In today’s world we spend so much time online that it shouldn’t come as a shock that so many people find the love of their life there, too. (Ithmus/Flickr Creative Commons)
In today’s world we spend so much time online that it shouldn’t come as a shock that so many people find the love of their life there, too.
From Tinder to OKCupid, Instagram and even Craigslist; online dating has changed the way people meet their other halves. Along with this comes much skepticism from friends and family, but in the end this is how things are evolving.
Though online dating is lumped together as one concept, every relationship has a different story. Some people are married with children and others are at the beginning of their journey together.
Tinder is the one of the most popular dating apps among college students and has a reputation for being used as a hookup site. With that in mind, plenty of people are in loving and committed relationships with people they happened to meet on Tinder.
Alyssa Varesio, a fourth-semester biology and Spanish double major UConn student, met her boyfriend of one year on Tinder.
“What started as a typical tinder relationship kind of turned into something bigger because I happened to meet someone special,” Varesio said.
Nick Stanton, a fourth-semester music education major at UConn, also met his girlfriend of four and a half months on Tinder. He disclosed that he met her after he went through a tough breakup and simply hit it off.
“We were always in the same buildings and around each other a lot, all it really took was a Tinder swipe to get the ball rolling,” Stanton said.
Birgetta Johnson, a first-semester transfer anthropology major, met her boyfriend on Tinder and will be celebrating their six month anniversary this month. This was not her first time with a Tinder relationship, she said.
Though meeting online can be an amazing experience, it is also dangerous. This is something to keep in mind when pursuing this type of relationship.
Johnson said the biggest advice she’d give to someone in this situation is to make sure you don’t give them your address until you know and trust them.
“You’re getting to know and getting to trust someone you’re unfamiliar with,” Johnson said.
While Tinder is wildly popular with college students, that is not to say online dating didn’t exist prior to that. More popular amongst people in the age bracket of ages 27 to 45 are OKCupid and sometimes even Craigslist.
Elizabeth Conley-Cooper, special events coordinator for the Town of York Maine Parks and Recreation Department, met her husband in 2013 on OKCupid. She has been married to her husband for three years and has a baby on the way!
Conley-Cooper talked about how she became involved with the online dating scene, which inevitably lead her to meet her husband.
“He was crazy busy and I had zero interest in the bar scene,” Conley-Cooper said.
Mary-Beth Polt, mom of three children, met her husband on Craigslist. Polt said she was divorced from her child Devon’s father when she met her current husband, who had his son Gage. She said they were instant best friends. They had a baby girl, Violet, together and were married shortly after.
Polt said she took a risk on his Craigslist ad when she first moved out of Connecticut to South Carolina. When she saw the ad that indicated a single father, she went for it.
“I saw the most romantic little blurb, a single dad looking for someone to get to know better,” Polt said.
Online dating is all about communicating what you want with the people you talk to, which is usually how you approach any romantic interaction. Tinder can lead you to the love of your life, but sometimes things don’t work out.
Karina Sorrels, a graduate student at Newcastle University, opened up about her past relationship from Tinder. She said she was in a long distance relationship with someone she met on Tinder and they even got engaged, but they called it off due to mental health and timing reasons.
“I found the love of my life on it (Tinder) too. Even though it ended, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world,” Sorrels said.
Madison Appleby is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at madison.appleby@uconn.edu.
