In an attempt to cure my Valentine's Day hangover, I decided to go with a hair of the dog remedy and watch the HBO special, When Strangers Click. The premise was simple and promising, a documentary that follows the journey of 5 couples who met online.
While I was hoping for stories about cute gays that met on GrindR and hipsters finding in each other in a sea of flannels and sending introductory emails exclaiming I'd shave my beard for you, what I got was very different. Instead of showing that online dating can be an honest way to connect for the 22% of couples that have reaped its benefits, it highlighted the freakish and awkward. From a couple that only contacted each other in second life to a woman who married a foreigner after knowing him for one day, these 5 stories reinforced the cliche that people who date online are living in an alternate reality, prolonging the inevitable disclosure of an epic deal breaker or lead a double life as a politician/sexual deviant(see story #2).
Even the stats and figures in the film seem some what archaic. My personal favorite: the number one concern for a woman meeting a man online is that he is a serial killer, the number one concern for a man meeting a woman online is that she is fat. Maybe it is the truth and it was just the AOL dial up modem in the background throwing me off. I never thought I would say this, but this sh*t makes me long for eHarmony commercials, you know the one where the pretty boutique owner doesn't have time for love untill that adorable scruffy guy swings her around in a field of dandelions?! Sorry I couldn't resist.