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Love on the Internet

Online dating is real. The barrier to entry is zero. Women and men understand that the risks of looking at profiles, and meeting one of those people are low. The idea of meeting a stranger for a date is increasingly accepted. The technology has existed for years. Most dating websites are designed to encourage anonymous interaction. They are image-centric. Once a profile is created, the user has a virtually unlimited stream of people to consider. Potential matches can be sorted and filtered. The person you present yourself as can be critically altered. Though many websites require photos other information a user adds isn't necessarily accurate.

Indeed, what is the point of being a real person on a dating site? How would honesty even be achieved, if it were desirable? A person is not the same as a profile. Typically a kind of crisp ordering of cues leads to a type. Most people want their dating profiles to conform to an accepted form such as a casually-dating college student from California, or a bookish professional seeking a long-term partner, or maybe a sex-worker in search of clientele. But none of these profile types describe a person -- at least not a real one. These are descriptions that teach us something about desire. They tell us that desire requires brevity and lack of information. Digital desire specifically requires something close to a completely abstract longing for the sexual image.

One’s image is the center of this useful deception. The profile image is the first point of contact. These days, everyone understands advertising. The perversion of the human form by Photoshop or simple cropping is required. Desire comes from these images. When we desire an image, we are encouraged to act. Message her! Rate him! Wink! They begin to change human interaction, to focus desire, to coordinate the online image with the offline relationship. We become accustomed to meeting people on the Internet, because these sites design our lives.

Imagine creating a perfect dating profile. Imaging catching the eye of the perfect mate -- in a sense, unlocking the key to social happiness. These are astounding opportunities. This is not a certainty. This is a selling point for a website. This is new. These are ambitions that did not exist before online dating became mainstream. Which begs the question: What is this new Internet Love? Who made it? We used to get drunk or go to prom or have arranged marriages. People formed relationships based on family ties, based on proximity, based on debts owed. Who do we owe, for this digital chance at love? How did we earn this? It's not natural, but it might also be a huge opportunity, something we can't afford to miss out on.

Yadayadayada … The complete article
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/love-on-the-internet-dating-in-the-age-of-the-profile-image/245915/?