There may well have once been a stigma surrounding online dating, but over the past few years it has become a universally accepted form of courtship. Records show that in 2016 more than 15% of American adults have given a chance to online matchmaking services, which is a lower number than you’d expect. Yet the rapid year-over-year growth is a true testament of the success of online dating, which has seen a significant boost with the dawn of dating apps. Most singles are positive about online dating or at least acknowledge the effectiveness of the service. However there is a small minority regretting their fruitless endeavor, while others are seeing online daters as prank victims. Together they form the ‘dating site trolls’.
Depressing as it is, trolling is so widespread and common that it barely needs any introduction. What had started as an innocent way of pranking other singles, this particular behavior quickly devolved into a nihilist, cruel and sadist way of thinking. Trolls are hell-bent on ruining other people’s fun for the sole purpose of spreading chaos. Trolling on dating sites has several levels of harshness. Mild actions are simply poking fun at the system. Examples of which include registering as an African American on an Asian dating site, writing vulgar or sexist answers in the ‘About Me’ section, uploading inappropriate photos and so on. Such attempts are swiftly deleted by the admin team. They can be insulting for those who take dating seriously, but are otherwise harmless and easy to spot. The same cannot be said about malicious trolling, where they aim to mislead and hurt their partner. From cyberbullying, shock comments and catfishing to downright humiliating other singles, these unscrupulous individuals are willing to go great lengths just to emotionally damage someone else.
This phenomenon of online trolling is often a target of analysis for sociologists and psychologists. They found out that people indulging in such acts show signs of several darker personality traits, nonclinical psychopathy and dysfunctional impulsivity. Trolling on dating sites can be the result of having a vengeful behavior, taking out your frustration on innocent people just because they had been previously rejected. It’s also true that online daters are believed to be desperate and therefore easy targets. Interestingly, polls show that while men are more likely to be trolling on social media sites and in games, both genders are equal in number among dating site trolls. Why do women participate in this mean game in higher numbers? We don’t know for sure, perhaps because online dating is a platform that is more welcoming to women than gaming.
“Don’t feed the trolls,” says the popular saying, and it’s worth remembering. Battling them directly often prompts the attacker to double down on their intent of attacking you. Getting into a heated argument just makes their attitude even more rabid; while reporting them could end up resulting in them creating a new profile and continue where they left off. The best course of action is to shrug it off, no matter how painful the encounter was. Without a satisfying response, trolls eventually give up on leeching on you. If you frequently experience dating troll attacks then it clearly shows that the community is poisoned and the admins don’t do their job properly, so you should switch to another site.
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