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 Guest
Editorial:
The Privilege of Looking for Love
by James
Houran, Ph.D.
(June 2006) Reporters often ask me about the advantages
of online versus offline dating. Most of you know these
already from personal experience – the convenience
and safety of exploring romantic prospects from the
privacy of your own home, the ability to expand your
dating pool easily by a factor of 100, a greater sense
of control over the pace in getting to know someone,
and the immense fun in actually getting to know someone
from the inside out (I’m talking personality
and values as opposed to hair and eye color!). If that’s
not enough, new technologies that enhance online and
offline introductions and dating are introduced to
consumers on a daily basis. Yes, online communication
and its boost to the search for love is an unprecedented
social phenomenon. This is clearly an amazing time
in history to be a single looking for love.
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I also want to make
this point – it’s also a privilege to be
able to look for love in this day and age. Let me explain.
I’m a father of three children – 8, 4,
and nearly 2 years old. If you have children like me,
then I don’t need to tell you that they’re
not oblivious to what’s happening around the
world and in our own country. The candid questions
children ask – just like the news report everywhere – soberly
remind us of the wars, natural disasters, severe financial
hardships, political instabilities, and the lack of
basic needs arguably bombard most of the people on
this planet. Multitudes of people don’t have
the luxury of going out with friends, going out on
dates, or even choosing their spouse. We are lucky,
however. Yes, if you’re reading this, then you,
in a very real sense, have won life’s lottery.
You don’t need to be Bill Gates or the Rockefeller
family to have a fortune. We are so spoiled in our
Western culture – from the time we get up to
the time we go to bed, we’ve the luxury of thinking
about how we’ll be entertained next. Think about
that. Speaking to the host of singles out there, you’ve
the luxury of time to ponder love and the power to
do something about it. We’re privileged in that
the Western ideology encourages seeking and finding
love over establishing relationships for purely financial
or aristocratic reasons. Singles here have the rare
opportunity to choose like no other. And yet, too often
I come across singles who simply don’t recognize
their dating opportunities are tremendous privileges.
I encourage everyone who relies on “Online Dating
Magazine” for wise guidance to take this advice:
Treat everything you do in your dating life as a privilege.
Everything. By doing so, you’re likely to enjoy
your search for love more, and in return, get more
out of your search. By perceiving every online “wink,” email,
instant message, and video chat as a privilege; I suspect
you’ll think more rationally and thoughtfully
in how you choose to respond to such overtures. By
acting like every interaction or date you have with
someone online or offline is a privilege, I predict
you’ll become better at judging compatibility
and what qualities you really need in a long-term partner.
Please don’t take dating and the wonderful features
and benefits of online dating for granted. I get many
letters from singles who are anxious because they’ve
not yet found a loving relationship. That apprehension
and pain are certainly real, but I feel those emotions
can be substantially kept in check when we realize
that it’s an amazing privilege just to be able
to search actively for a casual or long-term relationship.
Keep those thoughts in mind if you ever feel down about
your lackluster love life.
We all want love… but you have the privilege
of going after it. Relish that luxury!
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