Love Generation: Secrets to 50 years of marriage as virtual dating online takes off in Australia
Video dating has taken off during lockdown, and it could be here to stay even as restrictions ease across the nation. See our expert tips on how to have a great virtual date.
Relationships
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Dianne Gardiner and Toby Pieters might just be Australia’s most enduring online dating success story.
The two met in 2001 via a now little-known social media site called friends.com, and recently celebrated their 19th anniversary as a couple.
“It was well before RSVP or any of those existed,” Ms Gardiner said.
“A work colleague was submitting their profile to friends.com and encouraged me to do the same. Within a few days I was chatting with Toby, we agreed to meet for dinner, and the rest is history. It was the first and only date I ever had via the service.”
Back then, meeting someone via computer carried a bit of stigma and Ms Gardiner said she used to feel a little embarrassed.
“We used to tell people we met through ‘friends’. We weren’t lying, we just omitted the .com part,” she said.
Discussing the pressures on young women today for feminine hygiene brand Libra, Melbourne University academic Dr Lauren Rosewarne said the online dating stigma was now gone, as there was now “a generation who have not dated any other way than online”.
Ms Gardiner is now the CEO of research firm Bastion Insights, which recently surveyed almost 1000 Australians about their experiences of online dating sites for News Corp.
The firm found that almost one in three Australians (32%) have used an online dating service/app to meet someone, and 18 per cent of respondents met their current partner this way.
Ms Gardiner said the research showed all up around 13 per cent of Australians had used online dating services and formed a long-lasting relationship as a result – with little difference across the age groups.
The latest revolution for the “love apps” has been the rise of video dating, with users saying it will likely stay popular after lockdowns, and it could even permanently transform the dating game.
Bumble and Grindr introduced the video chat function in June 2019, while Tinder followed suit for Australian users on July 30 this year.
Bumble spokeswoman Lucille McCart said the demand for video dates was clearly evident as Australia went into lockdown, with a 76 per cent increase in video calls between March and May this year.
“The average time for a video call in Australia is 28 minutes, which shows that our users are truly building meaningful connections on these calls,” Ms McCart said.
Users who spoke to News Corp said the video chats saved them time and money on actual dates, and enabled them to filter out undesirables.
Bumble user Lulu Nyirenda said women in particular seemed to have embraced video chat.
“I think women are more up for it than men. It’s a safety thing,” the 37-year-old said.
“I’ve been on dates where I’ve felt bad energy or not safe in a space, even in a bar or a restaurant, whereas on a video date because you’re in a controlled environment in the comfort of your own home, and you can poke an end button to make them disappear, you definitely feel a lot safer. It’s easier to screen on a video chat; you can get more of a read on someone.”
Mywingwoman.com.au founder Audrey Claire said she recently surveyed her followers about video dating, and around 70 per cent of them said they thought it was a “smart screening strategy” and 20 per cent had more than one video date with the same person.
“I don’t think we would have seen that kind of acceptance (of video dating) if you went back to January or February of this year,” she said.
“We were in much more in a culture of speed and people moving quite quickly from connecting to meeting up in person, whereas now I think this culture of slowing things down a little bit and making full use of video chat technology is starting to become more and more normalised.”
Dr Rosewarne said video contact had “given people a social outlet” during coronavirus lockdowns, and the trend would likely stick.
“Post Covid, there will be a lot of people who just see an online first date as a really efficient way to weed out people who are unsuitable for a flesh and blood meeting,” she said.
“Think about the sheer number of first dates we all go on, where it’s never going to be more than that 45 minutes or an hour. Arguably doing that meeting on Zoom or any of the other platforms just expedites the process.”
But online dating had also led to “an element of disposability” in casual relationships, she said.
“If we don’t get what we want we’re not going to spend too many resources on that relationship, we’re just going to move on and find someone else.”
Video date converts who spoke to News Corp said connecting via video changed some of the expectations of a typical date – including the popular idea that staying for two drinks was a standard courtesy. A video chat could be shorter in duration, without it being insulting, sources said.
Ms Nyirenda said for a video date she would do her hair and perhaps make-up but wouldn’t necessarily get “fully dressed up”.
“You can do it any time as well,” she said. “You can do it during the day, and if you’re having a fat day it doesn’t matter, they’re only going to see from the waist up.”
But one of her video dates went a bit too casual, she said.
“He was just lying on bed,” she said. “He was a bit too comfortable and familiar. It felt like I had put in effort and he hadn’t.”
ROMANCE THROUGH THE AGES
Romance can be the longest game of them all.
Just ask Don and Margaret MacFarlane. While they celebrate 50 years of marriage this month, their connection goes back much further, when they were introduced, age 13, at a live broadcast of Bobby Limb and Dawn Lake’s radio show for Sydney’s 2UW.
Clearly impressed with Margaret, young Don was moved to poetry in her autograph book, writing: “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.”
It was a bold move, to be sure, but romance only came years later, in 1956, when they re-met at an event in Paddington.
Don invited Margaret to dance that night, and not long afterwards to the movies, where they saw Gregory Peck in The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit at The Century. Don paid.
“In those days boys always paid for the date, and always bought you some chocolates at interval,” Margaret said.
“It was a very nice time. I feel as if I’m lucky I’m on the way out, not on the way in.”
The couple got married in 1960, and 60 years, three daughters and four grandchildren later, they say they are very lucky.
Asked about the secret of a lasting relationship, Don said: “Being able to talk to one another and being very fair and letting them do what they want to do. Margaret said: ‘Don’t give up on it,’ and we never have.”
The couple were first introduced by a mutual friend, and when the rest of the family shared their relationship stories, the pivotal role of friends – sometimes pushy, but always supportive – came up again and again.
Don and Margaret’s eldest daughter Rhonda met her future husband David one night in 1984, at a youth hostel in Tasmania, where they both discovered they were Sydneysiders.
Shortly after returning home, a friend cajoled Rhonda into making the first move: a phone call to David, out of the blue, to wish him a happy birthday.
“She came back about a week before I did and when I came back she had rung and left a message with my youngest brother,” David recalled.
“It was probably the only message he’s ever taken in his life, but it was meant to be.”
Fate did a neat little trick at that point. While at the pub with a friend, wondering how he should respond to Rhonda’s message, David entered a raffle – and won first prize, a sausage sizzle event on Sydney’s northern beaches.
That became their first date. Marriage came three years later.
A friend was also instrumental in introducing Don and Margaret’s youngest daughter, Alison, to her husband Ben, one Saturday night at a bar in Manly in 2005.
Again, fate was tricksy: neither of them were meant to be there.
“My friend that I was with is an outrageous flirt,” Alison said.
“She was already married, but she would always chat to people anywhere, so she started speaking to Ben first and then when she went to the bar to get some drinks she said ‘Keep chatting, he’s a good one’.”
Ben followed up with a phone call to Alison the following Tuesday – “He totally nailed the timing,” she said – and a first date followed.
“We went half and half. I was adamant about that,” she said. They got married in 2009.
Now Don and Margaret’s grandkids are of a marrying age, with the eldest, Laura, tying the knot with husband Josh in 2018, after meeting at work, and Daniel set to walk down the aisle with Lenore next year.
Daniel and Lenore met at school and have been engaged for eight years, meaning the whole internet dating thing has passed them by.
“I couldn’t tell you if you’re supposed to swipe left or right,” Lenore said.
But Don and Margaret’s middle daughter Diana could probably tell you.
After 20 years of marriage, and then divorce, it took her a little time for her to feel confident with online dating, but she eventually found it fun.
“My rules for online dating were always tell someone where you are going, only ever meet for a coffee or a drink (doesn’t matter who pays) and stick to safe topics such as travels, movies and books,” Diana said.
“I met my wonderful partner Ian though online dating, and we’ve been together five years. Our first date went so well we even ordered food, so I broke my rule, but we couldn’t stop talking. We even made plans for our second date that night.”
