NICOLE Rott Abidor decided to join JDate after her sister, Jaclyn Rott Jarnicki, found love on the site in just one month.
“She was kind of letting me test out the waters,” laughs Jarnicki, 27. Now, after helping her sister learn how to navigate the site, she puts in her two cents about JDate suitors.
“Because we had been online so close in time, there were a lot of guys on JDate that [Jaclyn] had talked to,” she says. “So most of the time, I would discuss the guys with her and get Jacki’s input before moving forward.”
Call it a family e-fair.
As the stigma associated with online dating has all but disappeared, it’s now not only suitable family-dinner conversation — it’s fair game for good, old-fashioned meddling.
And parents — who once would rather lie than admit their child had a Match.com account — are the ones eagerly financing their offspring’s online dating habits. In a poll of 800 JDate users, 22 percent said that their mothers have paid for their memberships at one time or another.
“It’s certainly much easier for people to keep tabs on their family members’ dating lives online,” says Greg Liberman, president and COO of Spark Networks, which owns Blacksingles.com and JDate, among other niche sites.
Why should a nosy mother wait months to meet a new love interest when you can just forward her a profile screenshot of that night’s date? Or better yet, forward the profile before you even go on the date? The good news is that all this newfound meddling might make for a more honest profile.
“We’ve found that social networks play an important role in how people ‘lie’ in online dating,” says Dr. Jeff Hancock, an associate professor at Cornell University. “The profile is more accurate; the photograph tends to be more accurate, less self-enhancing when family members or friends know about it.”
And it’s not just parents who are getting involved.
“The baby boomers are the fastest-growing sector in terms of online dating,” says Diana Kirschner, author of “Love in 90 Days.”
“The children of the boomers like to help the single boomers. They like to help them with the technology; they like to help them put their best foot forward and find love and happiness.”
In 2007, more people over 45 met their long-term partners online than via any other way, Kirschner notes, adding that “adult children are often boomers’ secret weapon for online dating.”
Take Jeff Cleveland, 22, who joined JDate two years ago. “I had recently lost about 80 pounds or so and had a new confidence, and my mom told me I should just go online and try it,” he says. His mom even took the photos he posted on the site, where he met Paula, now his wife.
So how did he thank his mom? By giving her an online account of her own. Paula made sure to ask her mother-in-law for the password.