Since the age of fourteen, I have been an avid user of the Internet. Back then my activity was mildly moderated, time limited, and server was the laughable AOL. By fifteen, as my parents separated, I began doing more surfing and was without limitations. Every social networking site advertised, I became a part of. My favorite Internet hangout in those days was a chatroom for my area. Everyone who was anyone had a link to it in their AIM profile.
My first real boyfriend at sixteen I met through someone that on the Internet and almost every subsequent relationship to this day has derived from some social networking website. I’ve met people from chatrooms, MySpace, True, OkCupid, and even the terribly put together eSpinTheBottle. Being more into women, I find the Internet the best way to meet because your sexuality is usually out on display, not to mention that I feel more comfortable initiating conversations with those I do not know. Right now, I am a big fan of OkCupid. Their questions are fantastic, thought-provoking, and fun. The matches, surprisingly enough, are actually quite accurate. I’ve met a few people from there and each was definitely high-quality and worth it.
The point of my blog is that so many people seem to down Internet dating but it seems to have worked in the favor of me and others I know, quite well. I’ve only ever, in my years of meeting people from the Internet, had one small problem and it’s been well worth it other than that. Since I currently am unemployed, I am also making a little bit of side cash with a project via a site that I found online.
For those of us who may be a little shy with meeting people in person, I believe that the Internet is a very helpful tool. I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone under eighteen like I was, but as adults, I would hope that we are responsible enough to know what safety precautions to take when doing so. I always require pictures and often talk to the person for a while via IM or telephone (though I have been known to skirt those rules, so unintelligently). Once again, the media has shed light over the negative situations to have occurred and I wanted to bring attention to the positive experiences that I have had.
