Why is there a taboo about Internet dating?

Ever hear the saying "it's a small world"? It's most often used when two people realise they know the same person or in similar circumstances.

However, the saying is starting to change meaning. Thanks to the Internet the world literally has become a small place with people all over the world logging on to chat and share their knowledge in chat rooms or forums. Or indeed on blog sites such as Hub Pages.

Millions of people around the globe log on daily to read their news on-line or to catch up with their favourite bloggers, to post on forums related to their interests, or, increasingly, to see if they can meet someone they'd like to date and possibly have a relationship with.

Previously dating meant being set up by your friends, maybe going out with someone you worked with or trawling the adverts placed in local newspapers, which was often considered "desperate". Sadly, these are the taboos we place on certain methods of dating.

Now though we're in 2010 and in the middle of a massive technological revolution. (I say middle but it may just be the start). With millions of people spending millions of hours on-line it seems only logical that the new way to meet a prospective partner is to join one of the many on line dating sites that spring up almost daily, it seems.

The advantage of on line dating? Well, join sites like Match.com and you'll find you don't just sign up and start trawling through page after page of single men or women, many of whom won't even cause you to give them a second glance. Sites like this ask you to fill out a pretty comprehensive questionnaire that will take more than a few moments to do. They ask some very in depth and often personal questions and it's within the applicants best interests to answer these truthfully because the reason behind it is that the sites database takes this information and then gives you a list of the people it thinks you'd be compatible with based on yours and their answers.

After that it's up to you who from that list you contact. You do pay a fee for the sites services .

Ask the many thousands of people who have found love by Internet what they thought of on line dating sites before they joined one and they'll likely tell you that they thought it was a "desperate" way to find love and that they never told their friends they'd joined because they'd be teased.

That is one reason Internet dating is seen as taboo.  Despite the fact that people use the Internet every day to find out information, to email, phone, play games and work on there is still the idea that using the Internet to find love is "geeky", "desperate" and "sad".

Ever used on-line dating and been told by friends to get out to a club, socialise and meet a man that way? Ever been told you'll never meet a partner by sitting in front of the computer all the time?

Another reason it's taboo is because of the negative press that the Internet gets when it's abused by people who use it to groom children or other illegal activity.

From this the Internet gets it's 'dirty old man' image and that leads many people to believe that anyone who is on the Internet looking for a relationship must be lying about their age, looks, personality and also the reason why they're looking for love.

He's not 24, he'll be a dirty old man of 60 sitting in his underpants pretending to be your age.

Sadly there are cases where teenagers have been fooled by older men into believing they were their own age and in some cases this has not had a happy outcome.

All of this does give people the wrong idea about finding love on the Internet.

First of all, if your idea (or someone you knows idea) of Internet dating is chatting to people on a chat site and arranging to meet up then you need to change that.

In 2008 the UK's 8 million singles went on 24 million first dates and 69% of them were arranged through on-line dating sites. A staggering percentage isn't it? But not a surprising one.

Today's busy life style doesn't allow people enough time to visit pubs and clubs to meet partners and who wants a half drunk stranger slobbering all over you anyway?

If you have a doubtful friend and they're single too then why not join a site like mysinglefriend.com where you and your friend join together and help each other find people to date. Your friend may be surprised how easy it is to find people they might be interested in and how simple it is to contact them and arrange a date.

Don't hide that you're looking for a date on-line and be open about where you're looking. Tell people you're not stupid enough to try to find a date in a chat room but that you've joined a legitimate site. Show them it. Talk them through it, you mind find that you pique their interest more than they'll let on. Especially if you've already had a few dates through the site.

Be harsh if you need to. Friends might still laugh at the fact that you're searching through dating sites for a partner but if you've had any dates from those sites then tell that to your friends. When did they last set you up on a date? Was it successful? Did you only go because they kind of forced you into it? Ten first dates through an Internet site might not have led to a second date but you went because you wanted to.

Talk about it when you meet up with friends. When they ask about your week tell them you had a date with Roger from the Internet dating site you're on. Eventually they'll become more comfortable chatting about it and it won't seem so desperate. Single friends may even be secretly wishing they were going on as many dates as you.

When you finally meet that person on the site who you form a longer relationship with don't hide where you met them. When people ask say that you met on the Internet but don't leave it at that, tell them what site, how you came to be interested in each other.

If people still don't get it then the chances are they never will, but as long as you're happy that's what matters.