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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider Online dating

Online dating

Published Dec 1, 2021 12:05 am

THE RIGHT MOVE

RIKKI MATHAY

Everyone loves the feeling of being loved. This gives us the window to choose who we want to spend the rest of our lives with. These may be with friends, potential partners, family members, and even people we meet on the internet. Online dating has been the modern way of establishing relationships particularly with the world being at our fingertips through the worldwide web.

Online dating generally refers to dating someone a person met online.

If a person wants to try online dating, there are major platforms to choose from, such as Tinder, Bumble, and Omegle so to our readers who are curious about these applications or apps, you may simply download via IOS or android stores. These apps allow people to have a wide variety of options that they could possibly match their characters and preferences with, which as all those who engage in these platforms, eventually achieve the goal of actually meeting and dating the best “matched” candidates.

According to Pew Research Center, while online dating is seemingly fun, engaging, and a convenient way to capture people's interests more so during this pandemic, it must be noted that it is a dangerous slippery slope. There are actual sexual predators that use dating sites to take advantage of specific individuals, most especially women and children. With this caveat, users must take extra precautions and maintain a keen sense of background checking for those who use dating apps and sites. Dating apps do not conduct criminal background checks on users, so it is up to each user to determine if they are comfortable meeting up with someone. However, it is important to remember that if you do experience sexual assault or violence while dating online or using an app, it is not your fault.

Other dangers of online dating which must be considered aside from meeting a sexual predator include falling for a catfish. For non millennials like me, catfishing is either using someone else’s profile and pretending that it’s you or altering your pictures to a point that they don’t look anything like you in person.

Another real threat is getting hacked where you may lose your personal information as some of these online accounts are bots designed to hack your account and get your personal information.

And lastly, we have trolls who find their way into your comment sections or DM to harass users which can lead to mental health issues.

Utilizing online platforms to date is valid. What matters most are the users’ safety, welfare, ethical compliance, and really, at the end of the day especially in these uncertain times, happiness. Sadly, some “conservatives” still tend to invalidate and judge a person who joins the online dating community.. Nonetheless, everyone must understand that love knows no platform. It could be somewhere on the train, a library, or through screens. Personally, I haven’t tried online dating nor do I see myself having engaged in it when I was single, but keeping an open mind, online dating is neither evil nor wrong. I have talked to friends who have tried it for themselves and some even found “the one” through these modern day platforms.

They have opened my eyes to this seemingly unorthodox means to meet and date. If people want to date online, who are we to judge? However, they must still be careful as many abusers are scattered on various apps and sites made for dating. Boundaries and enjoyment must always be present. At the end, we are all yearning for genuine love, utmost patience, long-term and healthy relationships with our significant others.

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