now the Internet serve as places for meeting a romantic interest. Potential companions are everywhere but it's more difficult than just searching for your ideal candidate and waiting for a reply. There's the approach and the shield of partial anonymity is helpful for those who are shy, Shapiro said. It gives them more of an opportunity to approach someone they might not otherwise go after.
However, that also broadens the competition for the interested individual. If a Heidi Klum look-a-like were to go about her normal day, she might get approached a few times; however, her online profile may get three times the number of hits.
"Online dating levels the field of the approach so meeting somebody in person gives you a great advantage," Brodie said. "It's getting over the fear of the approach that's hard for me."
Striking the balance between what others expect and what you expect of yourself can be difficult at times.
"Some people hate e-mail and prefer a medium with more social presence, like the phone or face to face," Shapiro said. Many times the online approach can work to our disadvantage because of the lack of nonverbal cues that help us interpret meaning. "The advantage," Shapiro said, "comes from being able to think about how you want to present yourself and what you want to say."
However, a lot can be said about the struggle with the traditional way of meeting someone in person.
"If the Beatles met significant others on Match.com we wouldn't have The White Album," sophomore Timmy Trabon said.
Some people are picky, it's safe to say, but one label online daters have a particular aversion to is the term "desperate." However, the stigma of "desperate" online dating is becoming archaic, stated the Pew Study.
"Regardless of how effective online dating may be, most internet users do not think that online daters are simply turning to cyberspace out of desperation," the Pew Study stated. The study also found "those who do regard online daters as desperate tend to have less experience online and say they are less trusting of people generally."
However, the concept of dating services is not new. "In many parts of the world, parents serve the function of a dating service," Shapiro said. "Sometimes a matchmaker would act the part of the computer service, but their circle of options was smaller."
Over the course of centuries, the overarching concept behind online dating has changed only in its medium. Online dating is no longer an unacceptable avenue of meeting a possible partner.
