Contributed by: Editor on Friday, February 12 2010 @ 01:02 pm
Last modified on
Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News took a look at online dating recently and concluded that despite its flaws, dating sites are a useful tool. In the 15 years that online dating sites have been around (at least that was when Match.com started back in 1995) the success of online dating still remains somewhat questionable according to her. Singles have to become educated on how to use dating sites, what to look for, how to spot scammers and what websites to use, only then does it then become a useful tool.
The first thing online daters have to realize is, most singles tell a few white lies on their dating profiles. For the most part, there is no malice in this, when people mislead about something on their profile, it is usually because they feel a little inadequate. For example, it was found in a recent study about dating profiles at Michigan State University that 52.6 percent of men lied about their height, while 39 percent of women did. Women tended to fib more about their weight, 64.1 percent in fact. Age is also another attribute people lied about (24.3 percent of men and 13.1 percent of women).
Dating sites also tend to attract people who are married. While not as bad as before, since there are dating sites like AshleyMadison.com who deal with this dating niche, it can still be a problem, especially on the free dating sites. In one study, 83 percent of the participants felt that using online dating sites for a fling was not cheating on their partner as they had no plans to continue the relationship.
As far as scammers are concerned, members of dating sites need to watch out for those profiles of people with model like photos. This combined with poor spelling and grammar usually is an indication of someone who is not, who they say they are. Another huge give away of a scammer is, if they ask for money. They will use any sob story they can think of. If you haven't met the person in real life and met a few of their friends or family, I would instantly break off conversation with someone who asked for money. If you are unsure of a scammer another easy way to spot them is to ask them more about the city they live in. Usually scammers don't live in the city they say they are from and it is pretty easy to trip them up by asking them to list a few of their favorite spots to eat or something similar.
For more on the story, read Discovery News[*1] .