YOU HAD
ME @ LOL
ble across a winky-face emoticon
sent to a Twitter crush.
And yet, the popularity of social
dating implies that real connections can be brokered, at least at
the start, virtually.
Though Facebook stalking is
nothing new, the skyrocketing
popularity of niche social networking sites is fueling the rise of
social dating by bringing people
together over a shared interest, rather than a shared desire
to date. Sites such as Instagram,
which grew 17,319 percent be-
SEARCHING
FOR LOVE ON
MATCHMAKING
SITES IS NO MORE
EFFECTIVE THAN
TRYING TO PICK
UP STRANGERS
AT A BAR.
HUFFINGTON
10.14.12
tween July 2011 and 2012, offer
a place to digitally rub shoulders
with like-minded strangers and, in
the course of discovering a mutual
love for Roaring Twenties nostalgia, find Mr. or Mrs. Right.
“As our lives are spent more
online, we date more online, too,”
says Laurie Davis, the founder of
online dating consultancy eFlirt
Expert who met her her fiancé,
also a dating guru, on Twitter.
She notes she has many clients
who are dating online, but choosing to forgo dating sites in favor
of Facebook, Twitter and the like.
“We live a lot of our social lives on
Facebook, Twitter and sites like
that, so since dating is inherently
a part of our social life — it only
seems natural to find love that
way as well.”
Yelp, A Love Story
Four months after Rachel Grier,
38, was engaged to be married,
she walked in on her fiancé with
another woman.
Devastated, Grier “went into
daredevil mode.” She went sky
diving, took pole-dancing lessons, and terrified herself on
roller coasters at places she discovered and reviewed on Yelp, a
customer-review website.