It's a little-known fact that 116 percent of all couples now meet online-or at least that is what the over-eager dude on the eHarmony commercial wants you to think.
Realistically, a study funded by eHarmony, found that about one-third of marriages started online. To which, I say whoopee-doooo for them.
No really. I think it is freaking fantastic if people meet online and find their forever matches. Love can be an elusive little devil, and if someone can find it sifting through hundreds of eligible 20-somethings that is some glorious pixelated fate.
But I'm realizing, personally, Internet matchmaking just doesn't do it for me. So I'm telling that eHarmony dude to shove it and officially quitting online dating.
I'm not just some one-bad-online-date-and-I-quit girl. I gave it a fair shot. I've been online dating on-and-off since the somewhat regrettable decision to write a blog series about it back in 2011. Back then, I started on Match.com, mainly just to see what was out there. Then I transitioned to OKCupid because-let's be honest-it's free, and filled with the "artistic" types I was looking for. And eventually I found myself on Tinder with a sore right thumb. Throughout my journey, I met some lovely people, some terrible people, but mostly just a lot of not-for-me people.
All the dating did was wear me out. All the almost-not-quites, all the ghosting, all the "let's bone" introduction messages; it was exhausting. Perhaps that's enough of a reason to quit in and of itself: After 4 years, online dating isn't fun anymore.
And yet I kept online dating, because I am actually pretty good it. It became a game. I learned the rules and I was batting pretty well, even helping write my friends' profiles and perfecting their Web selves.
The thing about online dating is that I only have to make someone like the
That's why I decided it's time to quit. Online dating became a game of scoring those validation points, a distraction from the truly difficult task of actually trying to connect with someone. That's a process that takes far more time, wine and expressing all of those vulnerable emotions without the help of emoticons.
Looking over my dating past, my favorite people have been those I didn't meet online-people I met through accidental blind dates or at parties I didn't intend to go to. They were people I wasn't trying to win, people who I was myself around because I didn't have a screen between us to alter who I was.
I'm not saying all people should quit online dating. There are a ton of smart, hot, charming, interesting, awesome people who met their partners online and are having a smashing good go of it. There also are people who are far better at staying true to themselves online. But for me online dating became a performance, something that took me farther away from who I am. And the farther I got from myself, the less likely I am to find the person for me.
I know the prescriptive advice to people who want to quit online dating tends to be just "stick with it," but there are other options for finding love-perhaps the best of which is just living your life and giving up the game. If we all make only one resolution this year, it should be to be truer to ourselves, however that looks. For me, 2015 is about being less pixelated and more present.
Niki Fritz is a RedEye special contributor.