With technology in this day and age, people are tempted to oversimplify everything, including dating. Candle-lit dinners and picnics are not enough anymore. Why go out and socialize when finding a date can be easy enough to do from your couch? In just two taps, you can find yourself a seemingly similar person; but is that really the best way to go about it?

Meeting people online can come with many complications; one of course, being liars. Creating an entire opinion about someone based off a profile that they created can be misleading. How can one be so sure if all they have to go off is a “describe yourself in less than 150 characters” statement? There is an entire show dedicated to instances like this: MTV’s “Catfish”. The show is based on two men who are called in to handle couples who have been dating online, but never met.

This has grown as a problem and attracted so much attention, Dr. Phillip Calvin McGraw created a page on warning signs of a catfish. According to Dr. Phil, “With more than 40 million men and women online looking for love, there are bound to be some scam artists out there.”

Being catfished can even be dangerous. Talking to someone online for a long period of time, sharing personal information can put people at risk for things like stalking, fraud and even identity theft. Suddenly, dating is not fun anymore but it is finding way to protect yourself. This can also be also emotionally damaging. Many of the people who find out their significant others are not who they say they are, end up heartbroken. The pain of being lied to by a trusted and loved person could ruin dating completely.

Romance is being killed by online dating. No more first dates where you exchange those valuable facts about yourself. No more excitement of having a real conversation with someone for the first time. People date with the intent of finding someone that they enjoy spending time with and can rely on in hard times.

Dating is personal and should not be just shooting emails back and forth. Meeting people and getting to know them is a crucial part of making a healthy, good relationship. Sites like eHarmony and Match.com match people up according a profile that they create, taking away the experience of meeting someone on your own. Slogans like eHarmony’s, “#1 trusted dating site for like-minded singles” attracts people to take the easy route.

Even though we have the resources to make everything quick and easy, dating is not one of those things. Choosing a life partner shouldn’t be easy enough to do from your toilet seat.