i met my wife in 2007, so its a little before 2010 (i fall into the work category above; temp hairnet/nametag shit job, but still was work). online dating was still bourgeoning, and there was still a large sentiment of it being weird/creepy to meet strangers from dating apps. i was a big nerd and knew some people who started dating online gaming friends, but that was looked at being worse than dating apps. im glad that stigma is gone…

we have been dating/married for so long now, though, that if we get divorced or one of dies, its going to be really hard to get into the online dating scene because it was so creepy before and now normalized. i figure if this happens to me then i’ll still look in the (what my brain still considers) “regular” places (the ones nobody uses anymore in favor of online dating) first before going online.