If there is one thing the internet is good at, it’s diversity. Space is virtual, countries have little to no barriers, anonymity is still relatively easy if you want it to be, and social conventions are subtly but importantly altered. The internet is a void where every niche and secret passion can find a home.
If there’s one thing humankind is good at, it’s copulating. Sure, we like to pretend that dating and sex is an awkward ritual of missteps, punctured silences and stalkers, but when it comes down to the basic need to get the freaky on with someone else, the vast majority of us are way better at it than we give ourselves credit for.
Combine the internet and randy people and you have a potent concoction capable of mounting hideous offence upon the senses. Whereas any dating agency that wishes to stay in business in the real world needs to cater for as mainstream a crowd as possible, on the internet such rules of business can be thrown out of the window like an unwanted lovechild in favour of illiciting the most base instincts of the online mob. For instance, who would dare present themselves in person to meet a woman behind bars?. Incarcerated women all over America are ‘looking for relationships. Many of them have been abandoned by their friends, and families and they desire contact with the outside world.’ They are also likely looking for your wallet or purse, or a lesbian so butch she could pass for Dolph Lundgren. The website also looks like it’s been designed on the back of a fag packet, with a crayon, in the rain, and the woman gracing the front page screams trailer trash louder than a b-movie victim.
Not what you had in mind when she said ‘want to come back to my place?’
Still, at least it attempts to keep the romance going. ScientificMatch forgoes old school notions of courting, seduction and basic instincts in favour of DNA matching you to a compatible partner. Advantages of this method of dating include loving the ‘natural body fragrance’ of your matched partner, less chance of women cheating on their partners and potential offspring having boosted immune systems. In other words, you’ll be more likely to put up with the bank vault destroying body odour because you forked out a ridiculous amount of money to get your DNA catalogued, you’ll be less likely to cheat or be the victim of cheating because you’ll still be making repayments on the countless mismatched dinner dates this DNA malarkey has cost you, and your children will be mutants.
Better mutant than mental? No Longer Lonely would disagree. ‘We are a welcoming community that understands the trials and pitfalls of managing a mental illness. Find friends or seek romantic relationships knowing that everyone on this site has some form of mental illness.’ Now, this writer’s not one to discriminate, but questions do natural arise. For instance, do you get matched according to the type of illness you have? That would surely only exacerbate the situation. Perhaps you get matched for complementary illnesses, though it’s hard to know how such classifications would be made. Maybe, and this is going out on a massive, thick limb - it’s not a good idea. Just maybe.
Wow, his DNA looks really handsome.
While we’re on the subject of bad ideas, it’s worth dwelling on Ostomates for a while. It’s ‘an online community for people with ostomies and related surgeries.’ Extraordinary. In case you’re not a doctor, ostomies are ‘surgical procedures that create artificial openings for the elimination of bodily wastes’, as in colostomy. It’s so difficult to know how to respond. On the plus side, there would be no lull in conversation. On the minus side, you’re both going to be carrying around bags of human waste. This is not to mock those who have had to go through the procedure, rather to suggest that it might be possible to date someone and fall in love with them because they don’t have a problem with it, as opposed to dating someone just because they happen to have a bypassed colon just like you.
At least the Ostomates can hold their heads high knowing that they are not users of (ADULT SITE ALERT, NSFW) The DailyDiaper. ‘DailyDiapers is the internets premiere FREE community for Adult Babies, Diaper Lovers, Big Kids, Mommies and Daddies featuring over 14,500 FREE photos of diapered women, men and couples; Plus stories, diaper reviews, videos, personal ads, message boards, polls and so much more!’ Wow. There’s bringing together niche nodes of society, and then there’s building a website devoted to matching couples based on the fact that they like to dress as babies. Now, not sure what side of the paedophile divide these people land on, or whether notions of division, sanity or even everyday perception occur to any of these individuals of more than a monthly basis. All we can be sure of is it’s not going in the bookmarks menu.
It says posse.
DailyDiaper dials into a somewhat skewed facet of society. Yet, in some ways, it’s not as shocking as probably the strangest dating site in existence, The Atlasphere. This online network brings together admirers of author Ayn Rand. It’s rumoured that all dates between couples matched by Atlasphere last for about four days and seem to say the same thing over and over again, though that could just be rumour. How many people do you think use this site for dating? Pick a number. Now double it. Nope, still short. Over 10,000 wildly obsessive Rand lovers attempt to find the partner of their dreams in a website that should surely be shut down for human rights reasons when you think of how many poor dating puns can be crafted from a name like Rand. Having said that, you are likely to find that the person you meet is wearing a proper pair of pants.
