Online Dating Helps Widowed Individuals In Grieving Process

Monday, August 16, 2010, 12:49

According to experts the romantic online dating plays an important role in the grieving process. A new chronicle how widowed online daters use their profiles as a place to make sense of the past while articulating a vision of a future life. The University Of Delaware communication professors Dannagal Young and Scott Caplan has collected more than 500 online dating profiles from divorced and widowed individuals of both the sexes between the ages of 18 and 40 years old.

Examination of the profiles for evidence of healthy approaches to loss and describing the back story behind the divorce or death of the spouse, the attempt to make sense of the past experience is an act called "cognitive reappraisal." They had then found that widowed daters are more likely to mention their back stories online as compared to divorcees to try making sense of finding meaning in it and articulating a vision of their future partnership.

It is said that those of them who mentioned their back story are more significantly likely to describe how the experience changed them for the better.

Caplan said ," Many surviving spouses point to a shift in priorities and a new appreciation for the fragility of life after their spouse dies." She thus said that one should think of it as a post-loss enlightenment.

Young however stated that," Online dating seems like a way to bring these healthy behaviors together."