Communicate for free at eHarmony.com for 6 days from Wednesday August 31st to Monday September 5th, 2016. This is in celebration of the Labor Day long weekend and is available in the United States only.

eHarmony has been matching singles and creating many long term relationships with over 2 million marriages (and counting!) since the year 2000. Online dating has changed a lot in 16 years and eHarmony has evolved to become one of the most popular dating services. You can access their service via eHarmony.com or by downloading one of their phone apps which are available on Android and iOS. Years of continued research has fine-tuned the eHarmony profile questions and matching system making it the best chance of finding a partner according to this study.

Signing up for an eHarmony membership is free. Once completed all you need to do is take about 30 minutes and fill in your profile questions. These questions are important as they are used by the eHarmony matchmaking algorithm to find you your best matches (most are multiple choice). When your profile is finished you will then receive your first set of matches. After reviewing your matches you can then communicate with those that interest you by starting the guided communication process. New matches will continue to arrive everyday. As always free communication weekends do not include viewing of photos, the secure call phone service, and skipping the guided communication process to go straight to emailing. For access to these features you will need to purchase an eHarmony subscription.

For more about this online matchmaking service with the goal of finding its members long-term relationships, you can read our review of eHarmony.

New claims are made about Millennials every day. “Millennials are lazy!” “Millennials still live with their parents!” “Millennials are entitled!” “Millennials will never save money!”

Thanks to a recent study conducted at Florida Atlantic University, a new provocative headline has joined the generational narrative: “Millennials aren’t having sex!”

The study found that 15% of Millennials aged 20 - 24 said they had no sexual partners since turning 18. That’s more than twice the number (6%) of GenX’ers born in the 1960s who said they’ve had no sexual partners as adults. The shift toward higher rates of sexual inactivity among Millennials was particularly pronounced among women, and absent among Black Americans and those with a college education.

When you have a question and access to the internet, Reddit is the place to get it answered. A user of the popular site recently posed this question to members of the community who use dating sites: ‘What information about a person makes you leave/ignore their profile immediately?’

As of this writing, the post has garnered nearly 3000 comments from singles eager to share their two cents. The advice covers spelling errors, emoji use, selfies, profile cliches, and more. Read on for a selection of Reddit’s top tips for online daters.

Tinder took the online dating world by storm a few years ago when it launched, changing the way people connected for dates. Instead of crafting elaborate profiles, Tinder’s appeal was its ease and visual component, its mobile interface – you like a photo, and you swipe.

But now, other apps who have tried to copy its example, creating swipe-like features of their own, have found that this is not the best way to stay competitive in the dating app space. So instead of making as many profiles available as quickly as possible, other apps are looking to curate their offerings and make it a more selective process, specifically for female users.

Your friend is engaged to marry someone they met online. You catch coworkers secretly sending messages at the office. You see strangers swiping through profiles on public transportation. Your aunt is getting back into the dating game after a divorce by joining Match.com.

Online dating is officially everywhere, while it still has occasional detractors, most people seem to have accepted it as the best way to date in the 21st century. But is it the only way?

Some people have struggled to adapt to the new system, and the constant talk of “Tinder this” and “Bumble that” can make them feel totally disconnected from modern romance. The truth is, online dating isn’t right for everyone. If any of the following descriptions fit, you may be better off finding love the old fashioned way.

Romantics chalk the perfect first date up to serendipity, or fate, or the machinations of a fat winged child with an arsenal of arrows. As for realists, they prefer to rely on science to explain the inexplicable.

If it sounds like a tall order - maybe too tall - you’re right. Research may never fully decode a phenomenon as complex as love, but that won’t stop scientists from trying. Countless studies and surveys have been devoted to unmasking the mysteries of love and attraction. Some are more credible than others, and all should be taken with an appropriate amount of salt, but their conclusions are intriguing food for thought.

The following studies have attempted to illuminate the art of the ideal first date.