Stories

The Cron.com in Houston, Texas took a look at online dating and how a number of dating sites have experience growth during the past year, as the global economy has shrank. Most of the stats we have heard before in other articles, including some from Match.com (see Review) and eHarmony which both saw memberships increase in the high teens percentage wise when compared to the previous year. New facts we learned, included finding out that OkCupid has seen a 75 percent membership increase since September and that the professional matchmakers at It's Just Lunch have seen a 16 percent growth in the last 6 months.

The Houston Chronicle also included a number of success stories from different couples which lead to marriages. There was testimonials for It's Just Lunch, Together Dating and eHarmony.

Are you someone who signed up to ChristianCafe and are still not sure if they are the right online dating site for you? To help you decide, check out their member testimonials. They are listed by year and month, and go as far back as 2002. Each testimonial contains a message from the happy couple along with a few photos (usually from the wedding).

If you haven't become a member yet of this dating site, read our review of ChristianCafe for more information and to find out how to receive a 10 day free trial that gives you complete access to the service (communication included). No credit card is required for the free trial.

A news website from Ontario, Canada published an article about a couple of peoples experiences on a some of the more popular dating sites. The ChristianCafe received positive praise from an online dater named Peter. He met his wife Helga, through the Christian dating service back in February of 2008. They have been happily married now for 3 months.

In early 2008 Peter lived in Ontario and Helga lived in Alberta. Peter was keeping his searches for a partner limited to the province of Ontario, though Helga was searching in neighboring provinces. Helga first contacted Peter via instant message. After a few emails and phone conversations they both realized the other person was special. In the beginning, everyday Peter would log into ChristianCafe to read Helga's messages. After about a month, Peter flew to Edmonton to meet Helga in person for the first time, at a local cafe. Things went well with Peter and Helga for the couple of days that he visited and it became a regular occurrence for Peter to fly to Edmonton. In April of 2009, Peter married Helga and they decided to stay in Edmonton.

For more on the story, read Northern Life and to find out what makes this dating site a great place for singles, read our review of ChristianCafe.com.

Spark Networks Jewish dating site called JDate got a nice bit of publicity in The New York Times last week. The paper publish an article about a JDater's success story in their Fashion & Style section.

After a 13 year marriage, a 48 year old man named Ron James decided to get right back into dating. In the same month as his divorce he joined JDate.com. In the beginning months, every night for 2 or 3 hours he searched for woman between the ages of 30 and 50, and who lived within 50 miles of his apartment. He kept his profile full of energy but not head strong. In 18 months Ron emailed between 500 and 600 women, in which he dated almost 50 of them. This many dates was expense since, he had to pay for the date and usually commute an hour into New York City. This was all done on a modest salary. What Ron ended up doing to save money was stacking first meet dates. Every other Sunday he would have dates with as many as 3 women. He kept the date times spread apart and at different locations so he could "retain some sense of integrity".

Last year, we looked at Second Life and how the members of this virtual world were dating and even having online weddings in the virtual universe (see Story). Newsweek is taking another look at Second Life and at the couple Lillie and Hawkins. Lillie lives in California and Hawkins lives half way around the world in Wales. Both have kids and neither have a lot of money. In fact, they have only seen each other in real life a total of three times.

Their life as a couple exists almost entirely online. In Second Life, they go on dates that would be impossible in the real world. They fly over cities and land on rooftops, go scuba diving on a moment's notice. Physical intimacy is out, but they use the technology to fake it as best they can. They hold hands. They kiss. Sometimes they have virtual sex. (It's possible—though they say watching their avatars knock boots is more comic than erotic.) Outside of Second Life, they use Webcams and Skype, the online voice-video-chat system, to peer into each other's worlds, even when they're just doing daily chores. At night, they hookup headphones, so that even while they sleep, they can hear each other breathing.

They both admit that the relationship is odd, but the romance does work for them.

The day after their digital wedding, Hawkins and Lillie saw and heard each other for the first time, over the computer screen. Hawkins's voice was soft and gentle; Lillie's warm and girlish. The connection, they say, was immediate—but it was also a wake up call. They'd moved the relationship from fantasy to reality, and suddenly they had to think about what that meant.

Obviously the hardest part for them was the physical component. In the end it took them more than two years before they would meet physically and have their first real kiss. This was back in 2007, when a British TV station flew Lillie to the US for free so she could meet her Second Life husband. It was filmed as part of a documentary about virtual lives on the internet.

For the full story of Lillie's and Hawkins virtual romance, read "A Geek Love Story" on Newsweek.

The Richard Ivey School of Business (The University of Western Ontario), Intouch Magazine (Winter 2009 edition), has a feature story about the history of a few of their graduates who are successful business men in the online dating industry. Lavalife co-founder Nicholas Paine (HBA ’83) is interviewed first. He talks about his experience in the early 1990's of converting their Tele-classifieds business (Classifieds over the phone) into a web personals site, and by 2001 into the popular dating site Lavalife.

Sam Moorcroft (MBA ’95), is also interviewed about how he started the popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com. In the late 90's Sam had used a U.S. based Christian dating service to meet women locally and on the advice from a friend decided to start a website himself.

The key to the success of Christian Cafe.com was filling a niche in the market. Moorcroft knew from the women he had dated that they wanted to meet believers like themselves.

In the beginning years Sam and his brother held down several jobs to support themselves while they got their online dating site off the ground. In ten years ChristianCafe.com has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

To find out more information about these dating services from Canada, read our ChristianCafe.com review and our Lavalife review.