Internet Dating, An Awkward New Pubescence For the Whole of Society

If the assembly line can drastically change the structure of manufacture, and the automobile can drastically change the structure of population concentration, why not revamp that dusty old dinosaur "romance" with a little modern engineering? I speak of course about the Internet, that zany new fad that is supposedly making the world a "much smaller place". With the combined computational powers of modern computers and the instant communication possible through high-speed cable connections, certainly the world of partner-finding will never be the same.

In the realm of coupling, mankind is the bastard child of nature, not feral enough to just sniff out an appropriate genetic match, not socially organized enough to handle all of its breeding through a single "queen" specialized just for reproduction, we hover in the middle of the spectrum, between pure individual selection and socialized mating. On the one hand, we still have many of the fun mammalian tools for finding that special someone, for example though our acumen has decreased we can still smell if a mate will be a good genetic match, even if we don't realize that is what we're doing. On the other hand, due to the extreme degree of interdependence that is necessary for the survival of the species, we've also got a nice and complex system of social sub-categorization to ensure that sexual reproduction doesn't interfere with economics and by extension the ability of the species to successfully reproduce.

And now for a brief summation of thousands of years of human mating:
In the early days, while human social groupings were small due to the limitations of necessary resources, human pairing possibilities were limited by the number of available partners and the act was used to cement social ties between families and form the larger groups necessary to sustain life. As technology improved and larger populations became possible, the nature of the beast remained roughly the same, but the style shifted. More people meant more complex social organization, which in most cases meant that well defined guidelines were necessary to make sure that the right people were getting together. If there is one thing that societal structures always attempt to do it is perpetuate themselves. Anyway, the march of progress meant bigger and bigger populations, driving the economic and social value of an individual human life lower and lower. In time, it is no longer necessary to the survival of the larger society that specific people turn off the lights and light up a candle, and deciding who should be marrying whom is important only to the sub-societies whose identities are predicated on some group characteristic, having been decided upon at an earlier time. At this point more than ever before, people start to say, "Hey, maybe I should just get it on with someone who makes me happy" to which their identity group responds "Only if they aren't one of those people and they make enough money." Ta dah, romantic love. This is not to say that no form of this existed before, but that it did not become a prevalent force in the zeitgeist until economic and social factors made it more attainable. Now we skip over the Renaissance, the Age of Imperialism, the Industrial Revolution and a couple of World Wars and we've got populations so swollen and mobile that even if you should happen to get to know the people in your local community they won't be around for long. So, communities based on geography are going out of style, communities based on religious and racial identity are blurring their borders to become more inclusive, and individual people are born and die each day without the larger society taking any notice. To add to the fun, post modern thinking just keeps chipping away at the supports of religious, national, and vocational life validation and the feel-good, self-centered capitalist mindset has set up in their place a Cult of Romance, suggesting in movies and on breakfast cereals that the goal of a life is to find love and shop at the Gap (or Hot Topic if you decide to be an "individual"). So now you are ready to get out there and start flinging woo like nobody's business and you stop and say to yourself, "Huh, where do I start?" You probably have an idea of who you’d like to meet based on their preferences for clothes, entertainment and net income, but where do you find them? All those movies you watched in high school lead you to believe that you'll just bump into them and sparks will fly, but that isn't really "pro-active" enough. Wait a second, on the internet I can search for socks and find what I need in three seconds, if only there were a way to harness that power.

Internet Socializing
We may not have jet-packs or hover-cars but by Odin’s beard with a click of a button we can search through thousands of people and find everyone within driving distance who likes Futurama and drinking whiskey, and if that ain't progress then smack my ass. People based search engines, they're all over the place, like pokemon, and if you want to find Mr./Mrs./Ms. Right/Right-Smith you'd better collect them all. There are two main divisions in the field as I see it, first there are the sites that directly sell you the "search for companionship" at the price of 19.99-29.99 a month, then there are the ones that are free of charge and simply pimp out the ad space. The former includes sites such as Match.com, Soulmatch.com, or Soulmatesworld.match.com. Sites of this order are the vanguard of the corporate exploitation of post-modern ennui, "something is missing in your life, but maybe you can find it if you give us money!" The latter on the other hand is more my style, sites such as MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, and my personal favorite OkCupid. With a loose guise as a forum of personal expression and a means to connect with likeminded people, these sites are slowly but surely changing the mechanics of modern socializing. Right now, our internet voices are cracking as we awkwardly step into this new milieu like a pimpled 14-year-old into a junior high school prom, after all, most of us were raised in a time when classified adds were looked down on and the idea of arranging a meeting with someone you met over the internet was tantamount to inviting rape and murder, but as odd as this idea may be for we children of the 70s and 80s, those out there who are going through their actual adolescence on MySpace will most likely see this forum as a natural and time tested method.

A Break Down of My Favorite Sites:
Friendster - Perhaps the first of its kind, Friendster is dedicated to the documentation and expansion of your collection of friends and associates. Its tone is more in line with camaraderie but the mechanisms and the sidebar advertisements skew towards finding that special someone. My Friendster profile.
MySpace - Perhaps the most popular of its kind, MySpace allows the artist in each of us to come out for a little bit to show other people that we are a unique snowflake because we use different wallpaper. What better way to impress the person of your dreams than with your creative use of fonts. My MySpace profile.
OkCupid - My favorite site for two reasons, all the attitude and fun of TheSpark.com combined with a system designed to match you with other people mathematically based on your answers to incredibly biased user written questions. Also, it has tons of cool quizzes to tell you when you will die and whether or not it will be at the hands of zombies. My OkCupid profile.
Catch27 - The award for most original take on this premise definitely goes to Catch27. Catch27 goes balls-to-the-wall and just flat out says, "People are objects, trade your friends with other people and collect a killer set of people." That honesty and fresh take on the whole situation almost makes up for the fact that practically everyone on the site is a slack-jawed cretin. My Catch27 card can be found by searching for "Boys" in "Oregon" named "Devon". I like this, as well.
Portland Mercury's Lovelab - An offshoot of the classified section of the Portland Mercury, this is a matchfinder predominantly for the hip young demographic in the PDX area. I like this site for its quasi-creative style and the fact that you can make a profile for free but then have to pay to send people messages. Now that is classy. My Lovelab profile.