The channel of introduction changed, not what people do with each other

The argument

This position accepts that how couples meet has changed and denies that the relationship has. Proponents argue that a service does one thing: it puts two people in contact who would otherwise not have been. Everything that makes a relationship what it is happens afterwards, in person, and is governed by what it always was, namely whether the two enjoy each other's company, whether they want the same kind of life, how they handle disagreement, what their families and work allow, and whether affection survives familiarity. Proponents argue that this shows in how couples describe themselves. People who met through a service tell the same kinds of stories as people who met at work: an uncertain beginning, a point at which it became serious, the negotiation of time and money and relatives, and the ordinary business of living with someone. The mechanics of the introduction drop out of the account almost immediately, because they explain nothing about what followed. The position also notes what has not shifted. People still want to be chosen, still mind about being left, and still marry and separate for recognisable reasons. If online dating had changed relationships in kind, proponents argue, the difference would show up in what couples want from each other and in why they part, and what is actually reported is the familiar list. On this account the change is in the introduction, which is logistics, and calling it a change in relationships mistakes the doorway for the room.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the argument treats the introduction as separable from what follows, which is exactly what is in dispute. Who is in the pool determines who the partner is, and a selection made from stated attributes among strangers produces different pairings from one made among people with mutual friends, so the consequences are inside the relationship from the start. They add that similarity of description is weak evidence, because people narrate their lives in the vocabulary available to them and would describe an altered relationship in familiar words. Finally they argue that the position ignores what surrounds the relationship: the knowledge that the pool remains open, and the absence of anyone who knows both parties.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The introduction is not separable from what follows, since who is in the pool determines who the partner is and therefore what the relationship has to work with. [Rejecting P2] The demands of family and work are themselves affected by meeting a stranger from outside any shared network, where previously the two sets of relations overlapped. [Rejecting P3] People describe their lives in the vocabulary available to them, so similar accounts are weak evidence that the underlying relationships are the same. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that the familiar features of relationships persist, not that online dating has changed nothing about them.