10B - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SEXON THE HILL
MONDAY,DEC.10,2001
Students turn to Web for love
By Maggie Newcomer Kansan correspondent
Some students turn to the Internet for online love. The Web site www.love-4-life.com offers safety advice when meeting potential mates.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AARON SHOWALTER/KANSAN
The Internet is an endless source of information and entertainment for today's society. People can get the news, check stocks, shop, research and even find a date.
Often, casual conversations lead to relationships that extend beyond the cyber realm.
"I started dating someone on the Internet almost by accident," said Nikki, a Topea freshman who did not want her last named published. "I was just messing around in a chat room, talking to people and I started talking to this guy who lived in my town."
Nikki eventually met the guy whom she had talked to in the chat room, and they dated for a few months.
Dan Osman, Prairie Village graduate student, said people should weigh a number of considerations before meeting an online acquaintance face-toface and bringing the relationship out of the cyber realm.
"It really depends on the
precautions before agreeing to meet someone. The site suggests having a relationship on the Internet for a while before meeting someone in person. Speaking on the phone with the potential date is another good precaution, according to the site. Getting more than one picture of the person and references from their employers or friends is also recommended.
comfort level of that particular person when you're trying to decide whether to meet or not." Osman said. "From a guy's point of view, I'm not concerned about the psycho factor like girls might be. Just as long as they're meeting in a public place, I think it's OK."
The Web site www.love-4 life.com, a source of Internet dating advice, suggests several
"I got lucky and the guy I met wasn't a psycho," Nikki said. "But I should have been more careful than I was. I had only been talking to him for a couple of weeks when we decided to meet."
Most Internet dating services, like e-mail servers, assign each member a user name, so people don't have to use their real names.
"The ultimate goal for me is always to meet the person if I find them interesting," said Osman, who is also a member of the Kansan editorial board.
While some people have negative views about meeting someone on the Internet, Osman said he thought students shouldn't be ashamed of meeting dates on the Internet.
"It's just another way to get to know someone before you date them," Osman said. "A lot of people are embarrassed to say they met someone over the Internet, but it's better than meeting them when you're passed out at a bar one night."
Contact Newcomer at 864-4810.
Survey: College still a place for man-hunting
By Mary Kellerman Special to the Kansan
Despite an increase in the average age for marriage, a majority of college women look to meet "Mr. Right" while in college, a national survey says.
A survey of college women by the Institute for American Values, a private, conservative, New York-based think tank, this year showed that 63 percent hoped to meet their future husband while in school.
Also, 83 percent of the women surveyed considered getting married an important life goal.
Still, not all college-aged women are waiting to meet Mr. Right.
"The statistics about marriage don't really surprise me, but I don't consider it a goal for myself," said Amy Quirin, Garnett junior.
For other students, marriage is much closer. Amy Ratzlaff, Buhler junior, started planning her June 2002 wedding after becoming engaged to her boyfriend of six years last July.
Ratzlaff said she didn't expect marriage to affect her or her finance's education and career goals.
"We're not giving up anything to get married," she said. "We're just going to do things like travel and volunteer together."
Going out on dates isn't the
most popular way college students find potential mates. Of the women surveyed, one out of three said they had been asked on two or fewer dates.
Brian Hollenbeck, Leawood junior, said he didn't ask women out on dates often. He said he usually met women he was interested in through his friends.
"I usually go along with people my friends are friends with, so that's who I usually end up getting in relationships with," Hollenbeck said.
The survey also reported that the most common type of relationship in college was a "joined-at-the-hip" relationship in which a man and woman are
intensely involved and spend most of their time together. These couples see each other daily and spend nearly every night together.
Many of the women surveyed did not see a connection between their present relationship and future ones that could lead to marriage.
Quirin met her boyfriend of almost one year when the two lived on the same floor in Ellsworth Hall. Their relationship began as a friendship.
"I guess I'll probably get married someday, but I don't have any plans for it now," Quirin said.
Contact Kellerman at 864-4810
Students can't decide whether eye contact can turn into love
By Erin Ohm Kansan correspondent
Love at first sight happens all the time in the movies. Eyes meet in a glance across the room, and it's clear that love was written in the stars.
In real life, the idea of love at first sight is debatable, based on one's definition and expectations. Some students think the connection does not have much to do with love.
"It's attraction. I don't think it's based on love," said Kelly Vickery, Overland Park freshman. "Ithink people can mistake it for love."
Colleen Ice agreed.
"I don't think you can have love at first sight. I think you can lust at first sight," said Ice, Kansas City, Kan., freshman. "But it can turn into love. I don't think you can be in love with someone unless you know them."
Byron Toy, Minneapolis,
Minn. inn., thinks otherwise.
"I do believe in it," said Toy, who said he experienced love at first sight once in high school. "It was a look, an unsaid communication."
That communication is something Ingi House, Topeka sophomore, also thinks is possible.
"You can have a connection with someone at first sight, but if you're talking in terms of real love, I think that takes time. But you can go up to someone and start talking to them right off the bat." House said.
She also said guys were more willing to go out and talk to anybody, while girls were more picky about who they approached.
Tom Dye, St. Louis sophomore, agreed with House. He
said the tendency to fall for someone immediately differed between the sexes.
"A guy definitely could fall in love with a girl at first sight, but I think girls need to get to know a guy before they like him," Dye said.
Passion is commonly associated with love at first sight, and one explanation for passion is the psychological concept of classical conditioning.
David Holmes, professor of psychology, said classical conditioning was a well-studied, welldefined phenomenon. It is based on the idea of evoking a particular response from a specific stimulus.
Holmes said it was possible to generalize that principle, so that a person would learn to associate the response with anything similar to the stimulus. Classical conditioning demonstrates how it is possible to get a response even if one has never met the person.
Jenny Boeh, Overland Park sophomore, said she became convinced that love at first sight was legitimate when she met her boyfriend.
boyfriend.
"I never used to believe in it," said Boeh. "It was at a party at our apartment. The first second I saw him, I knew we would be together. We took a picture together, and it looked like we had been together forever. We've only been dating for three months, but we've already talked about getting married."
Contact Ohm at 864-4810
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