Online dating has made its mark on the dating world and has moved into the lives of many individuals.  
With the holidays right around the corner, online dating commercials have been on the rise.  Most of the advertisements offer some kind of dating statistic, such as, “One out of five relationships begins online.” This sparked my interest and thus began my online dating experience.
After looking through a couple of websites and reading reviews, I decided to sign up for Match.com. As of June 2012, Match.com had 15 million members. A recent statistic on Statistic Brain states that there are 54 million single people in the United States, so what are the chances that you will actually meet “the one” in your local area?
For those students that are currently using online dating or are considering it, do not think you’re alone.  According to the latest statistic on Statistic Brain, 52.4 percent of online dating users are males and 47.6 percent are women.
I went into this experiment full force and decided to create my profile and begin searching the world wide web of men. I signed up for a three-month subscription in October to get the full experience of online dating, and boy, was it an experience.
While signing up for Match.com, you are given a choice of paying a few more dollars for the membership and for add-ons that will set your profile apart. For example, you can have your profile colored to stand out in searches, add Match Phone, have your profile first in the search list, and even add “e-mail read notification” to let you know if the person you messaged has read your e-mail. I did not spring for the extras and decided to keep it simple.
People can contact each other on Match.com though winks, emails, instant messages and Match Phone, if that option is purchased.   
After being on the site for about 24 hours, I received an influx of winks and e-mails, none of which matched the criteria that Match had me create. There was an incidence of a 50-year-old man wanting to talk as he offered the opportunity to “take care of me,” and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After deleting most of the winks and e-mails, I was ready to delete the profile and call it quits.
After a few days, more guys closer to my criteria were popping up, and some conversations flowed. None of the interaction went beyond the site at first.  
Then I decided to search the list of guys and see if anyone I knew was on the website. It was weird coming across friends from high school, men I had classes with this semester, and, the weirdest of them all, a past boyfriend appeared on the list. On Match, you can see everyone who looks at your profile and vice versa. I forgot this simple fact and clicked on it. Needless to say, I got caught looking at the page.
The biggest hurdle during the experiment was hiding the fact that I had an online dating profile. I talked to one man and he wanted to converse via text messages because he did not want his co-workers to know he was on Match.com. I did not understand the fact that people sign up and pay for a membership, but want to hide the fact. I get that it is not the most traditional way to find a man, but how different is it from meeting someone via a social network? I paid $59.97 for an online dating website and yes, I was looking, but I will probably receive more criticism than if I was to say that I met “the one” on Facebook because of the stigma.
People look at online dating as a desperate attempt to find a man or woman. When I asked my friends what they thought about me using online dating, I got the terms “desperate” and “creepy,” and was asked, “Why? You are too young.” It was a little hurtful to think that I was thought of as desperate when, in reality, I just wanted to meet people that do not live in my general area. Plus, I am a picky person from what I have been told.
Among the beautiful women on campus, we have a very successful professor Laura Lott Valenti, instructor of marketing, who openly talks about her experiences with meeting her husband on Match.com.
Valenti has been very successful in her career endeavors, with roles such as Franchise Marketing Manager and Website Director. She obtained her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Psychology and her Master’s of Business Administration from the University of New Orleans. She is also the reigning Mrs. Louisiana United States.
Valenti said she decided to participate in online dating because she wanted to meet “the one” and that online was a great venue for profiling someone.
“My parents had an intervention with me, thinking online dating would be a great way for a career-focused and picky lady to date,” Valenti said. “The bars, art galleries, networking and professional organizations did not work for me.”
Her husband Ricky sent her a wink on Match.com in 2008.
“I carefully crafted my first e-mail exchange to him after reading through his profile, and he responded 13 minutes later,” Valenti said.
When Valenti started dating online, she said that she did not have any worries about her safety. She knew the proper precautions to take to be safe for when/if she actually met someone, and she was focused on the big picture-finding Mr. Right.
Valenti was on Match.com for a week and a half when Ricky winked at her.
“We went on our first date a day later, got engaged a year later and were married four months after being engaged. We had a last-minute engagement party on New Year’s Day 2010, and about an hour and half into the party we surprised our guests with ‘we’re actually getting married!'”
Valenti offers a few tips for students interested in online dating.
“First, don’t rush into using the words ‘I do,'” Valenti said. “Stay up to date with the most current news stories on online dating. Meet in public places, end a date in a public place and meet the person at the designated places, though the traditional courting suggests the guy pick up the lady. Also ask for the most recent picture of the person, because some people misuse online dating.”
The online dating experience changed her life.
“If you are looking for a bargain, check out the free profile weekends like my husband did, where I paid a full $59.99 to meet him, and it was the best $59.99 I ever spent,” Valenti said.