© Copyright Dec 13, 2009 by 45 Mike Anderson
I just read an article that was interesting.
The gist of it was that the “personals ads” that have become perverted, (some may think), into the current plethora of internet “dating” sites, began some 300 years ago in merry ole England.
At that time, a male bachelor over 21 years of age was considered a shameful admission of less than socially acceptable behavior, or attributes.
Men and women both used printed medium available at the time to advertise for companionship that was hoped and expected to culminate with marriage. Thus becoming socially acceptable.
Nowadays of course we all pretty much know what the internet dating sites are for. Lonely men looking for sex, lonely women looking for men to marry, women offering sex for money and scammers. The ONLY real winners seem to be the web site owners who manage to rake in millions of dollars by “preying on” advertising to men and women who just want to find someone.
The interesting thing is the difference in reasons why men and women would spend good money to advertise and participate on these web sites.
Generally men are looking for sex, and women are looking for relationships.
The two are not necessarily incompatible, but it turns out that the information that men need to determine a nominal sex partner, as opposed to what women need to determine a nominal relational partner, are so different that it is surprising that these web sites actually make any money at all.
With that in mind, I began wondering about that difference in informational output, and how that might be utilised to better match up the two differing expectations of results.
One avenue of approach is to separate the two functions. With this approach, people who are seeking a relationship, would be presented with information they can better use to decide if they wish to initiate a contact attempt, or to reply to a contact attempt. The converse would apply in the other circumstance.
Another thought is how those data sets might be gathered for an individual. I know there are several web personals sites that purport to ask serious questions and the answers should assist in matching likely individuals. I’m thinking that perhaps asking the individuals themselves those questions might not be such a great idea. Of course, who else might be asked for such personal and self revealing answers? That might be a key to unlocking a data set that would be really useful for a gal considering a potential life partner. Just a thought, and sorta nebulous at the moment, the logistics could be a nightmare. Then again it could be worth it!
Now, about those web site monthly fees. Hmm, seems to me that SOMETHING should be done to even off the field.
For instance I know for a fact that several sites will ONLY charge men for membership, women are free. I also know that some web sites also use fictitious female profiles to attract and entice men to join and pay.
I’m wondering that something is rather skewed here. Of course, cash is always good, but there are other attributes of having people as members, participating on a web site that could increase value for a web site owner.
I’m thinking that there is value there, that could be sold for cash, especially when you consider that the idea of advertising for a mate, is a process of revealing some very personal information, about an individual, and about groups of individuals. Nuff said for now about that I’m saying.
Another article I read had a surprising factoid, that is, on the average, men in the US have about 7 sexual partners through a lifetime, women in the US have about 4.
Looking back over the past couple years, I realized that I have been whining some, (well maybe a LOT, LOL)
And it strikes me as interesting that I am well over “average” for sex partners and perhaps experiences in general. With that in mind, I sure hope I am done wimpering in my beer, cuz it’s not attractive and it’s just stupid.