I have gotten really busy again and am courting the idea of a dating service. Not too many single people have the time or energy to hang out at the libraries,laundromats or clubs where the old fashioned etiquette books have always advised us to go to meet the love of our lives. Perhaps that’s why more people than ever are using dating and introduction services.
Using one of these services eliminates the bother of dealing with the modern inconvenience of recovering from a hangover after a long night of waiting around all night in a smoky bar hoping to meet Mr. or Mrs. Right.
Also, using an introduction service is much safer for women. Your best bet is to find a hands-on matchmaking service that screens their male candidates and checks their background for such things as marital status, financial solvency and criminality. Using an introduction service is also much safer than meeting someone through a free dating service on the Internet. Your chances of meeting a jerk through there are just as high as if you had gone into a sleazy bar, as anyone can lie about their history when they submit their personality profiles on-line.
According to a study called Dating and the Internet by Ian Nethercott, more and more of us are becoming disillusioned with such societal ills as alcoholism and infidelity and during the nineties turned to more and more to our computers to find a mate. The failure of the Internet to produce anything but even more illusions about love has renewed singles’ interest in old-fashioned match-making services. I used to think that using an introduction service was an
outrageous idea, that is, until my best friend from high school met her husband.
If you think this is too off-the-wall for you, think about how dating is done in Japan, where men currently pay 20.00 to put their personality profile and phone numbers into a vending machine called The Happy Guy and the women pay $2.00 to retrieve them. Also, in Japan, they are selling a gadget that is worn
around single people’s neck. If the two of you are in the same room, the gadgets beep and communicate with each other to identify your eligibility.
I keep thinking that I might try one of these one day soon. I don’t have a lot of money being younger and all but I was heartened to hear through the grapevine that many of them are free for women. However the ones that usually get people a real mate tend to make both sexes pay through the nose for their services. If you want to believe what these services have to say about themselves paying the extra money is worth it because their success rate is higher.