Dating Services

We’ve all heard (or seen via Instagram) the news about Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton dating. They met as co-workers on the set of reality TV show The Voice, and now, since they both split from their respective spouses, they have become a very public item.

But what does it mean to work alongside the person you’re romantically involved with – do many people do it, or is it just something most people think about?

If you have been wondering (or considering your own workplace affair), Match.com has crunched the numbers for you to reveal a few facts on the subject. They surveyed thousands of singles in their latest “Singles in America” study, and revealed information on workplace dating.

Following are some interesting stats that Match found in regard to workplace dating:

• According to Match, one-third of singles have dated someone they work with, and more than half say a happy relationship is more important than their career.
• Of the 35% of people Match surveyed who have dated someone they work with (37% of males, 34% of females), 55% of them don’t even try to hide the romance – much like Gwen and Blake, who have been documenting it themselves via Instagram.
• An almost equal number of men and women (57% of males, 56% of females) say that a happy relationship is more important to them than their careers.
• The majority of people surveyed agree that flirting with a co-worker is totally fine (75% of men and 66% of women) - but do it after work. Forty-three percent of people surveyed said they prefer to flirt with colleagues after work rather than during the day at the office (39%). And a whopping majority of 92% said they would never flirt with their boss.
• Don’t put it in writing – only 14% of people said they have flirted with a colleague via email.
• Men are more likely to act on their feelings, regardless of the potential consequences. Forty-three percent of men vs. only 35% of women are inclined to flirt in the office. Fifity-seven percent of men vs. 29% of women fantasize about having sex with one of their co-workers, and 46% of men vs. 15% of women would consider having a one-night stand with someone they work closely with.
• Of the people surveyed who admitted to dating someone at work, 65% of them have had a one-night stand, 56% have had a friends with benefits relationship and 80% think about sex at least once a week.

Recipient
Plenty of Fish

The recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Innovative Award for 2015 is Plenty of Fish (POF). This online dating service has kept itself on the top by being an innovator. In 2015 POF reached more than 100 million users and has on average 3.5 active users everyday.

In the past year POF.com received a number of updates. One of the most important is the website went responsive. This means it can now be viewed on a smartphone's browser without all the pinching and zooming. Depending on the screen size of the device viewing pof.com, the website will automatically rearrange the layout along with adding and removing interface items to give the user the best possible viewing experience.

The POF service itself saw a number of new features added. One of the more popular ones was the ability to add photo's to your profile from Instagram. The POF App (iOS and Android) had the most work done on them since they had the most new features. Upgraded members (ie paid users) now have access to VoIP Calling. This means you can contact other members using the dating app for voice calling but still keep your phone number hidden for the extra bit of safety. The POF app also now can send you push notifications on your phone. This means if you are using another app while you get a new message from a potential POF match, you will be notified right away via a popup window with the message along with the ability to reply to the message.

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

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Tinder

Recipient
Passion.com

The 2015 Editors Top Pick - Sexy Award recipient is Passion.com. This ultimate hookup dating service has over 60 million profiles from the United States alone and over 5 million from Canada. If you are looking for an intimate encounter then this popular FriendFinder Network service is a great place to start since they have so many active members.

Passion is free to search and view snippets of profiles. To communicate and view photos, videos and full profiles it is required you become either a paid member or, you can unlock one profile to view and communicate with for a small fee. As a full paid member you can communicate (email, chat, video, etc..) with any member, and any member (including free ones) can reply to your communication. This is one of the reasons in which makes Passion.com so popular since most adult oriented dating sites only allow paid members to communicate fully with each other.

Passion.com is all about the community and the service let's them express themselves in as many ways as possible. There are user blogs, forums, and interest groups. There is also the Sex Academy and member contests. Plus members can have top fans and run live webcams. With your profile you can also receive questions about yourself from members which you can answer (and post publicly), have testimonials, and create your own Bling.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

There was no runner up in 2015 for this award.

Recipient
eHarmony

The 2015 Editor’s Top Pick - Match System award recipient is eHarmony. For those of you who follow the Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards this is no surprise as eHarmony has been winning this award since 2008. With over 66 million members since launch (way back in 2000), in our opinion eHarmony is still by far the online dating service which is best at figuring out the top matches between its members. To date eHarmony has been responsible for over 2 million marriages and of those marriages only 3.86% have gotten a divorce (which is well below the national average of over 40%).

eHarmony's matchmaking algorithm is about quality and not quantity. When you first join as a member you are required to fill out the eHarmony relationship questionnaire. It is made up of multiple choice questions designed to determine your 29 dimensions of compatibility. Once complete eHarmony then compares your results with others in their matching models to determine your ideal match which are scientifically proven to predict healthier and happier long-term relationships. After much research into relationships and how they work, eHarmony has determined which personality traits, values, and beliefs are most compatible with each other. This information is what makes up their matching algorithm and the questionnaire you fill out helps deduce traits like curiosity, intellect and conflict resolution which is used by the matching algorithm to find your matches.

Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this dating service or visit eHarmony directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is:Hinge

Recipient
Tinder

The Editor's 2015 Top Pick - Dating App Award recipient is Tinder. 2015 was a huge year for Tinder. With over 1.6 billion swipes a day and with over 9 billion matches since it launched in 2012, Tinder has become one of the most popular dating apps (it was the most mentioned dating service on Twitter in 2015). It currently has over 40 million active members and it has recently launched a paid upgrade feature called Tinder Plus. Tinder Plus is a set of new features (Rewind and Passport) designed to make the Tinder power user become a subscriber (so the service can actually make money). From all of the swipe rights every week, more than 1.5 million in-person dates are thanks to Tinder with more than half of those making it to a second date.

The funny thing with Tinder is that it has a reputation on being a hookup app but a number of surveys online have found that 80% of singles who use Tinder are looking for a long-term relationship. Tinder also has a fairly even ratio of men and women. For every 4 women on Tinder there are 6 men. Tinder also has become a bit of a celebrity hot spot (Hillary Duff, Katy Perry, Lindsay Lohan). Celebrity accounts are now verified and have brought a lot of media attention for not only the celebrity but Tinder as well.

Read our review of Tinder for more information about this online dating service or visit Tinder directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Match.com

eHarmony is having a 7 day free trial here in the United States and Canada. It starts Wednesday January 13th, 2016 and runs to the end of day on Tuesday January 19th, 2016.

What the eHarmony free trial gives you is the ability to communicate via email with all of your matches for no charge. To access the 7 day trial all you need to do is create a free membership account if you already don't have one. Once completed you can then take the eHarmony questionnaire which takes the average person between 30 to 40 minutes to complete. The questionnaire is a very important step and I would recommend taking your time answering the questions as truthfully as possible since your answers is what eHarmony's matchmaking algorithm uses to determine your matches. The algorithm is very complex and eHarmony has invested millions of dollars over the years in research to make sure it will produce matches that lead to long-term relationships. Most of the questions are multiple choice based so it is easy to skim through it and answer all the questions quickly but then, you would be decreases your chances of finding that special someone.

These free trials eHarmony has (about once a month) are an ideal time to try out this dating service to see if it is the right fit for you. If you are looking for a meaningful relationship which is not just a hookup then eHarmony is a good dating site for you to try out. The trial is available on all of the platforms including the website and dating apps (Android and iPhone). Please note the free trial does not include viewing photos and skipping the guided communication process and going straight to email.

For more information about this popular online matchmaking service, you can read our review of eHarmony.