Identity construction in online dating

Abstract

Online dating has emerged as one of the most widely used opportunities provided by the internet, yet only a small number of studies have focused on online daters who have met and developed successful relationships with partners from an internet dating website. In this environment, online daters must become their own marketing managers in terms of creating their own advertising campaign which ensures they are presenting a self which appears both attractive and desirable, yet at the same time is genuine and honest. Using the concepts of Belk’s re-embodiment through online constructed identity (2013; 2016) and Gonzales and Hancock’s (2008) identity shift, this research investigates the relationship between the construction of an online identity, through the disclosure of personal information, in the form of a dating profile, and the successful formation of a relationship initiated through an online dating site. Using individual and dyadic in-depth interviews, twenty one individuals who met their current partners on a dating site were interviewed for this study. The findings suggest the role of online dating could be considered two-fold. Not only is it an avenue for initiating a meeting with another individual, which may lead to a long-term romantic relationship. It may also be used for evaluating and modifying one’s self-identity, by reducing the discrepancy between one’s actual and ideal self. Evidence was found of this occurring, with respondents using online dating as an opportunity to portray themselves as being more confident and self-assured than they actually were in real life. For many of these respondents, online dating provided the opportunity to alter, and in some cases, reconstruct aspects of their identity during a period of ambiguity and role uncertainty in their lives. Many of the online daters in this study were in a period of liminality, and through feedback and reassurance from others, as well as learning from past dating experiences, they were able to evaluate, make adjustments and craft a newly constructed re-embodied self-identity by means of an identity shift, which was closer to a real sense of who they were. This research extends existing theory on online identity formation, self-disclosure, liminality, identity shift and self-growth by contributing to the growing consumer behaviour literature surrounding online dating research.