Regarding Italy and Italians – it’s a bit like we have discussed in the past about blogging and people’s ignorance of it and the Internet in general. It’s a strange thing but sometimes I feel that coming here took me back about 15 to 20 years, with regard to people’s awareness and use of the Internet.

Well, I really don’t know. I’ve never really been on the ‘scene’ nor had that many gay friends. What I can tell you is that for one of the sites it sometimes showed up to 900 people online (not members but members that were actually on the site) in the Milan city area only! That may be a massaged figure but maybe not. For that site, there were plenty of people openly looking for a casual encounter with no strings. It certainly beats hanging round the parks or clubs or bars or bathhouses, so your friend might be right.

I think it’s more common among all groups in the UK and USA than here. My friend, A (Italian), was, quite frankly appalled when I first told him about it. I had to explain that there really was no difference in looking for someone on a site than going to bars and clubs and that you knew about the same in every case by the second date – which was, of course, virtually nothing. Anyway, by the end, since he and Fr were going through a bad patch and, maybe, were splitting up, he thought that, he could try it. they’re still together (sort of§) so it will be ‘on hold’ right now.

Is it common within the gay community to use these sites? Don’t get me wrong, I ask only because a close friend of mine who is gay has used online dating websites and he told me is very common. What do you think?

Thanks. Well, obviously, I can tell you which ones and what they’re like – they would be, mainly, gay ones but some of them are for ‘everyone’. Let me know if you intend to go ahead with the analysis.

Your hints make sense.