Before dating...

AOL/MSN

Experienced

Dating by...

Most popular

Religion

Race

Hobbies

Spice

There was a newsgroup called soc.singles. And it was good....and rather wild....and rather unique indeed.

Internet dating started long before the World Wide Web came of age! I should know...I am one of the original net.goddesses from that newsgroup (from the late 1980s). :-)

Netnews (or Usenet, or nowadays, Google News), is a collection of thousands upon thousands of special interest text-oriented groups in which people could share thoughts and ideas.

Back then, soc.singles was the place where single people would gather, so to say, and exchange views on just about anything and everything. Many other social newsgroups existed as well - soc.men, soc.women, soc.motss, etc.

Then one day, a new newsgroup popped up - alt.romance. Because soc.singles had many, how shall I say, flames, this group was dedicated towards romance and getting to know one another. I think this is one of the earliest precursors to what is known as Internet dating today.

Romance was found on other newsgroups, of course. Social culture groups flourished - soc.culture.indian, soc.culture.jewish, soc.culture.china, soc.culture.asian.american, etc. If friendships were struck up via email, who knew where they would lead? (I sure knew - I developed one long-distance friendship and another long-distance relationship that lasted 8 months. Alas, actually meeting the person showed me that even after months of correspondence, real life has quirks simply not addressable in emailed communications. Oh well, it was a very rewarding experience even so).

After the Internet was opened to millions of people via AOL and Compuserve and the like, actual graphical dating sites emerged like Match.com and FriendFinder.com . As you can see, present-day Internet dating is starkly different (and uch more safe!) than times long gone.

Continue to enjoy your visit!

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