The wonders of Gaydar - not the sixth sense, but the Web site

I've been fascinated for a while now by the power of the Internet as a tool for meeting people. Putting aside the community-building thing we do with blogs and activism, I mean the actual one-on-one meeting of other people, be it for coffee, a date, a hook up or whatever. The Internet has clearly opened up a whole new world in that realm, but what I've been trying to figure out is whether it's opened up something better than what we had before or not?

I came out in the early 90s. The only way to meet guys back then was either the bar or via phone chat services (like the kind that anti-gay Virginia congressman used, and got caught). I enjoy going to bars, but I'm terrible at chatting up strangers, way too shy, truth be told, so I tried the gay chat lines. Made one friend, and think I'd met a few other guys but honestly don't remember anymore. Soon after, we had the Internet, so then I tried that.

I signed up for AOL sometime in the mid-90s, used it for dating (i.e., not just hooking up, but actually also used it for trying to meet friends and boyfriends). And while on AOL it's pretty easy to find a fling, I've never found it particularly useful for making friends or getting dates. So many of the coffees I set up with guys just ended up being weird. I keep trying to figure out if it was me, the nature of the guys on AOL, the nature of online dating, or what.

Now there's so much more than AOL. A few years ago I was going abroad and asked friends if there were any good Web sites for meeting guys in other countries (and no, not just for sex, but to actually find some interesting gay people I could go out with while on vacation, etc.) Friends pointed me to Gaydar and Gay.com. I tried both, and really had better luck with gaydar than gay.com, and actually made great friends with a wonderful gay couple in Rome - we're still good friends to this day. Gaydar also tends to, overall, have a more international and educated crowd, things I like in friends and dates, so I like it.

And now there's Friendster and other such sites. Again, tried them, and again, had some very weird coffee dates.

I've never found any of the online sites overwhelmingly helpful for making friends or getting real dates, but then again, that might just be me. Still, it does amaze me how much the Internet (and technology more generally) has helped to bring people together, and gay people especially - though I'd be curious to hear from straight people to what extent they too use the Net to meet people when they travel, either abroad or at home. I'd also be curious what other people's experiences have been with other sites. I know the French tend to like a site called CiteGay, but I've never used it.

Anyway, just meandering in my mind a bit. And no, I didn't meet anyone on this last trip in either Morocco or France (well, because in Morocco I got the sneaky feeling I was being propositioned by prostitutes, and in France, well, it's just damn hard to get through to French guys, but that's another story). Anyway, just curious your thoughts on the entire online dating thing, if you have any.