David Buss: Internet Dating
 

"The bounty of mating opportunities in today's computational sphere yields some tangible benefits. It allows people to secure better mating fits, access to that special someone who happens to share unique interests in underground rock bands, obscure novelists, or unheard of foreign movies. It can abbreviate search costs, eliminating the non-starters without slogging through the cumbersome dating maze. The Internet affords practice. The stuttering shy in person can be eloquently bold on the keyboard. Lonely nights can be transformed into articulate booty calls. Because of the surfeit of opportunity, the Internet may yield good bargains on the mating market, a maximization of one's mate value, or access to the otherwise unattainable. It allows some to luxuriate in sexual adventures unimaginable in the small group living of our distant past."

Http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_15.html#buss

Part of a rich collection of essays assembled by John Brockman!