I. Introduction

The romance of a lifetime may be just a click away, but before internet daters boot up and log on they must first climb over a wall of negative stereotypes associated with the activity of finding love through computer mediated communication.

James Katz, a professor of communication at Rutgers University, maintained in an article with USA Today that these stereotypes exist primarily because ‘in the beginning online dating was really quite geeky and was seen as a way for losers to meet other losers’ (as cited in Kornblum, 2003, para. 8). This assumption, based on archaic prototypes of internet daters from the early electronic age, is coupled with what Rufus Griscom, CEO of online dating site Nerve.com, calls our culture’s psychological investment in the idea that ‘love is serendipitous – that it happens haphazardly’ (as cited in Kornblum, 2003, para. 150). What results from the combination of these ideas is first the perception that those who date online are desperate, ‘lonely or socially inadequate’ creatures that would be otherwise incapable of finding love without using the computer ‘as the last resort’ (Duck & Wood, 1995, p. 207), and secondly, that internet dating sites serve as ‘a public bazaar for the sort of people who thrive on selling themselves’ (Egan, 2003, p. 68), sometimes to the point of deception and false self-presentation.

Stereotypes aside, ‘with more than 40 percent of the population being single’ (Forrester, 2003), and Jupiter Research studies showing that ‘online dating sites attract about 20 percent of the internet population’ (Kornblum, 2003, para. 11), clearly not all of these people can be called losers. Trish McDermott, VP of Romance for internet dating industry leader Match.com, argues that they are just the opposite: “Demographic information tells us that [these] people . . . are college-educated, intelligent, highly functioning in terms of their ability to navigate both in terms of communication and technology.” (Hecht, n.d. para. 7).

How did internet dating move from its origins as a meeting ground for the socially inept into what Katz calls ‘a viable and even pleasant alternative to the other ways’ of meeting people (as cited in Kornblum, 2003, para. 8)? In her New York Times Sunday Magazine article ‘Love in the Time of No Time’ (2003), journalist Jennifer Egan posited that ‘for a more secular and mobile population’ the diminishment of the importance of ‘social institutions like churches and clubs’ and ‘the rise in sexual harassment suits’ at work leaves ‘little more than the bar scene as a source of potential mates’ (Egan, 2003, p. 68). Additionally, Egan (2003) argued that because ‘the first generation of kids to come of age on the internet are now young [and mostly single] adults’ (p. 68), they see ‘using the internet to find what they need [to be] as natural as using a lung to suck in air’ (p. 68). Egan summed up this generation’s use of online resources as a means to a tangible end with the statement: “They get jobs and apartments and plane tickets online – why not dates?” (p. 68).

The purposes of this qualitative interpersonal communications research project were many. First and foremost, we wanted to examine the prevailing stereotypes associated with internet dating and the expression of these stereotypes to internet daters. Through the lens of attribution theories, or ‘those theories concerned with how the average person infers the cause(s) of social behavior’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 161), we looked at stereotype formation and how preconceived notions about internet daters related to our subjects’ own attributions of their personal motivations to date online. Secondly, we sought to examine our subjects’ stigma consciousness, or ‘how likely they [were] to expect that others [would] stereotype them’ (Myers, 2002, p. 362), and the principles of face-work, or the ‘effort spent in presenting face to others’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 181), involved in our subjects’ disclosure or concealment to others of their internet dating practices or formation of a serious relationship of online origin. Thirdly, we looked at the way in which our subjects affectively and behaviorally reacted to known others dating online before they themselves had dated online. We wanted to compare our subjects’ initial reactions to others to the feedback they later received when disclosing internet dating practices or online relationship formation to people in their lives. We hoped this would give us some insight into the relationship between stereotypic differentiation, or the degree of congruence that is seen between an individual and a stereotyped group, and positive or negative evaluation of online dating behavior. Furthermore, we hoped to examine our subjects’ perceptions about the advantages and disadvantages of internet dating as they compare to normative dating methods and the interpersonal communication principles involved in self-presentation and relationship formation.

II. Methodology

Before we began our research a considerable amount of thought was put into the choice of research topic and question, examination of our own biases, operationalization of key concepts, sample design, interview design, execution of interviews and post-interview data analysis.

We chose to study internet dating because not only was this topic interesting to us, it was also personal. As more and more people turn each day to electronic methods in order to establish romantic connections, both research partners can say that more than six years ago we were two of the earliest pioneers of the internet dating movement. Our own personal successes with meeting long-term partners via computer personals prompted us to look into the experiences of others who shared our enthusiasm for dating online.

While the topic of internet dating presents numerous interesting questions for research, we decided to ask, “What are the stereotypes associated with internet dating and how are those stigmas expressed to internet daters?”

In choosing this research question, we followed the advice of communication scholars Guerrero and Hecht in The Nonverbal Communication Reader (1999). Although our topic does not focus solely on nonverbal communication, we felt clearly Guerrero and Hecht’s four tests of topic importance were applicable to interpersonal communication interpersonal.

In order to tell if a research topic is worthwhile, Guerrero and Hecht (1999) point out that other ‘researchers [should] agree that it is a good topic’ (p. 27). Although there is very little academic research on stigmas associated with internet dating, we believe this is likely due to the relative newness of the practice rather than institutional indifference. Secondly, a good research question should ‘advance theory’ and be able to be ‘applie[d] to different kinds of relationships’ (Guerrero & Hecht, 1999, p. 28). The findings of our research have the potential to advance theory on the expression of negative preconceptions about other stigmatized groups, for about example interracial, intergenerational, homosexual and polyamorous couples. Thirdly, a good research question should have heuristic value, meaning the ‘study will lead to other interesting questions for research’ (Guerrero & Hecht, 1999, p. 28). Our topic has high heuristic value in that other questions we considered, such as the examination of the online identity formation process or the stages of relationship development in online, could present valuable ideas for other research projects. Lastly, a good research topic should be applicable in ‘the “real world” so that the answers to [its] questions can help [people] become better communicators’ (Guerrero & Hecht, 1999, p. 28). Our topic is applicable to real world settings because real people in the real world are using the internet to form real relationships.

After we decided our research topic was worthwhile under Guerrero and Hecht’s four tests, we sought to root out some of our own biases and expectations about the subject of internet dating. Both of us have had first-hand experience with people who expressed the opinion that internet dating is for desperate people or those who are just looking for sex. We expected our subjects would have had similar experiences. We also expected our subjects to be honest and forthcoming about their internet dating experiences.

Once our biases and expectations were acknowledged, we set out to conceptualize, or ‘come to an agreement about what terms mean’ (Babbie, 2004, p. 120), some terms that would be relevant in later determining our sample and the wording of our interview questions. Most importantly, we had to define ‘internet dater.’ For the purposes of our research, an internet dater is anyone who has intentionally used the internet as a means to form a romantic connection. By using the word ‘intentionally,’ we omit people who accidentally found love online, for example a pair of Star Trek memorabilia collectors who met on eBay while browsing for common interest collectables. Furthermore, an online dater must have expressed intimacy readiness by posting his or her profile on an internet dating website. This online expression of a need for intimacy, or what D. P. McAdams calls a ‘readiness for experiences of close, warm and communicative exchange with others . . . that is seen by the interactants as an end in itself, rather than a means to another end’ (Trenholn & Jensen, 2004, p. 208), does not include those people who posted a profile which stated that they were looking for friends, activity partners or networking. While we understand that love is found on the Information Superhighway in a variety of ways, for the purposes of our research internet daters are people who have expressed that they are single, available and looking for romance.

Next we struggled with the attempt to define the rather messy term ‘stigma.’ Similar to a stereotype, or ‘a set of beliefs about the probable behavior of members of a particular group’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 145), for the purposes of this research a stigma is defined as a commonly held negative assumption about a group of people because of their common characteristics or behaviors.

In defining our sample frame we sought Portland-area heterosexual internet daters over the age of 21 who had at one time used, or are currently using, the internet as a means for finding a date. We chose to omit lesbian and gay internet daters not out of prejudice, but for the sake of data consistency. We are of the opinion that homosexual couples experience their own separate set of stigmas apart from those experienced by internet daters. We did not want a spurious relationship, or ‘a coincidental correlation between two variables shown to be caused by some third variable’ (Babbie, 2004, p. 91), to result from inclusion of homosexual internet daters in our sample. We left out minors from our sample frame because, while they do have the chance of meeting a date through work, school, friends or family, online daters under the age of 21 do not have access to ‘the bar scene as a source for potential mates’ (Egan, 2003, p. 68). We wanted our sample to have access to all the traditional or normative modes of finding a date.

To find our subjects we relied on the non-probability methods of reliance on available subjects – or convenience sampling - followed by snowball sampling, or ‘a method often employed in field research whereby each person interviewed may be asked to suggest additional people for interviewing’ (Babbie, 2004, p. 184). Through this method we were able to interview six men and five women who fit our subject criteria. Subjects’ age ranged from early 20s to mid-40s. All subjects were college-educated Caucasians. Subjects’ internet dating experience ranged from less than two months to more than two years. Some subjects had met more than 25 potential mates through electronic means and others as few as one. With the exception of one deviant case, all subjects characterized their internet dating experience as good.

After selecting our sample of internet daters and conceptualizing our most basic terms, we had to operationalize those terms within the constructs of our interview format. We grouped our questions into three distinct and chronological categories with segues in between (see Appendix A). We designed an introduction to explain briefly who we were, what we were studying and what our subjects’ role in our research would be. We followed that by a quick overview of the three sections of the interview.

The first seven open-ended questions focused on how our subjects felt about internet daters before they had themselves dated online. Questions in this interview set addressed subjects’ opinions about generalized online daters as well as their perceptions and affective and behavioral reactions to a known others’ online dating practices.

The second set of questions was designed to collect data on several topics pertinent to our research. We wanted to know what factors motivated our subjects to date online, what they saw as the advantages and disadvantages of internet dating, whether or not they told people in their lives they were dating online and how those people reacted verbally and nonverbally. Additionally, these questions probed into our subjects’ motivation for disclosure or concealment of online dating practices as well as general background on the depth and breadth of their online dating experiences.

The last segment of our interview was based on how others reacted if our subjects had established a serious, lasting romantic relationship with someone they met online or how they thought those people would react in a hypothetical situation if a serious relationship was established. We also asked our subjects to recall their motivations for the disclosure or concealment of the online origin of their relationship. We then brought the interview to conclusion by asking our subjects what sort of misconceptions they felt still existed about people who date online and if they had anything else to add on the topic of internet dating.

These interviews took place over the course of six days at locations of convenience for the subjects, be it at school, their homes, their place of employment, a coffee shop or at a bar. Interviewers dressed ‘in a fashion similar to that of the people [they were] interviewing’ and tried to be ‘relaxed and friendly without being too casual or clingy’ (Babbie, 2004, p. 264-265). All interviews were tape-recorded with permission of the subject and later transcribed in their entirety. As suggested by Earl Babbie in ‘The Practice of Social Research,’ during transcription ‘no attempt [was] made to summarize, paraphrase or correct bad grammar’ (Babbie, 2004, p. 265), except for that which was on the part of the interviewer. Real names were originally transcribed into the interviews and later changed to protect the subjects’ identity before publication.

III. Analysis

After interview transcription was complete we analyzed our data by first reading through the transcripts and underlining common themes and looking for patterns and discrepancies in our subjects’ responses. Secondly, we evaluated our outside literature from magazine, newspaper and journal articles as well as our class text to find the corresponding communication theories to which these patterns related.

Next we organized our findings into data analysis sheets based on the grouping of our interview questions. We looked at subjects’ preconceptions about internet daters, subjects’ motivations to date online, subjects’ reaction to known others dating online, reactions of others to subjects’ online dating practices, subjects’ reasons for disclosure or concealment of online dating practices, reactions or anticipated reactions of others to subjects’ formation of a serious relationship of online origin and lastly, subjects’ reasons for disclosure of concealment of the formation of a serious relationship of online origin. Other themes not directly related to our research question also arose within our data analysis. These included subjects’ opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of internet dating, stigmas associated with normative dating practices and the primacy effect in online dating experiences.

IV. Discussion of Findings

Results summarized in finding no. 1 of Appendix B show that subjects’ preconceptions about internet daters before they dated online themselves support the personality bias towards others, or the ‘most common’ attribution bias ‘to explain other people’s behaviors in terms of their personality dispositions’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 163). Myers (2002) describes this bias as the ‘tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others’ behavior’ (p. 84). In their evaluation of internet daters’ motivations to date online as a result of loneliness and social incompetence, sexual desires, deceitful tendencies, or demographical and physical inadequacies, our subjects put this bias into action.

Subjects described internet daters as ‘desperate . . . lonely . . . in need of affection and attention’ (Sam), or ‘very shy, very quiet [and] perhaps not sociable’ (Maria). Online daters were seen as people who ‘were too intimidated by real life’ (David) to ‘meet people on their own face-to-face’ (Joe). Instead our subjects thought they used the internet as ‘kind of a crutch’ (David) or ‘last resort’ when they are at ‘their wits end’ (Sam). Internet dating was seen by Kayla, who at one time worked for a dating service that tried to dissuade its clients from dating online, as ‘a desperate measure for desperate people.’

In addition to these statements that address internet daters’ communication incompetence, a stereotype was also maintained by our subjects that internet dating is for ‘perverts’ (Kayla), ‘bad seedy pedophile[s] going after teenage girls’ (Annie), or other people ‘looking for someone to satisfy their fetish’ (Sam). Subjects also expressed concern that online daters hid their real identities behind the computer screen for the purposes of deception and manipulation. Dick said, “You don’t know who you’re talking to on there. Maybe this person is the stalker type? You just don’t know who’s out there.” Jennifer echoed his fear in the comment: “People lie on there and you just don’t know, you know?”

In spite of the fact that most of our subjects were under the age of thirty, of moderate to high attractiveness and only one had been previously married, before they dated online our subjects thought online daters were all ‘middle-aged people or divorcees’ (Sam) who ‘weren’t attractive enough to say hi to someone’ (Joe). David thought the average internet dater would be ‘someone with a lot of baggage’ and Sarah assumed online dating was ‘a practice thing that people do to kind of warm up for getting back out into the real world again after relationships have ended.’ Sam ‘never really thought people that were attractive did it’ and Kayla said, “In my head [internet daters] were probably overweight.” John thought internet dating was for ‘fat ugly girls and computer geeks.” Apparently not only did our subjects make inferences about the internal dispositions of internet daters, but also about their demographical and physical characteristics.

Even the two statements we coded as situational attributions could be perceived in a different light as disposition-based. Sam thought that internet daters were ‘people who have sort of limited social outlets,’ and Maria said it was her assumptions that internet daters were ‘probably not professional.’ She added that, “I guess my notions were that if you had your life together and you had things going well in your life, [then] you’d be able to date without going to the internet” (Maria). In a society that so strongly values the importance of a rewarding profession, regardless of economic factors, to call someone unprofessional could be interpreted as an attack on their character.

Results summarized in finding no. 2 of Appendix B showed the exact opposite attribution process took place when our subjects were asked to elaborate on their own motivations to date online. In line with the situational bias towards self, or what Grove (1991) describes as our tendency to perceive our own behaviors ‘to be more of a function of numerous external or situational factors’ (p. 45), our subjects saw their decision to test the online dating waves as a direct result of environmental or social situations. Only two subjects noted internal dispositions as a motivating factor for dating online. Additionally, the highly deviant case and another slightly deviant case attributed the impetus to date online to other factors.

Newness to a geographical area and the feeling that school and work arenas are not conducive to dating were the most prominent environmental situational factors contributing to our subjects’ decision to date online. After moving to Portland from another state Dick said he didn’t know ‘a single person’ and that he figured dating online would be ‘a way to meet people that [he] wouldn’t have ordinarily been able to meet.’ Because he moved around so frequently for the last ten years of his life, Sam said he found it ‘difficult in certain cities to meet people.’ Sam started dating through personals ads in Seattle before moving to Portland and on to the internet. He said the geographical climate of the Pacific Northwest contributed to his inability to find romance: “The weather is colder and it’s not quite as friendly” (Sam). Joe, a bar-owner, said he felt he had restrictions on how he could meet people because he ‘[couldn’t] meet them at work and as a full-time student and full-time office employee, Kayla said her school and work environments made it virtually impossible to date:

I don’t know where else I would meet people to date. In school and in classes it’s like you’re in class. It’s not like a social get-to-know-you scene. You’re there to learn and you have ten minutes between class and then you go home . . . At work everyone is way older than I am, so really, my options for meeting people are pretty slim.

In addition to these environmental situational factors, subjects cited other social situational factors in their motivations to date online. One social situational factor included constraints of a small, tightly-knit social circle in which all available singles have been previously dated or all desirable members of the circle are already coupled. Matt said, “I had dated all of my single friends . . . and I ran out of a dating pool,” and his long-term internet partner Maria agreed that at the time when she met Matt on Nerve.com her small circle of friends ‘wasn’t getting any larger’ and that she ‘had come to [a] stalemate in [her] social life where [she] knew people that [she] knew and never got outside of that.’ John said that because all of his friends were girls, his options to ‘go out and go to shows and go to bars and sort of be two single guys out on the town’ were limited.

Another prominent social situational factor that motivated many of our subjects to date online was the fact that many of their friends were already using the internet to find dates and so subjects were encouraged – or often forced – to try it too. Jennifer said her friends’ relentless attempts to get her to join hybrid dating-networking sites like Friendster.com and Myspace.com were initially ignored. She said, “It wasn’t something I was just like open-armed and eager to do, you know? And then after they bugged me forever I was like, ‘Okay, fine. I’ll join this. I’ll join that.’ And then it started” (Jennifer). Other subjects started dating online after a close friend experienced success with the practice. Joe said because his roommate ‘seemed to have a great time’ and ‘the Friendster thing seemed like a really benign way to sort of start internet dating, he figured, “Oh, I guess I’ll roll the dice, too.”

In addition to the largely situational factors subjects cited for dating online, three subjects did offer internal dispositional explanations for their decision. Sam said he ‘was somebody who never dated all that much prior to this’ and that ‘trying to meet people in traditional ways’ was frustrating. Even though she now has several dates a week with respondents to her Myspace.com profile, Kayla said, “If I go out to a bar I’m not the kind of person who is going to pick up [on someone] or be picked up on,” and Maria jokingly said that she was ‘kind of shy and pathetic.’

Our two opposing deviant cases also offered other interesting explanations for dating online. Annie, our positive deviant, said that she had always been ‘curious about it’ and that she thought ‘it was fascinating.’ Before dating online she said, “I used to read the personal ads at work – not for myself – but to be fascinated by how people could meet . . . after only a few lines,” and she started dating online because she ‘just thought it’s a neat way to meet people’ (Annie). The reason Sarah, our negative deviant, began dating online was even more divergent from the norm:

Well, the guy I was seeing thought it would be a really good idea [for me]. He said, “You know what? You should date other people and I might date other people because we’re not meeting each others’ needs.” I was like, “Okay.” So I thought I would try to rise to the challenge and I went online and I filled out a profile . . . It was purely to spite my lover – or to please him – I don’t know. It was sick and weird.

Trenholm and Jensen (2004) said that this situational bias towards self happens for several reasons (p. 163-164). First, ‘in the case of negative behavior, blaming it on the situation can serve as an excuse or justification for that behavior’ (Trenholm & Jensen, p. 163-164). Second, ‘we simply have more information about our own past and present experience than an observer would’ (Trenholm & Jensen, p. 164). Maria is a case in point. A tall, physically fit, blonde-haired, blue-eyed attractive professional in her early 20s, she is for all intents and purposes the quintessential ideal of American beauty. Before moving to Portland Maria said, “I never had any trouble getting a date, you know? I had to like beat guys off.” There are no apparent physical or superficial reasons for Maria to hide behind a computer screen, however she said that because she ‘didn’t really have anything going on in [her] life that would put [her] in contact with the people who were interested in the things [she] was interested in’ the internet became a viable forum for her to connect with others (Maria). In summary, because internet dating is still seen as a negative behavior by those perpetuating the stereotypes, our subjects justified their actions with situational explanations or they ‘reference[d] the situation as a cause of [the] behavior’ because they have the personal information that others do not (Trenholm & Jensen, p. 164).

Our next pair of findings showed first, that subjects’ affective and cognitive reactions to known others’ online dating practices varied depending upon the perceived stereotypic differentiation of the known other, and second, that subjects’ verbal and nonverbal reactions to known others’ online dating practices varied depending upon both the perceived stereotypic differentiation and the relationship to the known other, relate to the fundamental attribution error, cognitive dissonance theories and the principles of role competence.

In order examine our subjects’ relationship to known others who used the internet to find romance - as opposed to internet daters in general – and its relationship to the positive and negative reactions our subjects expressed to the known other’s dating practices, we had to first categorize these relationships. In our sample, three subjects had never known another online dater before dating online, four subjects had either an acquaintance or a friend of a friend who dated online and four subjects had a close friend who dated online.

We also found that our subjects’ reactions – both emotive and cognitive as well as verbal and nonverbal – differed depending upon the depth and breadth of our subjects’ relationship to the known other and our subjects inference of stereotype divergence or congruence for the known other. The cognitive process behind this finding is similar to Hewstone and Wilder’s (1989 & 1996) model for attribution and stereotype change (Myers, 2002, p. 369), but since it is not identical, we modified the process to fit our needs. We found that our subjects first compared the known other’s past behaviors to existing stereotypes and then found either congruence or divergence. Once a match or mismatch was decided upon, subjects experienced negative or positive emotions or thoughts with regards to the known other’s online dating practices. Then based on the subject’s inference of stereotype congruence or divergence, the subject either expressed or suppressed negative or positive verbal or nonverbal response in a manner socially appropriate with their role in relation to the known other.

First we looked at instances where the known other was an acquaintance of a distant friend. For example, Matt’s best friend had a friend who married a woman from the internet after two brief meetings. Matt described the male known other as ‘somebody with no social skills . . . who couldn’t get a date’ and the woman as ‘single mom’ and ‘a gold-digger.’ This is a case where little stereotype differentiation exists. Matt said, “I just thought it was so weird. It was strange. I was really disturbed by it . . . it just didn’t seem possible that that could happen in reality.” So while his emotional and cognitive responses to the situation were negative, Matt did not express those sentiments to the friend of his friend because that would not have been socially appropriate for their distant relationship.

In Jennifer’s situation, the known others were patrons of the bar where she worked so she had not much information from which to infer stereotypic differentiation. When patrons discussed their internet dating practices with Jennifer she ‘kind of turned [her] nose up at it . . . and didn’t think positively about it.’ Although it may or may not have been socially appropriate given her role in the interaction, Jennifer expressed these negative sentiments. She said, “Maybe I was a little snobby about it . . . I felt there was another way to go about it,” and offered to introduce her patrons to people so they wouldn’t have to look for love online. Kayla, on the other hand, was actually required by her professional role at the dating service to dissuade clients against dating online:
We would say, ‘How do you know the person you are talking to is really who they say they are? They have the safety of being behind a computer screen far from where you are. You can’t trust it.’

In cases where the known other was a close friend, subjects also engaged in the same cognitive processes before expressing their opinions. For example, Joe said he was ‘sort of surprised’ when his ‘attractive, confident [and] strong-willed’ roommate started dating online. While ‘it didn’t make any sense’ to Joe that his roommate who did not fit the stereotype was dating online, he did not react negatively but instead became ‘curious’ and inquisitive as to ‘how it went.’ This was a case of negative stereotype congruence, the positive cognitive response of curiosity and the positive verbal expression of interest.

David’s case, on the other hand, was one of negative stereotype congruence, negative cognitive response and negative expressions of verbal and nonverbal disapproval. David said, “The person I knew was extroverted anyway and . . . didn’t have trouble meeting people . . . so it seemed kind of just silly for him to do . . . almost a little bit sleazy.” David said he teased his friend and ‘probably shook [his] head a lot [and] just kind of laughed at it’ while posing questions like, “What exactly are you looking for in these people that you find online? Do they end up being quality people? Or just flingy people?”

Sarah’s situation is similar. When someone with whom Sarah had ‘a strong friendship’ with decided that she ‘had to go online to find someone to make a baby with’ in a year, Sarah said this knowledge made her ‘depressed’ and she thought ‘it was kind of creepy.’ Because Sarah described her close friend as ‘a beautiful, intelligent, well-funded woman who has a lot of friends,’ this is a case where high stereotypic differentiation exists. Sarah reacted negatively by teasing her friend about ‘going down the list’ of potential sperm donors but said that, “[while] I teased her about it [I did so] in a loving way because I care about her.”

John’s case is the only situation in which there was a high degree of stereotype congruence, negative emotional and cognitive reactions but no expression of those sentiments. One of John’s best friends met a single mother over the internet who was seven years his senior and she moved across the country with her child to live with him after only a few months of electronic communication. John said, “He built my computer out of like two coconuts and like some wiring . . . the guy is a genius . . . but he’s not that, um, confident with the ladies.” Although John said he ‘wouldn’t have expected [his friend] to meet anybody in his everyday life,’ he saw the relationship as ‘completely preposterous’ and ‘crazy.’ Regardless of these feelings, because John described him as ‘very, very introverted with . . . girls and stuff like that,’ he said he ‘didn’t pry too much’ or let his negative appraisal of the relationship to be known.

In summary, these narratives speak to our ‘tendency to explain others’ behaviors in a manner consistent with our expectancies’ and our tendency to cast favorable judgment if a person ‘behaves in ways consistent with how we thought he or she would act’ (Guerrero & Hecht, 1999, p. 389). It also relates to the experience of cognitive dissonance, or ‘the tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions’ (Myers, 2002, p. 148). When subjects perceived high stereotypic differentiation they reacted with curiosity, disapproval or disbelief because ‘we tend to presume that others are the way they act’ (Myers, 2002, p. 85), and these known others were behaved in a manner inconsistent with our subjects’ expectations. Furthermore, the expression of negative thought and feelings to the known other relates to communication role competence, or ‘the ability to take on social roles and to know what is appropriate behavior given these roles’ and the insight to know ‘when and how to maintain or violate social norms’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 12).

After evaluating our subjects’ attitudes about general online daters and their behaviors towards known others for online dating practices, we looked into the reactions of others to our subjects’ disclosure of online dating practices and formation of relationships with an online origin as well as our subjects’ motivation to disclose or conceal this information. While our findings do strongly support an attribution bias towards groups that results in group polarization between online daters and people on the other side of the digital divide, we also discovered that even those on the other side of the digital divide tend to be more accepting of a relationship formed online than they are of online dating practices in general.

The reactions of others to our subjects’ disclosure of online dating practices almost exactly mirrored the responses our subjects had to the known others’ disclosure of online dating practices. Teasing and humor characterized by laughing, rolling eyes, jokes, innuendos and labeling comments such as, “So, how’s your Friendster girl?” (David), were the most prevalent response. Second most common were expressions of direct disapproval such as negative judgments, suspicion, leeriness, and ‘some serious change in tone’ (Sam). Subjects reported statements and expressions of curiosity and interest, such as inquisitive questioning or sentiments of jealousy, in equal numbers as statements of support and positivity. Only one subject, our negative deviant case, noted that her friends expressed sympathy.

Results summarized in finding no. 5 of Appendix B showed that our subjects’ primary motivation for disclosure or concealment of internet dating practices was to further social bonding. Although he did not tell his parents because they ‘have never been privileged to anything that goes on in my life,’ John characterized best the human desire to share when he said, “I guess there is sort of a primordial feature to tell your friends what is going on in your life.” Many subjects also disclosed their internet dating practices for the purposes of involving others in hybrid dating-networking sites like Friendster.com and Myspace.com. Kayla said, “I invited all my friends and they invited all of their friends and before I knew it I had like 400,000 people in my personal network.” Both David and Sarah expressed enjoyment for reveling in the miseries of their online dating experiences. David said, “I have no trouble including all of the details when I talk to my friends – even if they’re like humiliating,” and Sarah echoed this sentiment with the statement: “I had some horrible stories from my experiences [and] I felt the need to share them with people who actually knew me.” These testimonials support the finding by Rosenfeld and Kendrick (1984) that ‘the most frequent reason for self-disclosing to friends was relationship maintenance and enhancement’ (Parrot, 1997, p. 320).

The second most prevalent motivations for disclosure were prodding by others and general indifference. Many times after subjects started dating frequently, friends and family would begin to ask questions. Kayla described her ‘friends and family [as] really nosey,’ and Jennifer said, “[Once] I started going on a lot of dates . . . it just needed an explanation.” Examples of indifference included statements like, “It didn’t really matter to me” (Sam), and, “It just didn’t seem like a big deal” (Annie).

Results summarized in finding no. 6 in Appendix B showed that reasons for concealment of internet dating practices were largely motivated by a fear of stigmatization and in one instance a reluctance to explain the complicated nature of Friendter.com to family members who would not ‘completely understand’ (David). Most subjects’ who opted to conceal said it was because they were initially embarrassed to date online. Dick said, “It’s not something that you really brag about,” because he didn’t ‘think there [was] a very good association that goes along with’ internet dating. Maria thought that ‘either people wouldn’t agree or they would think less of [her].”

Subjects’ motivation to conceal the origin of a serious online relationship was a direct result of the same fear of stigmatization that kept them from disclosing their earlier internet dating practices. Dick said he hasn’t ‘really touched on the subject’ of how he and his long-term girlfriend met, and both Matt and Maria lied at a family reunion when asked about the origin of their relationship. Maria said, “He and I just froze up and lied, ‘Um, we met at the grocery store.’ [We] totally made something up and lied about it.’” While Maria has told most of her friends, Matt said:

I lied about it for, oh, six months. [I said], ‘We met at her frame shop,’ or, ‘We met at Starbucks.’ I made up all these stories. I don’t think anyone in my family knows. Well, maybe one of my brothers, I don’t know. Because part of me is raised by all these upright Baptists – judgmental people – I just hate being judged on a sort of subconscious level. So I didn’t want to be judged.

Others’ responses to the origin of our subjects’ relationships were not overwhelmingly positive, but they were decidedly more so than the responses of others’ to our subjects’ disclosure of general online dating practices summarized in finding no. 4 of Appendix B. Support and enthusiasm were the most prevalent responses. Maria said her ‘friends were excited’ that she met Matt on the internet ‘as opposed to [if they had] never met,’ and Matt said: “Most people that found out that we met through the internet were surprised more in a way of, ‘Oh? Well you seem like such a good, strong couple?’ . . . rather than [being] shocked or disturbed.” Sam said his parents, who usually frown upon his internet dating practices, were excited to meet his girlfriend and that ‘once they realized this person was pretty special’ to him ‘the fact that [they] met online was pretty irrelevant.’ Although Sarah did not have a single positive online dating experience, let alone establish a serious relationship online, she anticipated that if she ‘met someone over the internet that was worth dating’ her friends ‘would be thrilled.’ She said: “If he’s not an asshole he’s not an asshole.”

In spite of these positive reactions, both male and female subjects reported that concern and skepticism was also expressed. Maria said her mother was initially ‘concerned about [her] safety’ and that a number of people warned her about Matt with statements like, “Oh, watch out. Just wait until you find out whatever is hidden,” and, “Oh, watch out. You’re just going to get used and abused.” Dick said his mother warned him to be ‘very cautious’ and he suspected that she thought he ‘was going to be hacked up by one of these girls [he has] talked to on the internet.’ Although Kayla, David, Sarah, Jennifer and Annie all said their friends were or would be indifferent to the origin of their relationship, Matt, Maria, Sam and Dick all suspected that their families would have reacted more approvingly had they met their partners through other normative dating strategies.

These findings which result from others’ responses to subjects’ online dating practices and subjects’ reasons for disclosure or concealment of those practices are vaguely suggestive of attribution bias toward groups and the group polarization that occurs within inclusive online dating networks. Additional support for these biases and the creation of an ‘us versus them’ mentality are found not only in our subjects’ rationalization for their friends’ and family members’ reactions, but also in the role the primacy effect plays in online dating experience expectancies and the stereotypes some of our subjects seem to have formed about non-electronic dating practices.

Generational issues coupled with the digital divide, acted as polarizing factors in subjects’ rationalizations of their friends, and more commonly their families, negative reactions to online dating practices. Sam said his family’s disapproval was ‘clearly a generational thing’ since ‘they don’t keep up with technology’ and that internet dating is ‘a very foreign concept to them.’ John said his brother thinks the girl he met online ‘is weird’ but rationalizes his brothers’ evaluation with the statement: “But he is computer illiterate.” Maria said she doubted Matt’s parents, who are in their late 60s, ‘would be able to understand what went on . . . much less agree with it,’ and David didn’t even bother explaining his internet dating practices to his parents because ‘the computer world isn’t a place where [his] family’ does much communicating. Myers (2002) said this generation gap may develop because ‘the attitudes older people adopted . . . persist largely unchanged’ and ‘because these attitudes are different from those being adopted by young people today’ (p. 263).

Because most of our subjects – the major exception being one of the deviant cases – had positive first experiences with internet dating, the primacy effect, or ‘the tendency for first impressions to be lasting ones’ (Trenholm & Jensen, 2004, p. 157), becomes apparent. Sam said because ‘his first few experiences went really well’ he ‘kept on doing it,’ and David also continued with his internet dating practices because ‘the first girl [he] met was really cute and cool.’ Both Matt and Maria maintained that if they ever broke up, they would both go back to the internet in search of love. Jennifer’s testimonial to the importance of first impressions is the most powerful example of the primacy effect in action:

I’d say the first person I went on a date with was the one I felt like I had the most chemistry with so it kind of hooked me. I still kind of long for that person, it’s kind of odd. The first person I met was just kind of the kick start to get the ball rolling. So maybe what also got me hooked was, ‘Well, can everyone be this great?’

Although Jennifer said she later ‘realized they all aren’t’ as great as her first encounter, when ‘like-minded people associate increasingly with one another’ Myers (2002) argued that their shared tendencies are amplified (p. 303) and they often engage in what Janis (1971) calls groupthink, or ‘the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action’ (as cited in Myers, 2002, p. 309). Group members often ‘suppress dissent in the interests of group harmony’ (Myers, 2002, p. 307), or ‘through rationalization discount challenges by collectively justifying their decisions and holding a stereotyped view of [the] opponent’ (Myers, 2002, p. 310).

This process of groupthink can be seen in our subjects’ statements pertaining to their opinions that online dating practices are actually preferable to normative dating strategies and a few subjects’ projections that the stigma will actually shift away from online dating and towards more serendipitous love affairs in the near future.

Sam sees the ‘energy wasting time’ involved in trying ‘to meet people in the traditional ways like going out to a bar or getting set up’ as something he can now ‘bypass . . . and meet so many great people’ online. Matt agreed that ‘the standard ways of meeting people’ are ‘very flawed’ and ‘not necessarily effective or good or producing of a certain amount of lasting relationships.’ Maria said that when she tells people she met someone at a bar they are ‘always quick to judge’ with statements like, “You tramp.” David said that there are ‘definite drawbacks’ to the way he usually meets women ‘at a bar or a party’ because ‘alcohol is always involved.’ He added that, “[if] I met a girl at a bar while I was drunk . . . [others] would probably not think much of the girl” (David). He echoed Maria’s perception of a negative stereotype against bar romances: “I’ve kind of got that from friends before, like if I met a girl [at a bar] and it doesn’t work out the right way they’re like, ‘Well, what do you expect? Look where you met her.’”

In addition to these statements about normative dating drawbacks and Annie’s opinion that online dating ‘seemed like a natural progression . . . from meeting people in the bar scene,’ more extreme projections for the future of online dating can be found in our subjects’ responses. For instance, Dick sees that ‘the mainstream idea of this notion’ that online dating sites serve as ‘a valuable resource’ is slowly coming around to ‘general consensus.’ Matt’s projections are even more grandiose:

I just think that there’s a graph that you could probably draw of people’s perceptions and how they’ve changed from the mid 90s when these sites first started appearing and the way it is now and the way it will be in ten years. I think that . . . it will skew . . . the amount of people that meet via electronic means like that will go up and the amount of people who meet other ways will go down as electronic media becomes more and more a part of our lives. Our time is limited and our standards are higher in a way, right? You’re not just going to settle for the three sad girls that live in your population 100 town that are not married yet, right? You’re going to have the whole world . . . Everything is possible and I think as time goes on social stigmas will switch. That’s just my theory.

There may be statistical support for Matt’s theory. An Ipsos-Reid (2003) study on internet dating trends found that ‘52 percent of Americans think that people have a better or at least equal chance of meeting someone online than at a singles bar’ and that ‘four-in-ten think that a relationship initiated online has a better or equal chance of success than one initiated in a singles bar.’ Additionally, Laura Ahearn, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, told USA Today that ‘people are replacing and supplementing the conversations they used to have in bars and clubs with online interactions’ (as cited in McCarthy, 2003, para. 4). Perhaps Matt is correct and the paradigm is shifting.

To briefly summarize the results of our research, we found; first, that our subjects’ engaged in the personality bias towards others when explaining others’ motivations for dating online; secondly, our subjects used the situational bias towards self when overwhelmingly rationalizing their own motives for dating online as due to external factors; thirdly, that our subjects had to first determine stereotype convergence or deviance of known others before reacting cognitively and emotionally and then choose how to react verbally and nonverbally to the known other’s online dating practices based on the social expectations determined by the relationship; lastly we found that the group-serving bias is prevalent both in others’ reactions to our subjects’ online dating practices and formation of serious online relationships and in our subjects’ rationalization of those reactions, as well as in their formation of normative dating stigmas and projections of the future of online dating.

V. Strengths, Weaknesses and Heuristic Value

The strengths of our study can be found in our research question choice, our parts of our methodology and in our well-supported results and their relationship to accepted theories within the study of communication and sociology.

We believe our topic choice is a indication of the future of communication research. Both timeliness of the topic coupled with the fact that very little academic research exists on understudied relationships, such as those formed or maintained through electronic communication, merits attention as a primary strength of our research. As our society becomes increasingly dependent upon electronic forms of communication, communications scholars will have no choice to give the topic the attention it surely deserves.

Strengths in our methodology can be found both in our interview design, interview process and data analysis. Our interview yielded highly rich qualitative data with just about every question asked. By tape-recording and transcribing these interviews in their entirety we were able to quote this data exactly without sacrificing the necessary attention to nonverbal cues. Although data analysis was an arduous task - which is still not complete in the areas of additional findings – it was an invaluable experience in terms of the insight it offered the researchers and hopefully our readers. It was through this in-depth process of data analysis that we were able to let our conclusions stand on what we feel is fairly solid ground even given our small sample size.

Unfortunately, the weaknesses of our study lie in these same areas. While our topic choice did indeed provide us with a wealth of information, we are of the opinion that perhaps we bit off a bit more than we could chew with our research question and the implications of our findings. Other weaknesses in methodology include our reliance on available subjects who, coincidentally, almost all shared strikingly similar demographic characteristics and online dating experiences. Our interview design also had weaknesses. While all questions were pertinent, some were more so than others, and other questions begged to be asked. For example, the “Did you perceive this known other to match the stereotype you previously held about internet daters?” If we had asked this question we would not have had to infer stereotypic differentiation, which was sometime unclear, because subjects would have explicitly told us their opinion. Additionally, questions like, “Why do you think they reacted that way?” with regards to others’ reactions to subjects’ disclosure of internet dating practices or relationship origin would have better served to show attribution theories. Also, rather than conclude the interview with, “Now that you have dated online, what stereotypes do you think still exist about online daters?” it would have better served our purposes to ask subjects to tell us their opinions about the future of online dating and whether or not they see these stereotypes diminishing over time.

While our transcription of interviews was indeed thorough and accurate to the degree of human error, regrettably, due to inexperience, pauses were coded as ellipses instead of in parenthesis in the original transcripts. These ellipses were omitted in the final draft but not in our data analysis sheets. This meant whenever an ellipse was found on an easy-reference data analysis sheet, we had to go back to the original transcript to determine if it was a subject pause or the researchers’ omission of words in data analysis.

Also regrettable, due to time and page number constraints – which we have already grossly exceeded, we were unable to synthesis into our paper our subjects’ perceptions about the advantages and disadvantages of the online dating experience. Our data suggests that these advantages and disadvantages form parallel sets in the areas of online selection process, presentation of self through the intentional use of words and images, and the relationship development stages of online intimacy. Although we were not able to flesh these findings out in our paper, we believe that herein lays the strongest heuristic value of our research.

VI. Conclusion

In spite of the fact that more than 40 million Americans visited at least one dating site last August (Egan, 2003, p. 66), stereotypes still prevail about those who use the Information Superhighway to get on the fast track to love. The words desperate and lonely, socially inept, geeky and introverted are often used to describe the typical online dater, regardless of environmental and social situations that may motivate his or her behavior to date online.

Melanie Angermann, VP of marketing at Match.com, told USA Today that part of America’s refusal to accept online dating methods as a viable matchmaking tool comes from the fact that it is ‘the opposite of everything we’ve learned in fairy tales – that love is all about serendipity and fate’ (as cited in McCarthy, 2003, para. 10). By browsing for love online we are circumventing fate through an active process and the expression of intimacy readiness to people outside of our normal dating proximities. However, Egan (2003) argued that ‘serendipitous love as a romantic ideal [does indeed] involves the unlikely collisions that result from thousands of strangers with discrete histories overlapping briefly in time and space’ but that ‘online dating is not the opposite of this approach to love, but it’s radical extension’ (p. 68).

Radical extension of serendipitous love or not, through our research we were able to see not only the relationship between these stereotypes and the reality of the online dating experience, but we were also able to gain valuable insight into the future of internet dating, an industry that is growing at an astronomical rate as stereotypes steadily diminish. As they say, ‘the future is now’ and right now Americans are looking for love at first byte.



Appendix A – Interview Questions

For the first few questions we will ask you to try to think back to how you felt before you began dating online.

Before you dated online, how did you feel about other people who dated online?
What were some of your preconceived notions about these people?
How would you have described the average online dater?
Did you know anyone who personally who had dated online?
Tell us what you thought about that person?
How did you react to them when they told you they were dating online?
Do you remember how it made you feel?

Now that we have some idea how you felt about online daters before you were one yourself, we would like you to try and remember how you felt when you first started dating online.

Why did you finally decide to date online?
What do you see as some of the advantages and disadvantages of dating online?
How long have you used the internet as a means for finding a date?
Did you tell people in your life you were using the internet do find dates?
Why or why not?
Can you recall their reactions?
What were their facial expressions, body language, voice tone and word choice?
How many people have you spoken to electronically?
How many of those did you make contact with by phone?
Of those, how many did you meet for a date?
Did you establish a lasting relationship with any of these people?

The last group of questions deals with how you expressed or would express he origin of your relationship to people close to you.

At what point did you or would you introduce your partner to your friends and family?
Did you or would you tell your friends and family how you met?
Before the introduction?
During?
After?
Or not at all?
Why did you choose to disclose or conceal how you met your partner?
How did your friends and family react?
Do you think they would have reacted any differently had you two met elsewhere?
What sort of misconceptions do you think exist about people who date online?
Is there anything else you would like to add?



Appendix B – Summary of Findings
1. Before dating online, subjects attributed general online daters’ motivations to date online primarily to dispositional factors (N=49) compared to situational ones (N=2) and subjects attributed general online daters’ motivations to date online largely to loneliness or social incompetence (N=21), sexual motivations (N=9), demographical reasons (N=8), a desire to deceive or manipulate (N=6), or physical unattractiveness (N= 5).

2. Subjects’ attributed their own motivations to date online primarily to situational factors (N=20), compared to internal dispositions (N=3) or other outside factors (N=2) and subjects’ explained their situational motivations for dating online as a result of a physical environment (N=10) or a social environment (N=10) that prohibited normative dating strategies.

3. Subjects’ affective and cognitive reactions to known others’ online dating practices varied depending upon the perceived stereotypic differentiation of the known other and subjects’ verbal and nonverbal reactions to known others’ online dating practices varied depending upon both the perceived stereotypic differentiation and the relationship to the known other.

4. Reactions of others to subjects’ disclosure of online dating practices ranged from teasing and humor (N=9) to direct disapproval (N=8), to positivism (N=6) and curiosity or interest (N=6), to sympathy (N=1) and response or anticipated response of others to the subjects’ relationship origin were almost equally split between support or enthusiasm (N=9) and concern or skepticism (N=8), followed by indifference (N=4).

5. Subjects’ primary reason for disclosure to others of their internet dating practices was social bonding (N=12), followed by prodding by others (N=5) and general indifference (N=5), whereas subjects’ were motivated to disclose the origin of the relationship because of humor (N=3) or honesty (N=1).

6. Subjects’ primary reason for concealment of internet dating practices was the fear of stigmatization (N=6), followed by complication of explanation (N=1), and three subjects concealed the origin of their online relationships for the same reasons.

7. Subjects’ first or collective earliest impressions of online dating foreshadow their impression of future online interactions until contrary evidence presents itself (N=8) and subjects’ form stereotypes about normative dating practices (N=6) and project that the stigmas will eventually shift away from internet dating and towards more traditional methods of finding love (N=2).



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