ne of the most popular aspects of the Internet is the way it brings people who would never have met each other together.  People can hook up from across the country or the world, old friends can keep in touch, dates can be made... and psychos from your past can hunt you down and kill you if you happen to have your real name online anywhere.

Since I met my future wife online, when she found my website and mailed me about it (the site, not marriage, we didn't go that fast) I have a natural interest in this subject. This article page archives blog entries about people who met online, for good or for ill.

Newer stories are added at the top.

July 1, 2003

Interesting article on the exploding popularity of online dating. It's a nicely-done article, with some good analogies. A quote; I like the first paragraph here:

As it did for book buying and auctioning used toys, the Internet reduces the transaction costs of meeting romantic prospects. With pictures, long essays, sometimes even videos and a cut-to-the-chase etiquette that encourages pointed questions in e-mail messages. Singles say they can learn far more about potential partners online than they can by sizing them up across a crowded room or wringing information from a friend.

"The traditional institutionalized means for getting people together are not working as well as they did previously," said Norval Glenn, a sociology professor at the University of Texas. "There's a need for something new and the Internet is filling that need."

Two or three decades ago, most American couples met in high school or college, Professor Glenn said. But as more people choose to marry later in life, few social institutions have arisen to replace the role that local communities, families and schools once played.

Internet dating may finally be stepping into that breach.

When even my dad is considering trying out some Internet dating, you know it's gone mainstream.

Actually that's not entirely fair, he has a degree in Engineering and worked for IBM for 25 years and has been using a computer daily since long before I could make that claim, plus he's online every day. True, he's online via AOL, which hardly counts, but it beats your average corn farmer from Nebraska.  And yes, he's thinking about trying some online dating, since he's not meeting anyone fresh and interesting in his current circles, and especially with me 1) meeting someone, and 2) moving away, he's looking for more social activities.

I've always said he should just get a trophy wife and be happily-ridiculous. He could afford it.  But I think he wants a real woman who will love him and all of that sappy stuff I don't didn't used to believe in. I wish him luck; I'd like to see him happy with a partner.  Having one of my own does that to you, I'm noticing.  I used to never care or give a thought to other people being happy in their relationships or lives.  Now I still don't care 99% of the time, but I do at least take notice of their misery, so as to more directly compare my own glee to it, and thereby feel even happier.

April 9, 2003

Amazing blog story about a guy who was all deeply into romance with a new female friend, and found out, via posting about her on his blog, that she was a complete imposter, saving him from major theft and head fucking.

December 30, 2002

This sort of thing worries me.

His stepdaughter, Amy Boyer, was 20 when she was shot to death Oct. 15, 1999, by a former high school classmate, Liam Youens, who had paid an Internet information broker to track her down.

Boyer and Youens graduated from Nashua High School in 1997. Though her family says she never knew him, Youens had an obsession for Boyer that went back to junior high. The infatuation was chronicled on a Web site where Youens described his murder plot in gruesome detail.

"I don't love her anymore, I wish I did but I don't," he wrote. "I wish I could have killed her in Highschool (sic). I need to kill her so I can transport myself back into highschool. I need to stop her from having a life."

Youens paid Docusearch Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla., about $150 to get Boyer's Social Security number and other information, including her work address.

A few weeks later, Youens pulled alongside Boyer's car after she left her job at a dental office and shot her 11 times, before killing himself.

Fortunately I have absolutely no personal information available online, so I'm safe.

August 31, 2002

I joke about "my future wife" from time to time here (and in real life) but I've never really given it any serious thought, which you have probably already figured out due to the words "Nicole Kidman" usually appearing in the same or an immediately adjacent sentence.  I've even joked about meeting my future wife through this blog/live journal/thing, and had a dream about that once.  Well, I don't think the dream actually progressed to white dresses and a chapel, but it was on that track.  I bring this up since a blogger actually did meet a woman through his blog, and they actually are going to get married.  You can read about it here; it's a nice little story.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.