Archive through November 07, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archives: 2003 January:
Women and the Internet -- Research Study:
Archive through November 07, 2002
Bookworm | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 10:37 am     I have completed it Spy. |
Grannyg | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 10:45 am     Ok, Spy, Did mine. Very easy to do. How many females do you need to participate? The more the merrier or just a certain number? Good Luck!! edit: I used the same email as in my profile here. |
Lumbele | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 10:50 am      Geez, is that a bat? I thought it was a ruler. Someone hand me my specs, please. Didn't mean to intimidate your brand new system, glad you could calm it back down |
Schoolmarm | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 10:55 am     Spy....is it ok to give my students your site? I have several who have met lots of friends via internet. It would give you a different demographic, as TVCH tends to be lots of 30s & 40s women. My students are young 20s and spend LOTS of time on the internet. Let me know! |
Wargod | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 11:13 am     WOW! TVCH is awesome! Look at all the support for Spy and her study. This is great. |
Spygirl | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 11:14 am     Silksmoke -- they definitely do not have to be members of the opposite sex. I got interested in this topic because of all the friends I had met here and the amazing ties people seem to form -- gender-irrelevant. Drah -- thanks for pointing people in the right direction!! That's pretty nice of you considering I have blocked men from participating in this study hehe... Bookie & Granny -- thanks for completing the questionnaire! It is pretty brief because I'm collecting some general information in order to get a variety of people for the indepth portion of the study (part II). As far as numbers...the more the merrier!!! I updated my committee this morning on the progress in less than 24 hours, and they are gonna be shocked! Lumbele -- you are cracking me up! I have no idea if that is a bat or a ruler, but it is still making me laugh! Marm -- I would LOVE IT if you would pass along my site to your students! You know how those demographics need to be . |
Spygirl | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 11:16 am     Wargod, I'm so overwhelmed (in a great way)! I can't believe I've gotten the number of responses I have in less than 24 hours and I have YET to advertise anywhere else!!! |
Bob2112 | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 11:47 am     Spy, I think Merlin would like you to forward the email addresses of all the young 20 year old students that Marm refers. He probably has his own questionaire prepared for just such an occasion. <perhaps you could CC: the TVCH Mens Club also>  |
Egbok | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 12:13 pm     Bob, why oh why did I know you would pop up in here? You are so funny!! LOL |
Spygirl | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 12:44 pm     Bob -- have you checked out my profile picture? I'm afraid I'll have to turn down your suggestion of giving Merlin the email addresses...I think it might be in his best interest if I say no, as well . |
Bob2112 | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 12:48 pm     Spy, how did you get that picture?!? Juju promised that the webcam was definitely off! (BTW, nice pic!)  |
Spygirl | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 12:49 pm     Maybe you need to talk to her about that?  |
Hippyt | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 05:51 pm     I did it too,I love things like this! |
Spygirl | Sunday, November 03, 2002 - 08:55 pm     I have to ask people to temporarily stop entering data. We are again trying to fix a database problem. Please hold tight and I'll post sometime tomorrow about entering data again. Thanks everyone for your patience! |
Merlin | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 06:01 am     Hey Spygirl, is there a way I could intern with you on this project. I have been conducting my own study the last couple of years that comes real close to the same topic You are right on target about those email addresses, I have no need for them at all. |
Draheid | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 06:01 am     Oops .... I just sent the link to the mailing list friends of mine I mentioned with the last one. LOL. Oh well, they are all pretty savvy computer/internet users, and I'm sure you will have everything back in no time, so I'm sure everything will be fine. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. |
Spygirl | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 06:10 am     Drah -- everything is back online now. No explanation about what the heck happened last night, but everything is fine now Zmom and Hillbilly tried to help last night, but it turns out it was the host server's problem all along because we didn't do anything. Merlin -- I figured you had all the email addresses you could handle for now I'm thinking the intern thing might not work out this time, but I'll look into it and let you know Anyway -- to everyone -- WE'RE BACK IN BUSINESS!! |
Hillbilly | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 06:36 am     Good deal, spy...glad its fixed. I would still get with your friend and take good notes. |
Spygirl | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 07:14 am     We're definitely gonna have a long talk cause I'm clueless, HB! LOL...I'm considering a different server, as well. |
Wargod | Monday, November 04, 2002 - 12:23 pm     Alright Spy!!!!! So happy to hear everything is back and in working order!! |
Babyruth | Wednesday, November 06, 2002 - 03:29 pm     Spy, I haven't received the email saying you got my data. Should I re-submit? Also, here is an article of some related interest, although it's not the result of a study. Posting it here because you have to subscribe to access it. November 6, 2002 How Did You Meet? If Answer Is 'Online,' Couples Tend to Lie By JENNIFER SARANOW THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE When love blooms online, what is the happy couple going to tell people about how they met? The truth? Not likely. Sandra DeSimone had been using the dating site Matchmaker.com (matchmaker.com1) for about a month when she met Anthony Florindi. Their profiles clicked. They were about the same age. (She's 30, he's 31). They both lived in the Boston area. Both like Italian food and the color blue. Both had been unlucky in love. She had come within three days of getting married when her fiance called off the wedding; Mr. Florindi was recently divorced. After sending each other e-mail and talking on the phone for several weeks, they met in October for dinner at Rabia's in Boston's North End, then moved on to dessert at Cafe Vittoria and finally to the Four Seasons for drinks. "We hit it off," he says. She adds: "The first date was probably the best date I ever had." Ms. DeSimone and Mr. Florindi started seeing each other regularly. She asked him to stop by her parents' house after Thanksgiving dinner to meet her whole clan. But when inquisitive relatives asked how the two had met, the only answer they got was "out." Ms. DeSimone hesitated because she knew she would get grief from her mother if she told the truth. Even happily matched online couples remain uneasy about telling friends and family how their love affairs started, despite a surging use of dating services. Instead, many stick with prettied up stories about being introduced by friends, meeting at work, meeting at church. They don't tell the truth until things get serious -- and sometimes not even then. Meeting online sounds like a risky act of desperation. And there are all those news stories about mayhem and Web maniacs. It's at least one rung lower than meeting in a singles bar. Lucy White, a Web designer from Dallas, had been married for several months before she stopped the white lies to her father about how she and her husband, Will, actually met. Dad thought they first caught each other's eye at a bar called the Flying Saucer. The truth: They got to know each other online on Match.com (match.com3), and the Flying Saucer was where they went on their first date. Looking for love online is like posting an elaborate personals ad rather than submitting to an interview with a conventional dating service. Most sites let you choose a screen name, post a photo and profile and fill out a questionnaire about ideal mates, likes and dislikes and such. To initiate contact with other subscribers, you pay a fee, commonly about $20 a month. For Christine Puente, a marketing manager from Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., her first account of how she met her husband, Eric, was vague. When friends asked, she said, "We were set up." She didn't divulge that she met him on Match.com until things got serious. Likewise, Ron Chima, an attorney from Harrisburg, Pa., who met his wife, Rina, on A1IM.com (a1im.com4) in November 2000, still tells acquaintances they met "through friends." "Generally, when couples first start dating, they will tell friends and family they met some other way," says Gail Laguna, spokeswoman for MatchNet PLC, whose dating sites include AmericanSingles (americansingles.com5) and Jdate (www.jdate.com6). Only later will they admit to having met online, she says. The reluctance persists even as visits and paid subscriptions to dating services are soaring. Revenue at leading dating service Match.com, a unit of Ticketmaster Inc., more than doubled to $33.4 million in the third quarter, as paid subscriptions hit 653,000. "Online dating seems so blatant. So predatory, almost," says Vanessa VanderVelde, a 33-year-old attorney from Minneapolis who met her fiance online on Labor Day and has yet to tell her parents the truth. "I personally always like to imagine that my special someone was out there waiting for me and we would meet in some very serendipitous, romantic way," she says. Ms. DeSimone, one half of the Boston area couple, didn't lie to everyone from the start. She told close friends -- some of whom had met their own spouses online -- as well as her sister and some of her aunts. She confided in people who she thought "were hip enough to get it." One woman she told was Melissa Sullivan, 29, who has been a friend of Ms. DeSimone's since they were college students together. When Ms. DeSimone started looking online, Ms. Sullivan had reservations about "Internet creeps and weirdos" using the service. "Never in a million years did I think she would find her future husband that way," she says. Meanwhile, Mr. Florindi, a mechanical engineer, says he was embarrassed to tell his parents, but they seemed satisfied with a vague answer and didn't press for details. Ms. DeSimone says he got off easy because "that's the beauty of being a man." To people who pressed the issue, the couple said they had met at a party. They left it "extremely vague with no details because we both hate lying," says Ms. DeSimone. Still, her parents kept asking. It turned out the Florindi and DeSimone parents had a mutual friend and would occasionally see each other socially, a coincidence that fueled the DeSimones' curiosity about their daughter's boyfriend. They kept after her for more information. A few weeks after Thanksgiving, Ms. DeSimone, a marketing manager, sat with her parents in the kitchen reading the Sunday paper over breakfast. She had already gone beyond her original story in confiding that the two had bumped into each other in front of a whole-foods store -- which was sort of true because that was where they had agreed to meet briefly before going on their first date. Still, her parents persisted with their questions. Finally exasperated, Ms. DeSimone says she told her mother, "Fine. You want to know how I met Anthony? I'll tell you," and she did. "I said this is how we met and that was it." Her mother, Maria, says it didn't faze her. The only important thing, she says, was that her daughter was happy. But what if Ms. DeSimone had told her mother earlier about meeting online? "I would have thought she was crazy," Mrs. DeSimone says. Ms. DeSimone and Mr. Florindi celebrated the first anniversary of their meeting several weeks ago at the same table at Cafe Vittoria, each with a cappuccino. They are engaged to be married in February. Write to Jennifer Saranow at jennifer.saranow@wsj.com9 URL for this article: The Link |
Spygirl | Wednesday, November 06, 2002 - 08:12 pm     Hey Babyruth! Yes, I'm afraid that after one more glitch, I need you to re-enter your information. I believe everything is finally (sigh) finished. Thanks for being so patient everyone! I am so appreciative of the responses. I just sent out a bunch of thank you emails to everyone who has completed in the last couple of days. If someone completed the survey since Sunday and still has not received a confirmation email, please let me know. Thanks guys!! |
Halfunit | Wednesday, November 06, 2002 - 08:25 pm     That was interesting Babyruth, and thanks for posting since I don't subscribe. I met hubby on AOL in 1997 and have no qualms about telling anyone. Our local newspaper did an article on the two of us. Halfunit's Love Story Enjoy! |
Babyruth | Thursday, November 07, 2002 - 08:40 am     Spy, I emailed you about the questionnaire. Got a problem. Half, Great story! Thanks for sharing it. |
Spygirl | Thursday, November 07, 2002 - 03:56 pm     Hey Babyruth! The problem has been fixed. For those wondering, I had to add a drop down menu of numbers for the relationships...and well, I kinda' forgot to include the option of zero... Sorry 'bout that! |
|