Sex Edition: Internet makes finding, strengthening relationships simple

The Internet has created new grounds for courtship, allowing web surfers to find sweethearts or rekindle relationships with current partners online.

Various websites — including online dating services and delivery services — can spark relationships or keep relationships interesting. According to some media professionals, the sites operate on common conceptions of gender, age and sexuality.

DateMySchool, a website that connects students across departments or different universities who may not meet otherwise, launched in 2010 at Columbia University. According to a spokesperson for the site, more than 1,500 Pitt students use DateMySchool.

The website launched after a woman in Columbia’s nursing school complained to one of DateMySchool’s eventual co-founders that her department was predominantly female, the spokesperson said. At the time of the website’s launch, Hayworth was conducting post-graduate research at Columbia. He said the co-founders noticed Columbia’s business school was predominantly male.

“This led to the recognition of an opportunity and the realization that this issue is rampant on college campuses nationwide,”the spokesperson said in an email.

Since DateMySchool’s launch, the site has expanded from Columbia to about 2,400 accredited U.S. colleges and universities and is approaching 1 million users. The spokesperson said the company released an app within the last year and plans to expand internationally this year. Students who use the app can set it to connect to people within their universities or to people from universities across the country.

Mason Meyer, a student  at the University of Northern Iowa, met his girlfriend, Alyssa Jones, on DateMySchool when she was studying at Alderson Broaddus University in Philippi, W.Va., in December 2012.

Meyer came across Jones’ profile one night and was immediately impressed when it read like a resumé.

About two months later, Jones drove through the night to visit Meyer in Iowa on her spring break, and once the couple overcame the initial awkwardness of meeting for the first time, Meyer said they felt a connection.

Since then, Meyer said he and Jones have seen each other regularly, met each other’s families and have frequently discussed marriage.

On DateMySchool, students can upgrade from a free account to access features such as messaging and information on profile viewers for $19 per month for one month, $6 per month for six months or $3 a month for 24 months.

Only verified students and alumni can join DateMySchool. Users are authenticated through their .edu email addresses and profile reviews, while alumni are validated through alumni directories.

Wil Upchurch, a graduate student studying communications at Pitt who focuses on Internet practices and has studied gender and relationships, said DateMySchool probably saw college students as a valuable market for an online network in the same way Facebook did.

But the target audience of DateMySchool could also be too young in age.

Upchurch referred to DateMySchool as the dating app for people who don’t date. He said DateMySchool operates under a flawed premise because college-aged users, unlike older consumers, often favor group dates.

“Single, one-on-one traditional dates are not as popular as they were before smartphones, as they were before this era of apps,” he said. “I don’t think that a lot of young people are looking for this sort of one-on-one dating, the idea of this romantic first date.”

Upchurch added that college students have enough face-to-face interactions on campuses that dating websites or apps aren’t necessary.

“I don’t think that young people have moral or ethical problems with dating websites or dating apps,” he said. “I do think it weirds them out a little bit because they don’t understand why anybody would use that, so it seems creepy.”

Like many social networks, users can adjust privacy settings on DateMySchool. Users can restrict the age range, school and department of individuals who can view their profiles.

“Visibility on DateMySchool is a two-way street: You have to want to see the other person and the other person has to want to see you,” Hayworth said.

DateMySchool, Hayworth said, is not a tool to find hook-ups, but the site could create tension within already existing relationships.

Upchurch said dating apps and websites such as DateMySchool can affect the way users interact in relationships because it creates a sense of options outside of one’s current relationship.

Upchurch said that according to the Social Exchange Theory — a principle in the psychology of personal relationships — the more options a person has outside of his or her current relationship, the less satisfied that person will be in that relationship.

“There’s always 1,000 other people that you potentially could be dating. You never need be satisfied with your current relationship because it’s easy to look for a better one,” Upchurch said.

Meyer, who found success on DateMySChool, said he thinks people in college looking for a serious relationship are in a minority, but the site gives an opportunity to those in search of something deeper.

“I think colleges and universities are a great way to meet people, but unfortunately, I think the culture of dating and what it really means to be looking for someone has been skewed by the youth culture,” he said.

He said if students don’t have success on campus, they should try online.

“You’re not going to meet your husband at a frat party. It’s not going to happen,” he said.

For men looking to maintain the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, online service Romeo Delivers helps men become more romantic. The site provides tools for men to craft personalized gifts and surprise their significant others.

Anne Lopez, the site’s creator, launched Romeo Delivers last June. By August, she had about 25 customers testing her products. She said the company has grown by 100 percent in the last month, but did not wish to release the specific number of new users on the site.

Lopez said Valentine’s Day, birthdays and anniversaries are expected times to be romantic.

“Women would like to know that their guys care about them. We’re encouraging guys to do things on a more regular basis,” Lopez, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, said.

Upchurch said apps involving romance are founded in traditional gender roles.

“They need to allow people to define themselves in ways that they find comfortable, and for most people, for the largest target audience, that’s going to be traditional gender roles,” he said.

Brent Malin, a Pitt communications professor who studies media in society and technology, said the concept of Romeo Delivers operates on assumptions about both men and women.

“It is this kind of idea that men need help with romance, and I think that’s kind of a common cultural assumption,” he said. “It’s kind of built on what stereotypically you would think a woman would want a guy to do.”

Romeo Delivers charges customers $15 a month or $120 for a year-long subscription to receive monthly kits with romantic, customizable presents for their significant other.

Each month’s kit features a different theme. A recent kit included the necessary supplies to create a tiny snowman and snowwoman.

The one common denominator Lopez and her staff have noticed about the men who subscribe to Romeo Delivers aside from age or socioeconomic status is that they are men who really love their wives or girlfriends.

Upchurch said men will have to be creative  in how they use the kits Romeo Delivers provides to them in order to be successful.

“It’s no different than learning how to be romantic from a book, a website or a peer,” he said. “If you think about Romeo Delivers as an educational service rather than a service that’s providing prepackaged romance, then I think it makes a lot more sense and it’s not any different than however else you would learn to be romantic.”

Spencer Whitman, 28, has been using Romeo Delivers to surprise his wife, Rachel, since the service began in June. He’s known Rachel since the ninth grade, but they didn’t start dating until seven years ago. They have been married for two years.

Whitman said his wife knows the gifts are from Romeo Delivers, but it does not bother her.

“I still have to do something with the gift to make it personalized and heartfelt,” he said.

In the future, Lopez hopes to expand Romeo Delivers to provide kits for men and women who want to do nice deeds for anyone, not just their significant others.

In the short term, she plans to create a notification feature to remind men to use their kits and add more options so that men can make a choice based on what their wife or girlfriend likes.

“Guys are actually making a commitment to their relationship by just signing up,” she said.

The first gift Whitman gave his wife — a small glass bottle with sand in it and a message about wanting to be stranded on a desert island with her — brought tears to her eyes.

“If something that simple and easy can get that kind of reaction, I’ve got to keep doing this,” he said.

Whitman said that Romeo Delivers acts as a reminder to do something nice and show his wife he loves her.

“I’m a romantic at heart, but I’ve made a bunch of choices to be very busy with a bunch of things that don’t involve romance,” Whitman said.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article listed Zachary Hayworth as a founder of the website. He was not, and the article has been updated to reflect that change.