Match Group

Just when you thought the good old days of OkTrends were gone, and you'd resigned yourself to a life without the pithy, humorous, occasionally scandalous insights of the blog, OkCupid has launched something new: The Deep End.

Yes, that long awaited moment has finally come. OkCupid is back to blogging and anyone with a love of dating and data is squirming with joy. To kick things off, The Deep End released The Hangover, a look back on the trends and lessons that 2015 left behind. Here are some of its most interesting insights:

The Fifty Shades Effect

In typical boundary-pushing OkCupid fashion, the report starts with Americans' sex lives. Oregon took the crown for most users looking for casual flings, followed by Washington. At the opposite end of the sexual spectrum, users in Utah, South Dakota, and Idaho were the most likely to be virgins. Across the board, OkCupid users are looking to explore their kinky sides. Fifty-eight percent indicated an interest in bondage in 2015, up 5% from the year before.

Emoji Extravaganza

Love them or hate them, emojis are here to stay. The two most popular emojis on OkCupid were simple smiley faces, with the top spot going to the little guy with eyebrows. Unsurprisingly on a dating site, the winky face also scored highly. It came in third, followed by the heart eyes emoji. Beyond the classic faces, users loved the cake, coffee and pizza emojis, as well as the see-no-evil monkey.

Read Between The Lines

When not expressing themselves in modern hieroglyphs, OkCupid users ventured into verbal territory (with varying degrees of success). The Deep End found that a message simply saying “hey” had an 84% chance of being ignored in 2015. Other words from the millennial lexicon exploded last year. Use of “bae” doubled in frequency from 2014 to 2015, while “fleek,” “dad bod,” and “ghosting” made their first appearances in 2015.

Top Of The Pops

Dating and pop culture collided in 2015 with one ubiquitous phrase: Netflix and chill. The once harmless combination of words took on a new meaning last year, and use of the phrase in OkCupid messages rose 5,357% as a result. In other pop culture news, Taylor Swift replaced Miley Cyrus as the most mentioned pop star, while Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Avengers: Age of Ultron dominated the movie mentions.

Where will we be at the end of 2016? The Deep End predicts a world that is increasingly progressive, in which racial bias is a serious dealbreaker for daters and, if OkCupid users have their way, a Democrat is elected to the White House.

“What we don’t yet know,” the https://www.okcupid.com/deep-end/the-hangover concludes, “are all of the sexy and bizarre ways we’ll connect in the new year.”

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Christian Mingle

The 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was launched on October 1st, 2015. By the beginning of January, 2016 when we closed the poll it had 459 people cast their votes. For the first question of the poll, it asked our visitors what paid dating site or app would you recommend for the Single's Choice Award. This question had 8 possible answers and included the top dating services of 2015. For this award the top voted service receives Gold, followed by Silver, and for third most voted site, Bronze.

The recipient of the Gold 2015 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. Match.com grew in popularity again this year and received 8% more votes than last year. For 2015 Match received 148 votes which is 32.24% of all votes cast.

The recipient of the Silver 2015 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. eHarmony received 85 votes which is 18.52% of the total votes cast. This is roughly the same percentage of votes they had last year. This dating service continues to grow and launched several localized versions of their dating service in the past year.

The recipient of the Bronze 2015 Single's Choice Award is Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle received 60 votes which works out to 13.07% of all votes cast and 3% more votes than last year. This dating service continues to attract members thanks in part to a new and approved dating app which launched last year combined with a revamped web site.

Here are this year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll.

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Christian Mingle
4. Fitness Singles
5. OurTime.com
6. Are You Interested
7. Zoosk
8. Badoo

We would like to thank all our visitors who cast a vote this year for our Single’s Choice Award. The results of this award help guide our users to choose the best dating site or dating app for them. Each of the winning services receives a award badge on their review showcasing their accomplishments. All award winners are also added to the 2015 Award category.

From the first date, to the first kiss, to your first time between the sheets, every new relationship is marked by a series of milestones. Every one you reach is thrilling and nerve-racking, and daters have wondered since the beginning of time how to hack the system.

A new survey from Match.com attempts to answer the question of when it's the 'right' time to cross each milestone. More than 2,000 men and women in the UK were surveyed in attempt to map out the journey of the average (as much as any relationship can be 'average') long-term relationship. Here's what they found.

Within Two Weeks

The Match.com chart starts at the logical beginning: the first date. According to Match's research, the first kiss happens immediately. In the next one to two weeks, a budding couple will hold hands for the first time. They will also sleep together for the first time in that period, although they won't stay the night.

Within A Month

After the two-week point, things take a slightly more serious turn. A new couple will get undressed in front of each other – but only with the lights off – within a month. They will also introduce each other to their respective best friends.

Within Six Months

The relationship solidifies over the first six months together. Couples buy each other their first birthday presents and begin to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. At five months comes one of the biggest milestones of all: saying 'I love you.' After that, the realities of a life together begin to sink in. Couples have their first argument around 170 days, reveal imperfections around 173 days, and introduce each other to parents before six months are up.

Within A Year

Couples become increasingly permanent fixtures in each other's lives during the first year. After six months have gone by, they are comfortable leaving toothbrushes at each other's bathrooms and having a drawer in each other's homes. Then comes the travel. At 204 days, they'll go away for a night together and at 298 days they'll take an entire vacation. Within a year, it's time to have a serious conversation about the future.

Over A Year

The biggest life milestones come after the one-year mark is reached. The average couple gets engaged at 743 days (around 2 years), gets a pet at 813 days, and buys a home together just before they reach three years. The average marriage comes at 1190 days, just over three years. Finally, the average couple has their first child together at 1422 days, after three years and 11 months together.

View the full flowchart from Match.com here and check our our Match.com review.

You might not have known this if you’ve used popular dating app Tinder, but the service secretly calculates a score that ranks the most (and least) desirable people swiping on the service.

And every single Tinder user has a score.

In an article for Fast Company, reporter Austin Carr was interviewing Tinder founder Sean Rad, who let him know this wasn’t some urban myth. In fact, Rad went so far as to admit that not only does each user have a desirability score, but that the company spent more than two months developing the algorithm for rating people. According to Rad, it’s more than a popularity contest of which users get the most swipes or matches, or who has the more attractive photos, but a combination of factors that make a more complex overall view.

Still, the swipes probably have something to do with your desirability score. In fact, every time a Tinder user swipes right or left on you, that is factored into the equation – how often you are liked, versus rejected. And how many times there is a mutual swipe, versus a one-sided rejection or like. Then there are the more intangible factors, like career choice, words used to describe oneself in a profile, and educational background.

Carr got to look at his own desirability score, which was just slightly above average to his dismay. He cautioned his readers to avoid looking at their scores, as they could potentially end up even more self-conscious daters than they were already. Tinder wouldn’t give him any details besides a top line number of how he compares to everyone else using the app. Tinder does have more detailed breakdowns and analyses, but they chose not to share.

While it might be interesting to learn your Tinder desirability score, it doesn’t help if you end up on the lower end of the spectrum. It certainly doesn’t mean anything in terms of your ability to connect with that one special person – people are attracted to one another based on that intangible known as chemistry, for one.

Also, people have a wide array of tastes – what might seem attractive to one Tinder user might turn off another. OkCupid discovered this in its own study, where it researched the most-messaged users. More often than not, the ones with more unusual features tended to get more messages, and more people considered them attractive compared to those who were considered more "ordinarily attractive."

So if you are on Tinder, just keep swiping and dating without worrying about how you stack up against the competition. It’s just an algorithm, after all. For more information on this dating app you can read our Tinder review.

OkCupid has built a reptuation as one of the more open-minded dating services available for singles. In their latest progressive move, the site is adding a feature designed to help users explore nonmonogamy.

The new setting became available for some beta users last December and rolled out site-wide in Januray 2016. Polyamorous daters who are listed as “seeing someone,” “married,” or “in an open relationship” can now link their profiles with their partners' profiles and search for new additions to their relationship.

The decision to add the option for polyamorous users comes after OkCupid noticed an uptick in interest in nonmonogamous relationships. According to the company’s data, 42% of its users would consider dating someone who is already involved in an open or poly relationship. Another 24% say they are “seriously interested” in group sex. Combined, reports The Atlantic, those two numbers represent increases of 8 percentage points from five years ago.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the number of OkCupid users who say they are solely committed to monogamy has fallen to a minority of all users: 44%, down from 56% in 2010.

The trend on OkCupid is reflective of a larger trend throughout the United States. Psychology Today reported in 2014 that "sexually non-monogamous couples in the United States number in the millions." Surveys suggest that 4 to 5 percent of Americans are now involved in polyamorous relationships.

This isn't the first time OkCupid has made headlines for its forward-thinking take on online dating. The site added an “open relationship” option back in 2014. Last year, it increased the number of genders it recognizes to 22. Tinder and Match.com, also owned by OkCupid parent company Match Group, do not yet have plans to add a similar feature for nonmonogamous users.

Outside of Match Group, OkCupid remains a trendsetter. Though specialized dating sites for polyamorous people were already available, this seems to be the first time a mainstream online dating service has offered a feature for nonmonogamous partners. In the past, poly couples resorted to creating confusing joint profiles or describing their arrangement in their bios.

Jimena Almendares, OkCupid’s chief product officer, told The Atlantic the company isn't trying to make a statement – it's merely following the numbers and giving users the tools they need to find the relationships they want.

“Finding your partner is very important,” she said, “you should have the option to express specifically and exactly who you are and what you need.”

For more information on this dating service please read our review of OkCupid.

Recipient
PlentyOfFish.com

The 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed for voting at the end of 2015. In the 3 months it was open to voting the poll received 459 votes which is exactly 100 more than last year (which is a little weird). This poll is design to find out what our visitors feel is the best dating service. For this award we are looking at the top free dating site and/or app. The top 8 free dating services where picked by the Editor's to be contenders. In order for these dating services to be selected they needed to meet a number of criteria. This includes having a review on Dating Sites Reviews, having the core features of the service being free (including, profiles, searching, and messages), and being a service which is popular with our visitors.

The recipient of the 2015 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site is Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the seventh straight year in a row that POF.com has won this award. In 2015 POF received 134 votes which is 29 percent of the total votes cast. POF came in a little stronger this year as it received 4 percent more of the vote compared to last year.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. Plenty Of Fish (POF)
2. OkCupid
3. Tinder
4. Meetup
5. DateHookUp.com
6. ChristianDatingforFree.com
7. Mingle 2
8. Craigslist

The top 3 dating services received 70 percent of all votes. POF received 4% more votes than OkCupid which came in second place at 24.8 percent. Rounding out the top 3 was Tinder which had 16 percent of the votes which is 75 votes in total.

Read our review of PlentyOfFish.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.