[rifung]

While I see what you are saying and find it interesting, I find the idea of going anywhere with the sole intention of meeting strangers for romance to be very unnatural as well.

My reasoning has little to do with romance and more to do with practicality. To me, people end up in good relationships because they can't imagine themselves without that person. On the other hand, people who are only looking to cure their loneliness usually end up with poor relationships.

I speculate this is because people who are lonely are more likely to "settle" whereas people who aren't looking but happen to find someone can always just leave the relationship with little difficulty and so if the relationship lasts it's due to compatibility.

I hope that didn't offend anyone, I have no issue with people going to bars or whatever to meet other people. This is just the way I like to live my life.

[rosser]

So don't settle. Just because you're using online dating to find a partner doesn't mean you have to take the next remotely viable candidate that comes along.

Personally, I find the lack of ambiguity about intentions to be a plus to meeting people through dating sites.

[rifung]

"So don't settle."

That's much easier said than done. Maybe it's easy for you, but from most of the people I've seen, including myself, when you have emotional involvement with something it's difficult not to be biased. It's easy to make excuses and convince yourself that you are doing the right thing. I think it was Stephen King who said it best, "We lie best when we lie to ourselves"

[kristofferR]

Maybe I'm just being stupid right now and misinterpreting something you said, but how is that different from in "natural dating"?

I'd actually say that you're way more likely to settle too early for someone you met "naturally" in real life than someone you matched with online or met due to dating purposefully. By purposefully dating you'll meet and "discover" many different people too find the one you're super-compatible with, by waiting to meet someone naturally you're more likely to settle with the first one that you "click" with.

[rifung]

Hey you are definitely not being stupid; it's my fault for not being more clear.

Indeed this is also possible with "natural dating", if we consider natural dating to be the equivalent of online dating. I was trying to say that I'm against the idea of people thinking "I feel like I need to be in a relationship so I'm going to attempt to find someone to fulfill that need."

I think I am just against the idea that everyone needs to find someone or get married. From my experience, when two people who were not even thinking about relationships decide their lives are just much better if they are partners, they have a much higher chance of a lasting relationship or marriage.

Of course, I am fortunate because I am still young, and for people who are sure they want to start a family and are older, I can see why they would feel pressured to find someone, and all the power to them.

Hopefully that made sense. I actually agree that if someone were looking for a relationship, doing it online is much more efficient, especially with all the sites that use some scientific means of pairing people.