Wired and waiting for love on the Net

Wired and waiting for love on the Net

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): As if to testify to how far the Internet has
penetrated into our personal lives, more and more people are
discovering that their significant others are waiting for them on
the other side of the world, separated by a phone line.

Speak with a couple that has been married for only a few
years, and you might learn that their romance started online. It
is also increasingly common to find that a friend has a friend
who married someone he or she met through one of the matchmaking
services on the Web.

Take Rose, for example. An outgoing Indonesian woman, she used
to work for a leading local economic weekly. She placed an ad on
Yahoo! Personals and met a man she fell in love with and
eventually married.

"He responded to my ad, and I answered back because he met one
of my most important criteria. Like myself, he was a devoted
Christian," Rose replied in an informal e-mail interview.

And Lilly, an Indonesian woman who used to work for a major
local PR company, found her perfect man through oneandonly.com.

"I included a picture of myself in the ad," she said in an e-
mail interview. "Tom was one of the men who responded to the ad.
Then we communicated by e-mail, by SMS, by phone, and then we
decided to meet in the real world."

"He would call my cell phone from New York, from Canada, from
Europe," Rose said. "He was a diplomat. But what really brought
me to my knees was when he suggested that we pray together with
thousands of miles between us."

And how was it when they met these men in person for the first
time? Both Rose and Lilly found that the men they met in person
were not much different from the mental images they had formed
through their online communications.

"We had been so honest with each other right from the
beginning, so we felt we knew each other so well even before we
met at the airport," said Lilly. "It felt as if we had been away
from each other for a long time and we missed each other so
much."

"He looked exactly as I had imagined him to be," Rose said.
"And I was again so touched when he thanked God right there and
then at the airport for finally bringing us together."

Is online dating only for the timid and socially inept?

Absolutely not. Both Rose and Lilly are very sociable people
with a lot of friends. However, with the pace of life getting
faster and faster, and the demands of work increasing, more and
more people have too little time to meet people outside of their
everyday circles of friends and acquaintances.

For people like Rose, who spent much of her time covering
events at the House of Representatives, placing a personal ad
online is a sensible thing to do. It does not cost much, it does
not take too much time and it can be very effective.

Even more, placing a personal ad online allows you and your
potential partner to explore each other's interests and see if
your chemistries really match before you start dating. Compare
this to trying to meet someone at cafes and other popular
hangouts for single professionals.

Have other people had as much success as Lilly and Rose?

Well, the success stories' sections of kiss.com, match.com,
saferdating.com and yahoo.com are impressively full of happy
reports from those who meet their other halves on these sites.
Some are already married, others are just getting there.

What should you do to impress others on the Net? An excellent
article in the Feb. 12 issue of TIME Digital underscored the fact
that you should be original. Do not try to window-dress yourself
online, as nothing will turn off a potential date more than
discovering you have been dishonest about yourself, like, for
instance, posting someone else's picture.

Rose and Lilly said they were honest from the beginning. "To
me, the truth is the truth, I did not want to hide anything,"
Rose said.

However, care should be taken. Never reveal too much about
yourself too soon. As in any place where people gather, whether
online or offline, there are pranks in the dating rooms. Both
Rose and Lilly started with honest descriptions of themselves,
and it was only after communicating more and more with the men of
their dreams that they gradually shared more personal
information. Unless you are looking for a one-night stand, online
dating should be approached as a natural process.

Do not think that just because you do not immediately meet in
person someone you met on the Internet that you are safe. This is
just not so. If you intend to find your soul mate online, it pays
to read the horror stories on saferdating.com, just to arm
yourself.

The bottom line is you have to be on your guard. Some people
believe that marriage is a gamble, and it seems that online
dating is even more of one. People can easily write rosy notes to
seduce you. The TIME article emphasizes the need to use common
sense, and it is probably no easier to remain sensible online
when you are already in love. You should be supersensitive to red
flags, and never let love or the hunger for a relationship cloud
your thinking.

What about local matchmaking Web sites? There are plenty,
since providing this service is quite an effective way of pulling
in as many visitors as possible and building a community around a
site.

Birojodoh.com, Biro Jodoh Elektronik, Indonesian Dating
Services and Jodoh Indonesia Net are just a few such local Web
sites.

Fringe benefits? The last question we asked Rose and Lilly in
the e-mail interviews was "Would you do it again?" It was a joke,
of course, but Lilly had a very positive answer.

"After I posted my picture on the Web, I got e-mail messages
from quite a few people. Many of them are still my friends
today."