Here’s an interesting topic for discussion and thought.

Alyssa Bereznak has recently made a blog posting, detailing her experiences in the world of online dating. It’s attracted quite a bit of discussion, and not all of it is complementary. Alyssa’s been described as being predatory and narcissistic, as well as being unfairly judgmental towards the one person whom she admits to meeting through her online dating experience.

My first observation though occurs a little earlier in her story, right where  she says “Earlier this month, I came home drunk and made an OKCupid profile”.

Let’s stop right there: you came home, you were drunk, and so you created your profile? What the hell were you thinking?

In her Kotaku post “Alyssa Bereznak Just Reminded Us That Women Can Be Predators Online Too” Elly Hart takes up the point that in being drunk, you’re probably not in the best position to be able to make the best of judgement calls.

While I mostly agree with what Elly has said, I do have to take her to task in where she’s said “First of all, let me say up front that I totally buy the stigma associated with online dating. I know online dating sites like RSVP have been around for yonks now, but I can’t help but think that it’s for desperados — a last resort.”.

Elly’s making two points here, and while she is stating her opinion, I really think that she’s perhaps a little off beam.

First of all, where is the “stigma” with online dating sites? Where does this come from? How is there a stigma associated with online dating sites? Is there a similar stigma attached to introduction services?

And using online dating sites is a for “desperados – a last resort”?

The reality, as I understand it, is that many people are not at all comfortable with the traditional dating scene. Bars are noisy places, where many people prance around like peacocks. And the people there may be very competitive and judgmental. Like Alyssa seems to be.

Not everyone is a peacock. Not everyone wants to go to somewhere that’s noisy. And competetive.

Not everyone wants to be fully lubricated in order to meet somebody.

To me, perhaps Alyssa has treated her online experience no differently from how else she might be used to meeting people – she came home drunk (From where? A bar, perhaps?), and she then signed up to the dating site … while she was still drunk. I really don’t know; I’ve never met the lady.

But with online dating, you actually can take a bit of time to learn something about the person you’re chatting with. There’s no trying to impress with how you look, as seems to often happen within a bar. It’s not competitive, and there’s not too many peacocks strutting their stuff once get into it at a deeper level.

Importantly, you are free to choose where to meet, and hopefully you can do that, maybe over a nice glass of something that you enjoy, and if you’ve done it right, you may even like the person that you’ve met.

As I see it, we are free to choose how we wish to meet potential partners. If you’re comfortable in the bar scene, hey, that’s great. Go for it.

But please, don’t put down those who choose some other method of meeting people.