Love, Unplugged

The Jakarta Post -- WEEKENDER   |  Thu, 01/29/2009 7:40 PM  |  Trends

In a time when hugs and kisses are reduced to tiny emoticons, the search for love has become easier – if not more sporadic. All around the world, Internet users are falling in and out of love as romance takes over cyberspace and creates a web of “odd couples”. Maggie Tiojakin observes the trend.


"How does one find love online?” asks Timothy Carik, 34, a legal officer at a multinational company based in Central Jakarta, via instant messenger on a Tuesday afternoon.

Tall, attractive and available, “Timo” refuses to join friends and relatives who have all suggested he start looking for Ms. Right with the help of an online dating service. “How does one find any real relationship, online?”

It’s hard to say, but it happens. A lot. In the past year alone, Yahoo Personals and Match.com (the two leading online dating service providers) have catered to 9.3 million people worldwide, who not only believe they can find love online but are willing to pay a monthly fee in that quest.

Santi Rifansyah is a 32-year-old public notary who regularly logs onto Match.com “just in case someone interesting pops up”. Santi, who is divorced, says the odds of finding her true love in cyberspace are probably better than in “the real world”.

“I think the days to be skeptical about [online dating] are over,” she says. “People create strong, personal bonds through these sites. It’s not a pastime thing, anymore. It’s actually working.”

But Santi herself claims to have no expectations.

“Honestly, it’s best not to expect anything,” she elaborates. “My friends tell me I’ll know when I know, so I’ll just keep at it until I meet ‘the one’.”

An online or Internet dating service works in several ways; the most popular system is not unlike the personals published by local newspapers. Applicants fill out a questionnaire, provide a current photo and write a short self-description. Commercial services will usually report back to applicants every 24 hours with the lists of matches, while free services will leave the applicants to do most of the work.

Nyla Aruan is a 29-year-old customer service officer for a major international bank. Three years ago, she met her husband, Mark, through the eHarmony online dating service. Mark, an Australian interior design contractor, is, Nyla says, everything she had been looking for.

“I created an account with [eHarmony] because the friend of a friend had recommended it to me,” Nyla says. “He met his girlfriend on the site, and I thought, ‘Why not?’ The next thing I knew, there was a message from Mark.”

For three weeks, Nyla and Mark emailed each other almost every day. Then they transferred to international calls. After two months, Mark decided to visit Nyla in Jakarta. In less than a year, they were engaged. And, to their surprise, not one of their family members or friends tried to discourage them from going ahead with the wedding.

“My mother is an old-fashioned woman,” says Nyla. “I kind of thought she would try to stop me from marrying Mark because of the way we met, but she didn’t. She was just glad I found someone.”

Testimonials such as Nyla’s are what draw millions of single men and women to online dating services in the hope of finding what she has found: a soul mate. Over the years, matchmaking services have grown significantly both online and off. New dating systems are quickly getting a foothold to become the next trendsetters. Social networks are expanding, reaching distant shores, and making it possible for people of different backgrounds and continents to share something meaningful with each other.

With the invention of the Internet and the rise of dotcom enterprises, it was only a matter of time before someone saw the opportunity to sell the world’s biggest sales commodity: love. If Hollywood could turn it into a cash machine, one blockbuster hit after another, there was absolutely no reason why the “new technology” couldn’t.

Putra Lukito, 30, an insurance sales agent, is married to a Brazilian woman, Catarina, whom he met in 2001 on mIRC (a Microsoft-based chatroom). Their meeting is something he prefers to call “unprecedented”. He had no intention of looking for a relationship when visiting the chatroom, and he didn’t think much of her when he clicked on “dona_flor” – Catarina’s user ID, taken from her favorite book Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado.

“I thought she had misspelled the word ‘floor’,” says Putra, laughing. “So I asked her why she picked that nickname.”

Catarina responded by explaining to “this ignorant guy” about the importance of Jorge Amado as a literary figure in Brazil and realized she had failed miserably when he replied with the question, “Is he also Spanish?”

By 2003, Putra had read the English version of Dona Flor and her Two Husbands and seen the film adaptation (starring Sônia Braga), which Catarina sent him from her hometown in São Paolo. Two years later, they were married at the Kathedral Church in Jakarta. They now have twins, Ravi and Davi.

Was there ever a doubt that the relationship could work because of the unconventional way they had met?

“Not really,” replies Catarina. “I mean, it sounded weird, but it felt natural.”

Putra agrees. “It was hard in the beginning because of the distance and everything,” he says.

“But, at the same time, our conversations had more weight. We talked about our lives in a way we probably wouldn’t have if we had been sitting at a table, facing each other. The distance then became a bridge.”

For most people, the distance never quite transforms itself into that bridge. A popular though skeptical belief equates online relationships with hit-and-runs. People fall in love, out of love, and back again in a matter of days (or hours). There’s no guarantee that the person you’re talking to isn’t lying to you, or trying to scam you. The biggest drawback, perhaps, of living in the digital age is that all things digital can be manipulated – including, yes, love.

Julia Gunawan is a 26-year-old postgraduate student majoring in public relations who claims she has been “scammed” a couple of times by the men she met online, both via a dating service and public chatroom. “Brett”, from London, got her to wire him $500, which he said he needed to help him buy a ticket to visit her in Jakarta. “Jay”, from Ohio, arranged to meet her in Singapore, when he told her he would be stopping over there on his way to Australia for a business trip. She waited for two whole days. Jay never showed up. Her angry emails went unanswered.

“I’ve stopped [dating online] now,” says Julia. “It was a stupid idea, anyway. I think out of a hundred people who say they’re looking for a serious relationship online, only five of them are telling the truth. The rest are fiddling with some spare time on their hands, or predators waiting for prey.”

In 2007, HonestyOnline.com was launched in partnership with CrimSAFE – a database system invented by National Background Data, LLC. It offers a certification system that enables net users to check background credentials of other net users with whom they wish to transact.

Basically, it sorts out potential Romeos and Juliets from their less-than-perfect counterparts.

Unfortunately, the service is currently only available in North America.

“[HonestyOnline] is an extra layer of protection to determine if a guy is Jack the Ripper with three wives,” says William Bollinger, executive vice president of National Background Data, LLC, as quoted in an article “Internet Dating 2.0” by Verna Gates, published in Time Magazine in 2007.

“The checks … confirm your ex- is an ex- and your B.A. isn’t BS,” writes Gates, who took the time to check her own credentials on the site. “HonestyOnline can show up at your house … stand you on a scale, run a tape measure from head to toe, and even, if requested, leave with bodily fluids to assure potential mates you have nothing communicable.”

A hysterical approach, perhaps, yet necessary nonetheless. Online lives are lived in the fast lane, a few dozen mouse-clicks a minute. And while love is a many-splendored thing, it is also a roller-coaster ride that will sooner jolt and shake rather than comfort and secure the worlds of single men and women in search of a lasting relationship. Yet, some (especially the media) remain optimistic of the results.

In 2002, Wired Magazine articulated a trend forecast by saying, “Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love won’t look for it online will be silly … Serendipity is the hallmark of inefficient markets, and the marketplace of love, like it or not, is becoming more efficient.”

However, Timo is still not convinced. He prefers conventional standards when it comes to finding the person he’s going to spend the rest of his life with, because “that’s the only sure way there is”.

While everyone else is setting out on a quest to discover love online, and crowds of hopeful spectators swarm along the sidelines, Timo says he will wait for a “girl next door” to grant him his happily ever after.

“I have nothing against online dating,” he says. “If someone manages to find their life partner on those sites, then go for it. But me, I like to sit with a person and feel her presence around me. It’s not just what she says or how she looks, it’s also how I am with her. Love takes time, you know? You can’t just cut around the edges.”

And with that, he goes offline.

Illustration by Staven Andersen

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