Can Online Dating Make You Depressed?

[Gumbolette 58]

A patient came to my office to talk about an incident he was almost too embarrassed to discuss. He had recently visited a prostitute, and was ashamed of this behavior. He had been making many positive changes in his life after recovering from alcoholism and divorce. It became clear that what had triggered his episode was a failed attempt to use online dating to find a girlfriend.

I've started telling some of my patients to avoid online dating. Some people react to the frequent rejections and disappointments with depression or cynicism. Negative feelings can trigger relapses into dysfunctional behaviors. I believe online dating is risky for people with a history of depression, addiction or relationship problems, and I believe it may present a special risk for men.

Of the dozens of online dating stories I've heard, most have been negative. I've only known a few happy couples who met on dating websites or through personal ads. But why has something that seemed like such a good idea when it was first invented proved so often to be a disappointment, or worse? Doesn't a dating website allow you to preview possible mates through photos and profiles, cutting down on the possibility of mismatches? To my knowledge, there has been little scientific research done on online dating, so what I'm going to say is based on observation and basic theories of human behavior:

Online dating raises the stakes for rejection, especially for men. When a man goes to a bar and strikes up a conversation with a woman, he knows there's a possibility she has no interest in dating at all. If she rejects him, it's easy for him to say to himself "Maybe this just wasn't the right time." When a man gets rejected by someone on a dating website, he's not likely to make such a rationalization, since the woman has explicitly stated she is looking for dates or a mate.

Some people easily bounce back from rejection and others don't.

It's important to remember that many people join dating websites without really wanting to find a relationship (or even dates)-these sites are full of voyeurs and exhibitionists who only want to view or be viewed by others (perhaps this is why one popular website came up with the advertising slogan "It's Okay to Look"). It's difficult to screen out these people. In addition, many people use online dating as a way to "test the waters" after a bad break-up; they don't really want romance but want to get back in the habit of going on dates, or just want to get out of the house as a distraction from their troubles. (And of course, there are some women who only want to get taken out to dinner at a nice restaurant--which is why I advise men not to take women out to dinner on first dates).

A man who isn't conventionally handsome or doesn't immediately present well for some other reason doesn't have the option on a dating website of first starting a platonic friendship with a woman and seeing where it leads. Sometime a woman who isn't immediately attracted to a man will later fall in love with him, if they spend time together that allows her to see what he's really like. The nuances and ambiguities that make life interesting are eliminated from online dating, which emphasizes the immediate and the superficial.

The attraction of many men to online dating is the notion that it "saves time." But a relationship isn't something you can select from a catalog. Sometimes, it develops slowly or unexpectedly. This can happen online, but not on a dating website. Once the interaction is put in the category of dating, the pressure is on. People start evaluating each other with checklists. This doesn't serve men or women well.

I'm acquainted with a recently married couple who met online. They didn't meet on a dating website--they met on a poetry website, where they became friends. Later, they both joined another poetry website, where they wrote poems to each other and also made more friends. Eventually they met in person. They had developed their relationship through sharing their emotions in creative expressions. They had each seen how the other interacted with others on the site. Their creative expressions revealed far more about each of them to the other than would have been possible through the rigid and often silly templates and questionnaires used by many dating websites. When they finally met in person, sparks flew.

Men often believe the biggest risk of online dating is finding out that the woman has lied about her age or weight, thus wasting their time. However, I believe the biggest risk for men in online dating is the loss of self esteem. It's men who do the asking in dating, so it's men who often end up feeling the most rejected. That's why meeting women through more casual ways, such as through shared activities or conversations at social events or even at work (tread carefully) is more natural and less likely to trigger depression, substance abuse relapses or other problems. Getting to know people takes time, but it usually leads to better results.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beyond-don-juan/201107/can-online-dating-make-you-depressed

[SuperDuper! 230]

Great topic, +1

Online dating usually turns into a LOT of work!

Starts out fun, like a kid in a candy store, but most everyone is holding out "just a little bit longer to make sure I'm not missing a better catch."

Yes, it can get depressing and discouraging, and causes some people to get caught in a perpetual limbo of eternal online dating and never a marriage.

One day, ya wake up 5 years older and less physically desired in the online dating market place.

If ya find that someone special in short order, and ya marry and live happily ever after, consider yourself lucky and blessed.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Interesting read. Here's a chart that I posted just the other day in another thread.

Online Dating Is Bigger Than Porn

Men lie about their age, height and income, while women distort the truth about their weight, physical build and age. Though that doesn't appear to stop online daters from marrying much faster than their offline counterparts, especially should the couple in question have met on eHarmony.

http://mashable.com/...ng-infographic/

[Gumbolette 58]

When I read this article, It did ring a bell.

People think that online dating is like "tasting every free taste from a stand in Sam's on a Sunday event", that if you like the product, then buy it and take it home.

But one thing that is not known is that online dating doesn't give you the open field to choice a woman that you think meets all mark on the checklist. Woman are careful too just as you are and the fact that there are not whole lot of options to communicate that simple messages, videocalls maybe and photo sharing or what not; its a lot complicated to take your wallsdown completely from a person whom you feel is like giving you attention that you didn't get from the conventional dating way. The moment that feel that yourself is fully indulged to this manner of meeting people, you raise your qualifications and look for more better mate hoping that there is a better one that at the end of the day, you can merely just pick whoever you want to date seriously. You don't realized is that some of these people you are starting to get to know more is also talking to few others which doing exactly you are concerned of. Weeding out. Then, you're back to square one.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Just curious -- how is domestic online dating (as it appears this article focuses on) any worse or better than the many matchmaking services used by more than a few VJ people?

As an aside, I think the author sounds like a sanctimonious prude who is overly focused on the paired-off, instantly monogamous relationship as the ultimate goal of online dating. I thought this was an odd comment:

In addition, many people use online dating as a way to "test the waters" after a bad break-up; they don't really want romance but want to get back in the habit of going on dates

What exactly is wrong with getting back in the habit of going on dates if you haven't in a while? Are we all expected to go on each and every date with the expectation that our lifetime love match is about to be made? Her interpretation of dating sounds insipid and boring to me.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Can Online Dating Make You Depressed? That depends on what they tell you at the free clinic. After all, it's been said that love is a burning thing.

[TBoneTX 45,288]

What exactly is wrong with getting back in the habit of going on dates if you haven't in a while?

Nothing, if one's stage of "availability" and "readiness" are made very clear. A lot of perfectly nice women who'd been burned one too many times either put themselves on dating sites too early to be "ready or available" for anything, and probably did it to reassure themselves of their desirability. Nothing in their profiles indicated their inner reluctance, and the truth had to be "intuited" from their responses and reactions. Just be up front and quit lying, for crying out loud. (This is from my past experience.)

In addition, online dating used to be much more fruitful in the late 1990s/earlier 2000s, before every loser and his brother got a computer. Women with online profiles would say that they'd receive 25 to 50 messages per day, few of which they could answer, and a lot of them from creeps. Not promising odds if a guy endeavored to separate himself from the pack, because the woman might only scan his message briefly, if she'd even read it at all.

Edited July 4, 2011 by TBoneTX

[thongd4me 69]

I don't know if how I met my wife could be called "online dating" because I went directly to her MSN account and

chatted her up after seeing her membership data (female and Thailand) in an MSN "club" we were both members of.

There was no dating profile or dating-oriented membership, only our MSN accounts to give us access to each other.

We had an online relationship that lasted 7 years before we married.

We met in person after chatting daily for about 14 months.

When I started meeting people online, my rule was that I would chat with anyone and wouldn't discriminate because of

lack of physical attraction, age, race or any other reason that people who meet in person often give for rejecting other people.

The reason for this was my focus was communication, to see what I could learn from other people's life experiences and

learn from others in both good and bad relationships. I was already in a failed marriage and I was willing to admit that the

fault was not solely that of my soon-to-be ex-wife. She had a severe anger problem that was not my fault, but I had been

guilty of enabling this behavior for much too long than I should have.

This being said, why did we succeed while others failed?

On her side, she was very up-front and truthful (you may even say naive, but I wasn't trying to take advantage of that).

On my side, I was painfully shy meeting women in person and I did not know how to manage rejection as well as I should have.

I soon discovered to my delight that rejection online bothered me 0% and if someone didn't want to continue chatting,

there were always tens or hundreds of others willing to take their place. My operative word was "NEXT"...

Before I met my wife, I had literally hundreds of online friends but none that I felt had serious romantic potential.

That also didn't bother me, because I felt I was in a valuable learning process. When I met my wife, I didn't drop all of

my friends immediately, but stopped chatting with them over a few weeks because I chatted with my wife for more and more

time each day and I no longer had time for others.

She was the best communicator of all my online contacts and we discussed absolutely everything with no restrictions.

Another rule of mine was that when I contacted women I would NEVER discuss sex unless they brought up the topic.

I wanted to distance myself from most online men whose focus was overwhelmingly how to have a sexual contact.

I was very popular with other women because I was a good listener as well as one who could share experiences.

All of the above criteria have nothing to do with HOW or WHY we met but rather how we managed our online relationship.

We could have met through a dating agency or online ad but that would not have changed how we ultimately interacted.

You can't really blame the medium, only yourselves for how you use it.

Even though you can't see the other person's "body language" you can often tell if he or she is a fake or poser.

The only thing that it requires is time. If something seems amiss that will often be the case. I remember chatting

with someone for more than a month who painted such a perfect picture of herself that it was hard to believe.

Ultimately I got the truth out of her because when you tell the truth you only have to learn one version but when

you lie you have to remember which parts were true and which parts were made up and it's very hard to keep track.

I felt it was a bonus to have met online because the hormones would not have such a dominant role to play

as when you meet in person. When you meet in person and hit it off, it's often that both are giving the other

party so much slack because they want to end up in the sack first and get to know each other later.

It's my advice to not make showing a photo right away a necessity. When I met my wife we did exchange

photos fairly quickly but neither of us concentrated on looks as much as on communication. When you

give too much weight to physical attraction, you often cut corners in communication. For me the physical

attraction is a yes/no question that must be satisfied, but then it's time to move beyond that because

if two people want to share a life together the issues they have to manage in day to day life take on a

much bigger role than the question of are they attracted or not.

Of the dozens of online dating stories I've heard, most have been negative. I've only known a few happy couples who met on dating websites or through personal ads. But why has something that seemed like such a good idea when it was first invented proved so often to be a disappointment, or worse? Doesn't a dating website allow you to preview possible mates through photos and profiles, cutting down on the possibility of mismatches? To my knowledge, there has been little scientific research done on online dating, so what I'm going to say is based on observation and basic theories of human behavior:

Don't blame "online dating" - it's the individuals involved, same as in real life.

Online dating raises the stakes for rejection, especially for men. When a man goes to a bar and strikes up a conversation with a woman, he knows there's a possibility she has no interest in dating at all. If she rejects him, it's easy for him to say to himself "Maybe this just wasn't the right time." When a man gets rejected by someone on a dating website, he's not likely to make such a rationalization, since the woman has explicitly stated she is looking for dates or a mate.

I absolutely disagree - the stakes for rejection are MUCH lower in online dating - if things don't work out you can always say NEXT...

The idea that in-person rejections are easily rationalized is totally bogus because in-person dating scenarios are IMMEDIATE and PERSONAL.

How can yo get emotional about an apparent rejection by someone (online) that you've never met?

Again, if true that's the individual's fault and not that of the medium.

The beauty of online encounters is that you can keep it polite but regulate how personal you get until you've had more interaction.

Some people easily bounce back from rejection and others don't.

This is true but in my experience, rejection online is a non-event.

It's important to remember that many people join dating websites without really wanting to find a relationship (or even dates)-these sites are full of voyeurs and exhibitionists who only want to view or be viewed by others (perhaps this is why one popular website came up with the advertising slogan "It's Okay to Look"). It's difficult to screen out these people. In addition, many people use online dating as a way to "test the waters" after a bad break-up; they don't really want romance but want to get back in the habit of going on dates, or just want to get out of the house as a distraction from their troubles. (And of course, there are some women who only want to get taken out to dinner at a nice restaurant--which is why I advise men not to take women out to dinner on first dates).

I don't see how it's more or less difficult to sort out the liars and the posers from honest people whether you are in-person or online.

There will be bad apples everywhere and they can't be avoided.

A man who isn't conventionally handsome or doesn't immediately present well for some other reason doesn't have the option on a dating website of first starting a platonic friendship with a woman and seeing where it leads.

What? Nonsense. This goes for both men and women that if you are not 100% attractive in person you have a much better chance of success online.

Many of the women I chatted with were not attractive at all but I felt that if they could communicate well they could be valuable platonic friends.

Sometime a woman who isn't immediately attracted to a man will later fall in love with him, if they spend time together that allows her to see what he's really like.

The nuances and ambiguities that make life interesting are eliminated from online dating, which emphasizes the immediate and the superficial.

Where is this different from in-person encounters? You can be superficial in person very easily.

The attraction of many men to online dating is the notion that it "saves time." But a relationship isn't something you can select from a catalog.

Again, don't blame the medium; people are individually responsible.

Sometimes, it develops slowly or unexpectedly. This can happen online, but not on a dating website. Once the interaction is put in the category of dating, the pressure is on. People start evaluating each other with checklists. This doesn't serve men or women well.

Have you ever been to a bar and seen people tick off their checklists? Car (check) clothes (check) job (check) "equipment" (check).....

I'm acquainted with a recently married couple who met online. They didn't meet on a dating website--they met on a poetry website, where they became friends. Later, they both joined another poetry website, where they wrote poems to each other and also made more friends. Eventually they met in person. They had developed their relationship through sharing their emotions in creative expressions. They had each seen how the other interacted with others on the site. Their creative expressions revealed far more about each of them to the other than would have been possible through the rigid and often silly templates and questionnaires used by many dating websites. When they finally met in person, sparks flew.

Again, it's not what kind of site you met on but what kind of people each of you are.

The site where I met my wife could be considered "questionable" and in fact neither of us had much business being there

as both of us were looking for something different from what was offered there.

Once we met both of us disassociated ourselves from the site.

I think we both misread the mission statement of the "MSN club" but we didn't mis-read each other.

I did go once or twice to online "dating" sites but I kind of ignored the pressure

to make a "match" that was the business of such sites.

I preferred to join interest or focus groups and find out what the people there were saying.

Men often believe the biggest risk of online dating is finding out that the woman has lied about her age or weight, thus wasting their time. However, I believe the biggest risk for men in online dating is the loss of self esteem. It's men who do the asking in dating, so it's men who often end up feeling the most rejected. That's why meeting women through more casual ways, such as through shared activities or conversations at social events or even at work (tread carefully) is more natural and less likely to trigger depression, substance abuse relapses or other problems. Getting to know people takes time, but it usually leads to better results.

Doing the asking and getting rejected doesn't always hurt self-esteem.

It's the SAME territory whether you are in-person or online.

My personal feelings magnified the hurt only when it was in person and I have no logic to explain that.

I chatted so much with my wife before we married that it would be considered to have fitted 30 years of

dates in only 7 years. I don't see how the fact that you meet in person enhances communication. It can

detract from communication, because the hormones come to the forefront. Online, they take a back seat.

Important: Once you meet in person, meet the other person's friends, family & co-workers. You will see

from their interactions with him/her whether he/she is loved or respected or not. If he or she has lots

of problems with people, chances are that after the "honeymoon" they will have the SAME problems

with YOU. That was the due diligence I didn't do when I met my Japanese ex-wife who I met in PERSON,

not online. The sex I was going to get was in the forefront and I didn't stop to consider that she was

dysfunctional with almost all of her family members (and it was not their fault).

I did the due diligence with my Thai wife (5 trips to Thailand over 7 years) and never regretted it.

She was loved and respected by almost everyone and at least respected by those who she had issues with.

My Thai wife took a bigger risk on me because she did NOT meet my friends & family before we married,

but she did get a chance to see how I interacted with her friends & family.

http://www.psycholog...e-you-depressed

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Nothing, if one's stage of "availability" and "readiness" are made very clear. A lot of perfectly nice women who'd been burned one too many times either put themselves on dating sites too early to be "ready or available" for anything, and probably did it to reassure themselves of their desirability. Nothing in their profiles indicated their inner reluctance, and the truth had to be "intuited" from their responses and reactions. Just be up front and quit lying, for crying out loud. (This is from my past experience.)

Much the same can be said of men. I went on a date with a man, who it turned out, had separated from his wife less than a week before we went out. I only found this out halfway through the date. The rest of the time we had together he spent on the verge of tears, telling me how hurt he was. He had no business going out on a date and yet there I was, out with him and wasting three hours of my life. Not to mention all the guys who state they're open to long-term relationships but are clearly only looking for casual sex.

[TBoneTX 45,288]

Not to mention all the guys who state they're open to long-term relationships...

Interestingly, I lost track of the number of women who claimed that they were open to LTRs, but who looked or acted terrified when I stated that I was, too. Fortunately, I thrived on rejection, si man. Maybe they weren't certain of what they wanted, or maybe they were expecting the usual cat-&-mouse game-playing, but I certainly got fed up with it.

In my very first phone conversation with Mrs. T-B.-to-be, she said, in very rusty English, "T-B., whatever happens with us, please promise me one thing: Don't ever lie to me." I knew then that she was very likely The One, si man, and certainly that she was the hemispheric opposite of all the American chicks with whom I'd been singly interacting for nearly 20 years, sigh man.