Dating Services

Senior sex may be the butt of many a movie joke, but there’s nothing funny about it. An eye-opening study by the dating service Elite Singles of 2667 Americans has revealed the sexual behaviors of the elderly - and it turns out their early bedtimes aren’t just about getting more sleep.

The survey found that 91% of over-70s considered sex to be ‘important’ in a relationship, with 33% rating it as ‘very important’. And in contrast to what many believe about gender relations in the younger generations, it’s older women who are more enthusiastic about hitting the sack. Eighty-seven percent of women think the quality of sex improves with age and experience, compared to 77% of men.

In fact, according to the study, seniors over 70 have a higher desire for sex than singles aged 18-30. Celibacy was considered less acceptable for older singles than for younger ones. While 19% of respondents in the 18-30 range said they were ‘happy without sex in a relationship’, just 9% of seniors said the same.

The over-70s were also more accepting of casual sex. Seventy-five percent said there is no need to postpone sex until a solid relationship commitment is made, a sentiment shared by only 56% of younger singles. So not only are senior singles getting it on, they’re getting it on with fewer hang-ups than the supposedly free-spirited Millennials. They’re also enjoying themselves more - 81% said sex, like the proverbial wine, gets better with age.

But it’s not all about sex. Single seniors may have been around the block (more than once), but they haven’t lost faith in love. Even after break-up, separation, and divorce, 97% believe you can fall in love at any age and 62% say cupid’s arrow can strike at first sight. Superficial attraction remains important no matter what decade you’re in, with the face, chest, and hair being voted the top 3 most attractive features in an older person.

Psychologist Salama Marine weighed in on the results of the study. “People tend to feel uncomfortable with the idea of senior sexuality because it has nothing to do with reproduction; senior sex is purely about love and sexual fulfilment,” she said. “But in a society often too associated with youth, we tend to forget that there is no age limit to desire and eroticism. We must recognise that today’s seniors have lived through society's sexual liberalisation and enjoy the same sexual freedom as the rest of us.”

Time to get grandma on Elite Singles and grandpa taking shirtless selfies.

eHarmony.com has a special going on for the next few days. Starting May 12th until May 16th (2016) you can get 6 additional months for free when you purchase a 6 month subscription. This is valid only in the United States.

Instead of free communication weekends this past few months, eHarmony has been offering free subscription extensions when you purchase a subscription (about once a month). No coupon is required and you will see the deal listed when you visit the eHarmony membership upgrade page

To join eHarmony just signup for a free membership which allows you to create your profile and take the personality questionnaire. The whole process takes about 40 minutes to complete with most questions for the questionnaire being multiple choice. Just select the best answer which describes you and once complete eHarmony will take your answers and use their matching algorithm to produce a set of matches everyday for you to checkout. If one or more sparks your interest you can then go ahead and start communicating with them.

For more information about this online dating service, please go ahead and read our eHarmony review.

Tinder, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel may inspire most of the buzz in the mobile dating industry, but it’s Badoo that’s now celebrating a major milestone. The London-based company has just become the first ever dating app to reach 100 million downloads in the Google Play store.

“We’re really excited about today’s milestone,” said Alexandra Chong, President of Badoo, in a statement. “With 10 years of existence, Badoo has the industry’s deepest insights and experience, and knows how to use this wealth of information to create a fantastic user experience and sustain incredible growth and momentum.”

Other companies in the 100 million club on Android include Whatsapp, Snapchat, Spotify, and Twitter - but a surprising number of big names (from the aforementioned Tinder to Amazon, Uber, and Pinterest) haven’t yet cracked the nine-digit mark.

Along with that big news comes the launch of a timely new feature. Badoo is putting privacy and security at the forefront of the product by introducing a new photo verification system designed to combat catfishing. To get a picture verified, users must submit a selfie with a pose requested by Badoo. The gestures are not common, like a thumbs-up, but rather unique and specific.

Once the image has been submitted, Badoo’s team of over 5,000 moderators across the globe review it to ensure it follows the directions and matches the other photos on the profile. The entire process can reportedly be completed in less than one minute.

For an additional layer of safety, users can opt to be matched only with verified users. Chong says the selfie scheme was devised to make the verification process fun instead of tedious. After testing other possibilities, selfies were the clear winner. Moving forward, existing users will be encouraged to verify their account and 100% of new Badoo users worldwide will be required to go through the process.

Badoo hopes the new feature release will aid its push into the United States. The company has plans to open its first office in the US and will begin a marketing/PR campaign to announce its arrival. Chong says the company has also set its sights on solving other problems that plague the online and mobile dating worlds.

“We hear a lot of complaints about people chatting forever online and never meeting face-to-face,” she told Forbes. “So we developed a great, innovative feature to address that. It will be launching in the coming months, so stay tuned!”. For more on this dating app please read our Badoo review

Are you a Trump supporter looking for love? PlentyOfFish has some bad news for you.

The dating site recently surveyed more then 4000 American singles over the age of 18 to examine how love lives can be affected by political affiliation. It’s often said that politics (along with religion and exes) is not a first-date discussion, and POF’s research confirms it.

According to the data, singles are hesitant about dating someone with drastically different political views than their own. Twenty-five percent steadfastly refused to do so and thirty-one percent said they are unsure if they would even attempt it. Cross “the U.S. election” off your list of conversation topics if you don’t want to rock the boat.

If you’re looking for love, eHarmony is one of the most trusted names in the biz. But what if you’re in the market for new employment? With the launch of Elevated Careers, eHarmony hopes to become a go-to destination for job seekers as well as singles.

After three years in development, Elevated Careers finally launched on April 1. eHarmony hopes its many years of matching experience will be equally as successful matching job hunters with positions as it has been matching singles.

“When you have a job you are compatible with on the levels that are most important to you, then the likelihood of you being happy in it skyrockets,” reads the website. “And who doesn’t want to be fulfilled in their work? We find those jobs for you by using technology that has proven to make successful long-term careers.”

Elevated Careers is based on a three-level compatibility system:

• Skills: Using data from millions of resumes and career transitions, Elevated predicts how compatible you are with a job based on your skills and background, and how likely you are to be hired for that position.
• Culture: Culture compatibility between companies and employees greatly increases overall job satisfaction, so Elevated emphasizes how your core values fit with a company’s.
• Personality: Elevated helps you avoid personal conflict at work by showing how compatible your personality will be with any prospective hiring manager.

To get started, upload your resume and fill out the Profile Builder section. Elevated Careers then creates a Compatibility Scorecard based on the information you provide. The Scorecard shows your compatibility with your current company and is also used to match you with job listings. You can automatically see the job matches tailored uniquely to you. You can also search based on your provided demographics, or input your own keywords and search parameters.

Once you have found a job match, you can apply directly for the job, as well as view compatibility details and predicted job satisfaction with that specific company. You are also able to save a job listing you'd like to come back to later.

All functionality and features of the Elevated Careers site are currently free for job seekers. Anyone can register and create their profile, search for jobs, get matches, apply for jobs and, where available, be in direct contact with hiring managers. In the future, the company plans to add premium features for a fee.

Companies can also sign up for an Elevated account for free, but registering for a paid subscription provides access to a wider range of features, including the ability to see all available candidate details, post searchable job listings, and directly contact candidates.

What’s eHarmony’s end game? Well, just as the original site came about because Neil Clark Warren believed there was a better way of finding love than relying on luck, Elevated believes that if jobs and employees are matched based on compatibility, people will be more satisfied and fulfilled in their jobs, and companies will have higher rates of employee retention, motivation, engagement, and productivity. That’s a world any of us would be happy to live in.

You’ve heard of love at first sight, but what about love at first bite? This year’s crop of corporate April Fools’ Day pranks included Burrit-oh!, a dating site from Zoosk that matches users based on burrito compatibility.

The gimmick was all in good fun, especially considering that April 4 was National Burrito Day, but now the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the humorous site unintentionally exposed a major online dating myth.

“This year, one prank remains stubbornly present, almost four weeks after the day came and went,” writes the Tribune. “In fact, Burrit-oh! - the dating site that pairs singles based solely on their taste in portable Mexican - has proven so unexpectedly successful that maker Zoosk is thinking of keeping it.”

Nearly 2000 users have joined the site so far. Some joined just for laughs, but others are taking the scrumptious service seriously. Zoosk said they've seen an unexpected surge of people exchanging more than 20 back-and-forth messages. To put that into perspective, consider that OkCupid deems a match successful if a conversation survives only four exchanges. Burrit-oh’s record so far is 56.

"We all thought this was a really good idea and hoped it would take off," said Megan Murray, the site's senior content strategist. "But we didn't think it would take off like this."

So why is this important, other than for a quick giggle over the silliness of the internet? Almost every major dating site (including several Burrit-oh took a swipe at in a press release) touts the importance of sophisticated matching algorithms. They’re praised as the most effective way to pair people based on some "deeper" measure of interests or personality that guarantee “real” compatibility.

But Burrit-oh? Well, it’s anything but sophisticated. The algorithm is as basic as it gets, and it’s built on the flimsiest of foundations, and yet… users are still hitting it off. This supports the finding, long promoted by social scientists, that matching algorithms aren’t really science - they’re just good marketing. Behold, the unbeatable power of the burrito.

Then again, the silly service is a marketing stunt at the end of the day - a funny and clever one, but a stunt nonetheless. There’s just a teeny chance that it may outlive its initial purpose to become a real destination for single foodies. Zoosk said they've decided to keep supporting the site as long as people continue to use it.

“Personally, I am single and love burritos," Murray said, "and think it would be amazing if I could meet the love of my life on a burrito dating app."

For more information on the online dating service who launched Burrit-oh! on April Fools, please read our Zoosk review.