Here’s looking for you, kid
Nothing beats going out to the bar with the entourage on a Saturday night. Hitting the clubs, looking for Mr. Right (or possibly, just Mr. Right Now) is a long time honored tradition. But what happens after you go out for a couple months straight to the same spots, the bartenders begin to know your drink choice and the guy selection begins to look familiar?
Or what if you are like Stawn Kaufman, an event promoter, whose business takes him on the road from Columbus, Ohio to both New York and Chicago frequently. He has had a membership to at least ten different dating websites, though he says that now he mostly uses the memberships for networking when he’s traveling.
"Being mobile is a very good thing," Kaufman said. "There are more fish in the sea. Everything is a click away."
Kaufman is part of a growing trend of guys who have left the club scene to meet guys and network. As the Internet continues to grow and acknowledge the needs of the gay community, more websites are popping up to help you find that perfect match. Nor are you restricted to your desktop or laptop -- there are plenty of options on your iPhone to keep you in tune with what hot guys are in the neighborhood.
Out of the bars, onto the Web
Researcher Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and the brains behind the dating quiz used to match people up on the website Chemistry.com, has studied people’s how we think and found that there are three core systems that everyone has when it comes to relationships. Those three systems are lust, romantic attraction and attachment. As she sees it, nothing has really changed in 500 years of evolution other than the way we meet people.
"It’s the newest way to do the same old thing," said the researcher. "We’re not really pairing up with high school sweetheart or college [partner]."
Back in "the dark ages" before there were computers or mobile technology, the options were pretty limited as to how guys would be able to meet each other. The problem with trying to find a date in the gay community isn’t necessarily as easy as just walking up to the hot guy in the produce aisle.
"Our odds are about 20 percent," said Rajesh Lahoti, the CEO of dating website FindFred.com, in regards to the chances of finding someone during everyday travels compared to the heterosexual population.
Over the past few years it seems the Internet was developed so that guys could connect and meet each other in virtual situations. They could meet in chat rooms and then decide to meet in person if they chose.
"Before chat rooms any dating was hard, especially for a population that wasn’t part of the mainstream," explained Dr. Lisa Paz, a licensed marriage/family therapist and a board-certified clinical sexologist. "If you don’t come from an urban area you were stuck, essentially."
Chat rooms quickly began to be seen as a new way to meet people to hook up, but they also garnered a stigma of not really knowing who you are talking to - whether the person was being honest and providing pictures of themselves or if they were lying about some, possibly even all, of the information they were giving.
It’s a stigma that has led many to be weary of trying to find love on the Internet, even when venturing outside of the realm of chat rooms into the more reputable dating websites. At least by going to a dating site, there was a better chance of the information being more accurate. But to the general public, online dating was seen at something only to be done as a last resort.
"There was a real stigma," Fisher said, adding that it has subsided in recent years. "At the moment, the consensus is I know friends who use it, but it’s not for me."
It’s a sentiment that Paz has seen first hand in her work. "You never hear a gasp. Ten or fifteen years ago it was a hush-hush underground thing," said Paz, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Miami.
For guys in the gay community dating websites weren’t necessarily always accepting of those in LGBT communities, which led to sites like FindFred to be created to cater specifically to guys who were looking to meet each other. It’s also part of a growing trend of gay dating sites and devices that are both gay owned and operated.
"Even the straight community has turned online. So clearly our community will have to," Lahoti said, noting the disadvantage that the gay community faces when trying to find a partner.
Regardless of stigma, probably the biggest positive change that Internet chat rooms and websites did is make people from rural areas realize they weren’t so alone in the world. And for younger people coming to terms with their the Internet helps them find others going through the same or similar situations, especially if they live in a town where they may not know anyone who is out.
Dating online also allowed its users to connect with one another in a safe environment and filter out people based on pre-selected interests.
