I'm 27 and I only know a handful of people within my social group who haven't ever used a dating site and among them the general consensus is attractive people don't need to and it's for people who can't meet anyone in 'real' life.
At lot of my friends lie about how they have met their partner when they met online. One of my friends lied for a year before 'coming clean' that she met her now husband on POF.
Another 'admits' it to me but tells everyone else they met at work.
If the stigma is gone then so many people wouldn't feel the need to hide it. And these are otherwise very confident people.
I have one friend who will never admit she met her partner on match.com. She has this great story about how they met at work but in reality he let it slip once how they met on match.com and said she told him he can never tell anyone!
My best friend is Gay and said in the gay community pretty much everyone uses online dating as there's little way to meet someone day to day so there is literally no stigma at all.
What do you lot think. Is there still a stigma to using dating sites?
AIBU?
To think there's still a stigma to online dating
definetlynotbored · 01/10/2016 07:52
I met my DH through POF and when people asked how me met I just lied because I didn't want to admit to it. The only people who knew were my dad, my sister and my best friend.
However, as part of my dad's speech on my wedding day he decided to include the fact we'd met via OLD and it was awful. I sat in my chair and I wanted the ground to swallow me up 
Since then though I tell everyone that we met via OLD but I think that's only because we're married now and so they know it turned into something 'real' as it were.
Loads of my friends met their partners via OLD but I agree that it's still something not many like to admit to.
I imagine this happens a lot with face to face dating too. It's not a scenario that is specific to OLD. A character with morals like that is just as likely to do it to a woman he meets in a bar as he would a woman he meets online.
I agree to a point. But I find that a lot of my friends and colleagues who OLD end up feeling like they know the person as they have messaged for a while before hand. They feel there is a connection, when really they don't know anything concrete. They seem to already invested in the relationship, iyswim.
Where when you meet someone in a bar, you may be a bit more wary as you know nothing about them.
I have only ever dated people I have met through friends. I wouldn't really be up for sitting round bars to meet someone either.
I imagine if dh left me I would be alone forever
The thing that drove me to it was the fact that all my friends were married off and had children or they were in LTR's and had children so I had nobody to go out with as such in order to meet people. I worked in a profession that is 95% female, so only a tiny, tiny chance of meeting anyone their either, and due to me working shifts having a social life was near impossible and so meeting people that way wasn't really an option either.
When I hit 27 with little prospects of meeting someone face to face and feeling quite lonely amongst my committed friends with children I decided to just take the plunge as it seemed like my only option.
My DH was the third person I met via OLD and it obviously turned out well
Ye yes yes . Still a stigma. I met my DH on POF and we tell people. I tell people the same way I tell people that getting pregnant was not easy. I tell people because for me it is more important that other people find the confidence to find happiness than what makes me look good or not.
Some people are full of fake stories and an image and I dont have time for that 
No stigma in my social circle. I quite happily tell people that I bought my husband online
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Writerwannabe83 Your story is lovely but I can't help but at the when I hit 27 as if it's the end of time. I have read the whole post but that bit just cracks me up
I think it's an age thing. I'm in my late thirties. For younger people, I think it's more just part of life now, but I think for many older people it's still got a whiff of 'desperate personal ad' to it and they don't want to be judged.
I've been OLD dating after being in a very long term relationship and while I don't shout about it, I'll mention it if it comes up in conversation. I find rather than judging, people are curious if they haven't done it themselves. They all want to know what horror stories I have.
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