1. One Response to “Online dating gets a documentary”

2. Hi Andy.

   I ran across your blog. Thank you for mentioning my video “Before You Commit—Internet Dating” on it.

   You are correct that some of what I suggest can be found for free on the Internet—although few people would go to all the work it would take to find it. But, most of what I present in the DVD is all new. I did the documentary because of what wasn’t on the Internet.

   The advertised parts show how to tell if the people at the other end of your email: are who they say they are, are the sex they say they are, are the age they say they are, look like their pictures, aren’t going to rip you off and aren’t scary people. Most of which I couldn’t find online.

   I had to figure out how to solve these problems.

   I assume people who run gay web sites know the advantages of Internet dating for gays and lesbians—but I haven’t seen it presented that way. Plus, everything in the video in addition to those specific advantages applies equally to gays and lesbians.

   What relationships are likely to be most successful with people who have been in prison was my biggest challenge.

   I couldn’t find anything anywhere on it. But after four months of research I was finally able to find people who because of their expertise and jobs were able to put together useful tips.

   When people kept saying to me, “If you meet someone (online) who has been in prison—forget it;” I realized that’s too many people to forget, or give up on. It’s a problem for anyone who may date someone who has been in prison, but it’s especially a problem for black women who are uncomfortable dating guys who aren’t black, or guys who aren’t black just aren’t a part of their social life—because almost a-third of black men in the United States will spend time in a state penitentiary or federal prison during their lifetime,” says Isenberg*.

   I also go into why black men are likely to end up in prison for things that white men wouldn’t.

   The first problem I attack is the need to understand what a healthy relationship is before you can have a healthy Internet relationship: information which applies to all kinds of relationships, including both traditional as well as Internet.

   I spend about a third of the documentary on healthy relationships because even people who have been raised in, or have been in, healthy relationships probably haven’t consciously thought about why those relationships were healthy and what to look for and avoid in their current relationships.

   I’ve designed the documentary so that if people watch it now and run into a potential problem they would have missed in the future—they just won’t feel right and will dig deeper before they get hurt.

   It looks like you live near Glenwood Springs. If you want to look at the video-I’d love to have you drop by.

   *Thirty-two-point-two percent of black males born in 2001 would go to prison during their lifetime, assuming current incarceration rates held steady throughout their lives.”—Christopher J. Mumola
   Policy Analysist
   Corrections Statistics Program,
   Bureau of Justice Statistics
   U.S. Department of Justice

   Nick Isenberg
   http://www.nickisenberg.com

   By Nick Isenberg on Dec 27, 2007

You must be logged in to post a comment.