The story broke just before lunch one Thursday afternoon this past October. Gawker, the popular Manhattan media blog, had uncovered someone so heinous - or as they put it, a "mindbogglingly douchey douchebag"- that they dubbed him "The Worst Person in the World." Within hours, John Fitzgerald Page's crime had been disseminated so widely and grown to such heights of infamy that he was being harassed, ridiculed and judged by millions of strangers hailing from the farthest reaches of the Internet. He received over 1,000 hate e-mails, including threats of physical violence and one angry person's declaration that they'd sooner hang out with Hitler or Stalin than spend time with him.
But he wasn't a murderer, rapist or even, God forbid, a plagiarist; no, Page, the object of such massive vitriol, was a "nightmare online dater."
Page, who received his BA from the College in 1990 and an MBA from Wharton in 1991, began his descent into notoriety by receiving a wink - the rough equivalent of a Facebook poke - on Match.com. After responding to his admirer with an overly confident e-mail, she rescinded her original flirtation and told him she was no longer interested. He then sent her the e-mail read 'round the world. "I think you forget how this works," he wrote. "You hit on me, and therefore have to impress ME and pass MY criteria and standards - not vice versa. 6 pictures of just your head and your inability to answer a simple question lets me know one thing. You are not in shape."
He continued, "So next time you meet a guy of my caliber, instead of trying to turn it around, just get to the gym!" He then offered her a free personal training session so she wouldn't "blow it" with the next guy who could lay claim to what Page assumed to be astounding attributes - "8.9 on Hot or Not, Ivy League grad, Mensa member [sic], can bench/squat/leg press over 1200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense [sic], has an MBA from the top school in the country . [and] drives a Beemer convertible"- before closing with a not-so-subtle barb, "Oh, that is right, there aren't any more of those!"
Page's story, which was picked up by everyone from small Australian newspapers to CNN, is interesting for more than just astonishing lack of tact exhibited by Page - it represents a widespread shift in the way the public views online dating. Rather than being a cautionary tale about some fringe Internet subculture, the Page debacle was billed as an unfortunate horror story in an otherwise viable love market.
A decade ago, online dating may have seemed like a last resort: an outlet for the antisocial and the unattractive. But as more and more people began to use online services, the social stigma decreased, according to a recent study by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. Even college students and recent grads (many of whom have thriving social lives and are surrounded by their young, attractive and accomplished peers) are using the Internet to find love.
Eleven percent of American adults have used an online dating service, the Pew report says. And 74 percent "have used the Internet in one way or another to further their romantic interests" - anything from what we traditionally think of as "online dating" to flirting via instant messenger to checking out a potential hook-up on Facebook.
"It's all part of the same spectrum," said Nathan Ensmenger, undergraduate chair of Penn's Science, Technology and Society Department. "More people are comfortable with using the Internet for some form of dating experience, even if that doesn't go as far as Match.com."
College students, who have grown up using the Internet, are accustomed to conducting their day-to-day dealings online, through e-mails, instant messaging and Facebook (not to mention other social-networking sites). It is therefore perhaps not that difficult to understand why young people also turn to the Internet to find a mate.
"Like most things Internet-related, people are starting to weave them into their lives," Ensmenger said. "Many people would say 'Of course,' that it's just part of the pattern of how young people interact and of course it will extend to dating."
What's more, many college students and young professionals feel they are too busy to spend time hitting on a potential love interest in a bar or trying to catch the attention of the person on the next treadmill over at the gym. Online dating is increasingly seen as an easy way to pre-screen dates and streamline the process.
"People are much more likely [now] to use online dating to screen and set up an in-person date," Ensmenger said. "It's just another filter."
Nevertheless, the majority of the Penn community still gets the job done the old-fashioned way, through meeting people at parties and bars or through classes, extracurricular activities or mutual friends. But some students have found this kind of relationship success difficult on campus.
College senior Jodie* met her current boyfriend through JDate, the most popular Jewish singles site with 575,000 members. It was founded five years ago.
"It was the best 30 bucks I ever spent," she said. Less than a week after buying a month-long membership to the site, she and her boyfriend exchanged a few instant messages and e-mails, and then went on their first date over winter break. The rest is history.
"It was [during] finals, so I didn't mind spending an hour clicking, clicking, clicking," she said. "Just another way to procrastinate. Who wouldn't rather be looking for love than reviewing notes?"
Jodie was initially attracted to JDate because she was searching for a Jewish mate. By using the site, she was assured that everyone she was considering met her most important criterion, a feat that is not so easy in a face-to-face setting. "I'm Jewish and I didn't really want to date anyone who wasn't," she said. "It's like pre-screening. That might sound a little cold and [it] doesn't appeal to the romantic in me. If there are a couple things that must be there. that's not necessarily something that comes up at a bar or on the first date."
In addition, she said she is planning on working in New York after graduation and wasn't looking to start anything with anyone in Philadelphia. Online dating seemed like the easiest way to meet men in New York without having to trek to Manhattan every weekend.
Jodie said that by dating online, she was able to discern what she did or did not like about various guys before having to meet them in person, which eliminates the chance of being unpleasantly surprised during a face-to-face encounter.
"I'm not a big bar person," she said. "You talk to someone in a bar and then they go out and smoke a cigarette - that's a deal breaker." Sites like JDate offer a convenient way to find out the important things beforehand, and "it made the first couple minutes of [in-person] conversation much easier," knowing each other's basic habits and preferences and having chatted a few times beforehand.
It is not unusual to be interested in people who match a certain "social demographic," Ensmenger said. For this reason, a growing number of niche-market sites allow Ivy Leaguers to select graduates of other elite institutions. Sites like GoodGenes.com require proof of a degree from one of the schools on their "in list" before allowing a potential member to join.
Jodie said she isn't sure if her successful experience is typical of online dating. Her current boyfriend was her first in-person date from an online service. "Obviously, I'm very satisfied," she said. "I feel very, very lucky. we wouldn't have met without the site."
Other people, like John Fitzgerald Page, haven't been as fortunate.
Page has used Match.com, the web's most popular dating site and the source of his Internet infamy, for several years as a way of meeting women without having to search them out. He does not initiate contact on the site, but instead lets women hit on him first, he said. "I work 80 hours a week, so I don't have time to go trolling bars for girls," he said, "And I wouldn't want to meet my girlfriend in a bar anyway."
Unlike his enthusiastic legion of detractors, Page feels he was justified in the aggressive response to his onetime admirer due to the very format of the Web site. "When I date, I get to set my standards," Page said. "On Internet dating, people that are trying to hide something crop to their head. My criteria is height-weight proportional to get into the ballpark. Then I rate on education and intelligence."
Page said the whole debacle ensued simply because the woman was unattractive, proven by the fact that she cropped to her head in her photo. When he asked her about her fitness, "she looked down, she gulped and she tried to turn it on me," he said. "This is why I know it's true. If she were hot, she'd be in Playboy; she'd be on the cover of Vogue; she'd be all over the news." He thinks the response he's received since Gawker published the story is more the fault of media sensationalism rather than his own wrongdoing. "I'm like, you want to fight me because I blew off a fat chick on Match.com?"
Though Page may have handled the situation in an unorthodox manner, it's true that one of the pitfalls of online dating is that daters never know what they are going to get. Though they are encouraged to be honest in their profiles - after all, the goal is to eventually meet in person and develop a relationship - there is always the possibility that they are not getting the real story.
Page had a couple of bad experiences with online dates, and said he now has to "throw up the gauntlet"- exactly, he said, what he was doing in the now-famous e-mail.
"It could happen to anyone," he warned. "The point is, it's other people's interpretation of your accomplishments that makes them pissed. If you're going to the sperm bank, who are you picking? People are jealous."
Despite it all, Page, like Jodie, sees online dating as an easy way to filter potential matches without investing too much time. "If I'm at a party and I get a beautiful girl's number, then I get one number. If I'm on Match.com and people are looking at my profile while I'm at the party, then that increases my chances," he said. "I'm a numbers guy. I went to Penn. so, you know, I like my numbers."
Ultimately, an online profile is a condensed version of the stats that make a person who he is, though some sites have more rigorous requirements than others. According to Jodie, online dating shares certain similarities with the real-life, hit-or-miss methods of searching for love. "It's like any other method of dating - sometimes you're successful and sometimes you're not," she said. And in the long run, dating sites will remind you that it's the personal interaction that's going to decide any relationship, no matter how you get there in the first place.
*Name has been changed.
