Oh how the dating landscape can change a parent’s mind!

It used to be that the worst place a parent could think of for their daughter to meet a mate was the neighborhood bar. Or perhaps a sci-fi convention. Indeed, the last thing that a parent wanted to imagine was their child picking someone up at a bar.

But all that has changed now, with the advent of online dating. Parents would rather have their daughter pick someone up in a bar than meet someone online.

That’s the surprise finding of a survey of 1,200 adults this month by pollster Zogby International.

Of the 1,200 people asked to identify the worst place for their daughter to meet a mate, nearly a third (31.9%) said that meeting a mate online would be the worst. Fewer than a quarter – only 22.3% – thought that meeting someone in a bar would be so bad, and only 16% of adults thought that their daughter hooking up with a Trekkie would be the worst thing imaginable.

Of course, dating a Trekkie that you met at the bar through an online portal would be a fate worse than death.