Today, the internet is a prime avenue among the youths as well as adults for social interactions. Through internet tools and applications such as chat rooms, email, newsgroups, instant messaging as well as other means, individuals share all sorts of information such as their interests with others, aspects pertaining to their daily lives and keep in touch with their friends and family members. In essence, today, the primary use of mobile phones and personal computers is social interaction. In the process, online social interaction has also brought about people seeking to form relationships with others whom they have met over the internet, especially with those that they interact with on regular basis. As it currently stands, internet tools and applications for social interaction closely resemble traditional face-to-face interaction venues even though there exist minor differences between them. While internet communication as well as social interactions offer greater anonymity and hence provides the possibility of producing closeness and intimacy, there is still need for a greater understanding of how long-term rewarding romantic relationships can be built over the internet just like in traditional settings. Online dating forums provide a meeting place where individuals with specialized interests meet and start their relationships. This paper seeks to understand the factors that lead people to like and love others, what factors contribute to enabling close relationships as opposed to superficial attractions and the best approach that Alisha can use in establishing a successful online dating service or a speed dating service that will offer a contribution for people building long-term relationships with their partners with the current dynamics in the relationship world.
Romantic love, as well as attraction, are universal emotions with romantic love being the foundation of marriage. Of importance to note is that the procedure of two persons connecting for a meaningful relationship is particularly fascinating. Attraction and romantic relationships are seen as the foundational step to the formation as well as the continuation of the family and the bond between families. Considerable research findings have pointed out that in intimate relationships, partner disclosure, as well as self-disclosure, has a tendency to increase intimacy in interactions and experiences. It was, however, noted that disclosing deep intimate relationships among the people dating online only occurs when trust and liking have been established between partners in the relationship. In actual sense, individuals rarely engage in personal disclosure with each other until they have are sure a dyadic boundary has been created so that personal information is not leaked to mutual acquaintances. Even the dyadic boundary is violated and broken when the other partner negatively responds to disclosure. This has the implication that to build relationships online, partners must have founding substantive factors and interests so that attractions and relationships occurring online will last for a long time as opposed to only physical attractiveness alone. This will ensure that such relationships will be able to stay strong when partners meet face to face. Further, these findings have the implication that Aisha, who is willing to start an online dating site, must provide a forum that guarantees her clients security and ways to clarify the identity, authenticity and information provided by the client so as to trust their online partners. This study thus postulates that online dating services with capabilities of individuals disclosing true self to their partners in online settings are more likely to lead individuals to form close relationship later on than on speed dating services when these relationships are transferred to real life.
In a study carried out to understand how physical changes can affect relationships when they are in the formative years, Karandashev (2014) sought to understand what draws people together. The participants involved in the research had only been in relationships for less than one year. The reason why these participants were chosen was primarily that emotions tend to be relatively intense during this year and that positive or negative feelings about partners are low during this period, hence they can be measured for this period. Furthermore, during this period people are vulnerable and are generally in the process of finding themselves and, therefore, they tend to be drawn to their partners primarily on emotional connection and not personality. Whereas the measures did not include the partner’s looks, the results found out that the tendency to feel, behave or think in a certain way when in the presence of a potential partner often dictates whether the relationships will last or not. The research disputed the existence of love on first sight, and when participants were asked to specifically choose between physical features over others such as smiles or general attractiveness, it was noted that they preferred smile and general attractiveness to physical features. Naturally, smiling is a gesture that shows that a potential partner is warm and welcoming (Karandashev & Fata, 2014). This shows their readiness to be open to being part of the relationship. The ranking of smile and general attractiveness higher than physical attractiveness has the implications that people who want to score highly on the online platforms are required to provide profile pictures that depict them are warm and welcoming preferably having a smile. Potential partners will be more attracted to show warm people as compared to others who are dull. Alisha needs to build a dating platform with capabilities of uploading quality pictures which are a critical attraction and general relationship. The limitation with this material is that it examines a narrow group of people and, thus, cannot be used to make generalized conclusions about the whole population of people.
A research carried out by Kang and Hoffman in 2011 on why people decide to use online dating sites with specific reference to examining predictors of dating online platforms for dating, found out that issues that are closely related to inaccurate self-disclosure, self-presentation and trust are among the most prominent issues that were termed as conspicuous when individuals consider an online dating platform for finding romantic partners (Kang & Hoffman, 2011). The study also found out that most individuals are still skeptical that online dating leads to long term relationships primarily because they internalize negative experiences of others to form such an attitude. In addition, those who stated that they do not trust online dating services as successful pointed out that their earlier negative experiences played a critical role in concluding that online dating experiences are not viable platforms of finding a romantic partner. The study went further to observe that the initial lack of face to face contact between individuals who are taking part in the online dating plays a significant role in reducing the levels of trust between individuals. The study, therefore, concluded that trust was the main factor that people consider when using online dating services. This research confirmed previous research findings that highlighted the fact that social anxiety and stuttering are the gates that cause gaping features to online relationships. Other findings also support that anxiety and shyness features are not available on online dating service platforms and since they prevent less physically attractive and socially skilled people from developing strong relationships in the physical world. These features play a strong impact on the first impressions and thus determine whether romantic relationships or friendships will begin. With the absence of such features and evidence in online platforms, partners must trust that potential partners accurately provide information that lay the basis of any potential relationship to take off.
More features that were found out were that people are normally attracted to others who share common interests with them. The unique structure of the internet was that individuals want to find others with similar specialized interests such as opinions, standing on relationships (Goldsmith, 2001). These factors are critical in determining if the involved parties are compatible and if they will continue to be committed to each other in the long run. It was found out that the most compatible partners are, the more likely that they will remain together even after the first face to face meeting. Despite that in online dating forums, it is hard to find authority in people stating with confidence that they have major commonalities, it is generally argued that people take the time to establish whether there exist commonalities between parties, and if it does to what extent. And though people joining dating services have already a common interest in finding their partners, it must be noted that such people will be more interested in finding out what other factors and interest they have in common that provides them with a head start for attraction and finally to romantic relationships. Relationships that are based on substantive attractions laying on such factors as shared interests are more likely to endure, and parties will be committed to others as compared to other relationships without holding factors. This, thus, has the implication that online dating service platforms must be capable of ensuring that potential partners who meet for the first time in the platform can learn with certainty and fast the hobbies, interests and opinions of other potential partners. Alisha needs to build a dating platform that has personalized experiences where clients can learn the habits and interests of others whom they want to relate with.
Another important finding that was noted was that women tend to be more self-disclosing more than men and that they tend to be more deeply intimate than their male counterparts. They generally place premiums on sharing emotions and talking whereas men shift their focus more on their shared activities. However from the relationship view, it was evident that both genders do not differ significantly on what they will be share with each other. Both genders reveal things at the same level and will both likely to be involved in sending emails, messages and exchanging pictures on the internet at the same rate. In general, however, in a study carried out by Eastwick et al. (2014) to determine the ideal preferences of partners with specific references to how men and women differ in the extents of the appealing traits, differences between hypothetical and live interactions found out that among young people who want to be engaged in relationships are attracted to potential partners who would be fun to spend time with. Among men, fun was rated as the most significant factor that drives attraction while women also identified and rated fun as a fourth significant factor that drives attraction that followed intelligence, humor, and kindness (Grammer, Kruc & Magnusson, 2001). When the ranking by women also points out that someone who is humorous is also considered to be fun. When probed further, fun was described by the participants as the feeling of positive energy and stress-free environment from the pressure of constant work deadlines. This had the implications that when designing an online dating services platform, it must be capable of letting members communicate in real time so that partners can interact and understand in details the need of their potential partners so as to meet the definitions of having fun together. This characteristic would particularly be favorable for speed dating services business since partners have opportunities to interact well and learn shared interests and nature of partners.
The ideal personalities who will be capable of finding true love in online dating platforms are people who are capable of expressing their true selves over the online dating forums than they can when using traditional no-internet settings. Such people will be capable of forming close relationships with people who they will meet online. The ideal people who will be successful on the internet dating must fulfill two main factors: they must experience social anxiety when in a face to face setting and that they must have been lonely. These people are more suitable for locating their true selves over the internet since they will be motivated to finding people who match their companion needs. They will also be motivated to moving online relationships beyond the online setting and into the real world where they will be stable and durable in the long run. Lemay (2016) in a study to understand why relationships fail, pointed out individual approach to relationships matter most. He further pointed out that how people view commitment and if the partners are looking for a long term commitment given their loneliness or have social anxiety is dependent on the status of the people involved in the relationships. The profile of potential partners specifically serves to narrow down a client’s search for a potential partner. A truthful profile depicting a client who is lonely and is committed to communicating with a partner despite their other factors will most likely find an ideal partner of their choice. The profile information that contains such factors as a photo of a potential partner will ideally not serve as a big motivation to parties hooking up as compared to situations where parties can find truthful information of potential partners. Alisha, thus, have diversified mechanisms and frameworks to understand the needs of their customers. On the speed dating services business option, the limited time that speed dating services offer are particularly not sufficient for potential parties to express their loneliness status.
The real self as found out basically was defined in three main domains which are the characteristics of people which can only be found purely on the offline domain, the real self residing in both online and offline domains and the real self that is purely residing on the online domain (Butler et al., 2014). Those with purely offline real themselves pointed out that they did not reveal about themselves over the internet to others and that their partners on the online platform did not know them at all beyond what they provided on their profile. Despite this, it was found out that those who are capable of finding their true self despite levels of loneliness and social anxiety will be capable of finding partners for long term relationships (Goldsmith, 2001). To favorably connect people with opposite partners with ideal attributes, Alisha must implement an online dating platform that will effectively determine the validity of the clients’ preferences and attributes regarding their self-characteristics. In particular, the service will preferably have a screening mechanism to ensuring that online profile of clients’ match their offline profile and features so as to rule out non-matches. It will also serve as an initiative for clients to spend their energies and focus on individuals who truly possess qualities that they are seeking. Screening procedures are also important in ensuring that online dating services business is carried out in an ethical manner by checking the facts about clients for the best of other clients (Eastwick et al., 2014). An authentic profile that discloses the identity of clients serves the best way to motivate others to reveal their true self too and their desire to start a long-term relationship. On the other hand, when speed dating services are considered, they are events that may not fully generate an ideal environment for people to learn about the profiles of potential partners (Deyo, Walt & Davis, 2014).
In conclusion, this paper has shown that online dating platforms are better than speed dating services business because they offer a variety of services that enable clients to meet online and express their love for one another even those who have less developed social interaction skills as well as are not physically attractive. For such a group of people, a speed dating services business is particularly not ideal for them to develop good relationships as potential partners will be put off by their weaknesses even though they possess the right qualities to relate effectively (Deyo, Walt & Davis, 2014).
References
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