Her friends always remember her saying, "I wish there was a magic button you could press and it would bring out the perfect man for you." Romantic, kind-hearted, but a little hesitant at first contact, Maro, at 30, had been without a relationship for two years. Little did she know that the genie that would soon make her wish come true was hiding in her pants pocket.
It was a year ago, when the first smartphone dating apps had emerged. Maro tried a few. She created a profile with her interests, uploaded a flattering photo, and waited. She had quite a few matches. She met three men before finding Tom, who is British and lives in Greece for work. In his country, dating sites and apps were already extremely popular, so he was more familiar (and liberated) with the subject than the average Greek. They have been together for a year. “It’s exactly what I expected,” Maro tells “K.” “In a way, I knew his stuff before I even met him.”.
Online dating is about as old as the Internet itself. Sotiria and Fontas, for example, married for 15 years, had met in Yahoo chat rooms. Similarly, Stella and Antonis' wedding cake featured, instead of an ornament, the ICQ logo: that's where they had exchanged their first messages. With the advent of social networks, the trend flared up. Many – even if they don't admit it – use Facebook to flirt, our profiles, full of witty remarks and manipulated photos, look like an electronic cry for a match. Online dating applications for mobile phones, such as Tinder, which is making waves abroad, have also stepped on this. It finds your location via GPS, collects data from your Facebook profile, and then displays potential candidates based on your geography and other preferences. Just like on Facebook, you either like or pass.
In Greece, the most popular dating apps are Badoo, Zoosk, Twoo and OkCupid, while everyone is talking about Perfect Date. Michalis met his current girlfriend on this. He is 43, divorced, with one child. “I started going on such sites because on the one hand I wanted to meet a person and on the other hand I wanted to escape from my circle,” he tells “K”. “I went out with many women I met that way, without anything progressing much. Until I found Vasiliki.”.
Incompatible roads
Vasiliki, at 42, with a full professional schedule, was also having trouble finding a partner. “We had both created very careful profiles. We wanted the person who saw it to understand exactly who we were and what we wanted – we didn’t want to play around or find a temporary partner for sex,” says Michalis. “That’s how I kind of singled out Vasiliki. I invited her to chat, she responded, we went out, we saw that our wants matched and the rest is… history.” As he says, under other circumstances these two people would never have met. “The chances of me meeting Vasiliki somewhere were one in a million. We moved in completely different circles, we were involved in completely different things (ed. Michalis is a doctor and Vasiliki works for a multinational). Fortunately, then, online sites exist. "I suggest that those looking for a partner try it out and be creative, courageous, when creating their profile. It is the image they send out and it should be clear at a glance who they are.".
If a few years ago, this kind of personal exposure was rather… absurd, today it is completely exonerated. The intensive rhythms, the crisis, the gloom and the alleged difficulty in flirting face to face (really, who knows people in bars anymore?) are leading more and more people to clearly state that they are looking for a partner. On the occasion of the report, the group discussed it quite a bit. Some for fun, others out of curiosity (and me for that matter) we created profiles on some of the dozens of apps. In the first five minutes, the first messages arrived. "Oh, he's not
Source: kathimerini.gr
