Online dating spoils college experience

Looking for love? Just log on.

In the last year, 17 percent of couples who got married met on an online dating site. Their courtship was typically less than half as long as that of couples who met in real-life situations, according to an April 30, 2010 report from Match.com.

While I think that online dating can be a great resource for people over the age of 40, I'm skeptical about younger people jumping on the bandwagon too soon. Maybe I'm being a defeatist, but joining the online dating world seems like a white flag — a surrender to the stresses and tortures of actually meeting people face to face.

The online dating trend of recent years is just part of a larger concern I have with people interacting with one another on a virtual rather than actual basis. As if Facebook doesn't take up enough of our time, allowing us to be consumed with the way we look, changing profile pictures weekly and "untagging" photos that make us look more unsavory than usual. Chances are that you spend more time looking at your own profile than anyone else's when you're on Facebook.

I would argue that Facebook and similar sites are probably one of the reasons many people feel pressured into online dating. Imagine you're a freshman in college who sees pictures of his or her friends who go to other schools and are constantly going to parties, looking glamorous and high on life with a dozen different members of the opposite sex. You wonder why you aren't doing the same thing and think that venturing farther into the Internet will make you more popular and help you get attention from possible love interests.

First of all, things on Facebook aren't always what they seem. It's pretty simple to make your life look a lot more fun than it really is. Also, if this hypothetical person hadn't been on Facebook, he or she would have never seen these people from other schools and the grand time they're having, eliminating the jealousy and angst now felt about his or her own life.

The point is that spending more time on the computer might help people find love after they have literally tried everything else and are in a place in their lives where not many new people are coming along. College, however, is the antithesis of that place.

Sure, we go to a small school. It might seem sometimes like there's no one dateable out there, but someone who attends a school with 40,000 students might feel that way just as much as someone who attends a school of 6,000. Every semester we get a completely new set of faces. We have the opportunity to join any club on campus, immediately opening up our horizons to new people. I know bars aren't the ideal place to meet people for long-term relationships, but there's never a time where I walk into a bar and think, "I know every person in this place, and there's not a single one of them I could go on a date with."

Dating online in college seems to be a good way for people to miss out on the opportunities surrounding them in real life. Sure, it's scary to walk up to a stranger and introduce yourself, but that's the way it's supposed to be. There's an adrenaline rush when putting yourself out there, but it also shows a wealth of confidence that sitting behind a computer screen doesn't allow for.

On top of all of this, one of the largest existing dating sites hides less attractive users from the attractive ones based on user rankings, according to an August 2010 article from the Huffington Post. So if not enough people view your profile and rank it high enough, you'll be stuck in the bottom 50 percent, only able to view other profiles that didn't make it into the pretty category.

Why risk it? Take a step into the adult, real world of dating where no one can tell anyone if they're attractive enough to look at someone else. We haven't been dating nearly long enough for us to give up yet.

Anna Meier is a senior English major from Kansas City, Mo.