Online Dating

Match.com's Singles in America study, now in its fourth year, examines the attitudes and behaviors of over 5,300 American singles from from all walks of life in order to get a glimpse into how love and relationships are viewed today.

When it comes to modern love, there is no greater expert than Dr. Helen Fisher. Dr. Fisher is a Biological Anthropologist, a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolution Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, and the Chief Scientific Advisor to Chemistry.com (a division of Match.com). She's shared her expertise in five books on the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender differences in the brain, and the way personality types shape who you are and who you love.

Needless to say, she's a lady who knows what she's talking about. And fortunately, what she sees in the data from the most recent Singles in America study gives her hope for the future of relationships.

In our modern age of hooking up, friends with benefits, cohabitation before marriage, and constant interaction through computers and mobile phones, many Americans believe that we are living in an era of emotional isolation and sexual chaos. But not Dr. Fisher. In fact, she sees many positives about the ways we date now:

• We are less prejudiced than ever before. 75% of singles say they would make a long-term commitment to someone of a different ethnic background. 70% of singles say they would commit to someone of a different faith.
• Despite our increasingly progressive approach to choosing a partner, most singles still want to wed. 79% of men and women in their 20s and 62% of those in their 30s plan for marriage to be a part of their future.
• Not only do most of us still want to marry, we want to do it for the "right" reasons. Only 14% say they plan to marry for financial security. Instead, 86% of single say they want to wed to "have a committed partner to share my life with."
• Even those who say they'd don't want to marry chalk their feelings up to the fact that they "don't think you need a marriage to prove you love someone." So even if the significance of marriage is on the decline, says Dr. Fisher, love most certainly is not.

Unsurprisingly, traditional forms of courtship and partnering are also on their way out. Around 92% of men say they're comfortable being asked out by a woman, and 33% of men say they would make a long-term commitment to a woman who is a decade or more their senior. Moreover, the majority of singles now also approve of same-sex marriage, childfree marriage, and having children out of wedlock.

According to recent research, online dating is now the most popular way to meet prospective romantic partners. If you're considering joining a dating site but aren't sure what to do or what to expect, it's a good idea to proceed with both an open mind for meeting people and a little precaution.

Online dating safety is a concern, and the U.S. Attorney General's office has taken a stand to encourage people to exercise caution when searching for a relationship online because of the recent dating scams, especially when online daters misrepresent themselves in order to extract financial favors.

Zoosk, which markets itself as the number one dating app, has put together a few quick tips for online dating safety, so keep them in mind when you begin your own search:

Create an Alias - Create a new username and use a different email account from your main email when signing up for a dating site to protect your privacy.

Stay Online - Don't give out your personal cell phone number right away, especially if you are feeling pressured. Keep your messages and chats online through the dating site until you meet in-person.

Keep Personal Info Private - Do not share sensitive personal or financial information with someone whom you haven't met. This includes your last name, address, home or work phone numbers in addition to any financial information.

Go Out in Public - Always choose a public venue for your first few in-person dates, such as a restaurant or coffee shop. Never meet for the first time at your/their home, and don't arrange to have your date pick you up. Plan to meet each other at a restaurant or other public location instead.

Tell a Friend - Always let a friend or family member know who, when and where you're meeting for an in-person date with someone you met online.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when you're online dating:

Meet sooner rather than later. Many problems for daters occur because they form a virtual relationship with their online match and become emotionally invested before they've seen each other face-to-face. Before you get intimate through emails and phone calls, plan to meet each other for coffee in person. Often, a scammer will try to avoid in-person meetings and keep things going online. If your date keeps making excuses for why he can't get together, then move on.

Keep drinking to a minimum. Some people like to have a glass of wine to loosen up on a date. Keep in mind your tolerance levels. If you get tipsy after a drink or two, you might want to consider not drinking at all. Don't make yourself vulnerable to your online dates, especially when you don't know them.

Match.com's Singles in America study, now in its fourth year, examines the attitudes and behaviors of over 5,300 American singles from from all walks of life in order to get a glimpse into how love and relationships are viewed today.

First dates are kind of a big deal, so of course questions about them were front-and-center in the Singles In America study. Based on the data, dating is in a place that few would have believed years ago. 92% of men now say they're perfectly comfortable with a woman asking them out (yay!), and only 25% of men say they want to plan the first date themselves. Ladies: time to step up your game.

Oh, and it's also time to step up your online stalking game. 47% of singles research their dates on Facebook before meeting (which could explain why 32% of singles ask for the first and last name when asking someone out). Women are the bigger offenders, with 53% percent conducting a bit of pre-date online research compared to 38% of men.

During the date, men and women take different approaches to attraction. Men are more likely to believe in love at first sight (43% of men vs 32% of women), while women are more likely to later fall in love with someone they didn't initially feel a spark with (53% of women vs 40% of men).

Here are a few important things to keep in mind while you're on that first date:

• Don't talk about exes. 72% of singles say it's the #1 conversational offense on a date, followed by politics (62%) and religion (54%).
• 92% of singles drink on a first date, so don't be afraid to imbibe...but don't go overboard.
• 60% check their phones at least once, even though both men and women consider it rude.
• 35% of men and 27% of women believe that the man should pay for the first date, regardless of who asked for the date in the first place.
• Women are more likely to judge a man by his attire than his car.
• Men are more likely to judge a woman by her tattoos than her shoes.
• A first date can be judged by how long it lasts. 52% of singles think a good first date should be between 2-4 hours.

And what happens after that first date?

• Single men are 5x more likely to hope it ends in sex.
• 51% of singles are already imagining their future together.
• 46% of men and 35% of women follow-up the next day (ideally by phone, though text is a close second). Only 6% of men abide by the "Three Day Rule."

For more on the dating site which conducted this survey you can read our Match.com review.

While POF has garnered a lot of attention over the years for its free online dating service and hook-up potential, its founder wants to get back to basics and is focused on the goal – finding people matches for the long-term.

POF does have an advantage over other dating sites: namely, its user base. With 70 million registered users all over the world, it can rightly call itself the largest online dating site. Three and a half million people log on to the site every day to look for matches and communicate with others. The company also estimates that over one million relationships a year begin on its website.

What does this mean for daters? For one thing, the sheer numbers POF draws from memberships means the company can determine how people date from country to country, including their cultural preferences and overall approach to dating. They’ve found that while daters in the U.K. largely embrace online dating, the rest of Europe is a bit behind. They can focus on areas of growth and potential.

POF began in Canada, but the U.S. is by far its biggest market, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and Australia.

“People in the United Kingdom will wear turtlenecks in the photos they send,” POF founder Markus Frind told The Provence, commenting on the cultural differences of dating he’s witnessed through the POF user base. “Women are way more aggressive in Brazil. They initiate as much as men.”

POF was started in 2003 when Frind was working for another technology company, and created the dating site in his spare time. He ran the company out of his apartment for five years until it reached ten million in annual revenue. Today he employs about 75 people in a large office space in Vancouver, and since POF remains a free service for daters, most of the revenue generated is from advertising.

Though Frind won’t disclose how much revenue his private company makes, he has put aside $30 million for acquisitions and intends to keep growing. In September of last year, he bought speed dating company Fast Life, hoping to add value to his online dating service by getting into singles events.

And as for success stories? Frind met his own partner through work, not over an online dating site. But he has gathered some success stories resulting from POF matches, including a young married couple who met each other five years ago on the site.

With its popularity unwavering, POF is focusing its efforts on technology and growth. The goal according to Frind is still to help people find long-term relationships.

According to a new study, 50% of couples will have met online by the year 2031.

As it stands, roughly a third of married couples today have met online, and the numbers keep growing. New research by eHarmony found that in the near future 38% of couples will have met online or through a matchmaking service, and by 2040, about 7 in 10 couples will have met online.

People seem to be pulling away from meeting people at bars or parties and instead looking to a bigger pool of candidates online. The research shows that more people have access to the Internet, especially with the rise in popularity of smartphones, which has led to more people taking advantage of online dating services and apps. Internet usage in general has doubled in the past decade among those aged 18-64, from about 43% to 88%. More than half of online daters use smartphones to interact with their matches and online dating services.

According to eHarmony's study, those aged 55 to 64 are expected to have the biggest online dating boom, with a 30 percent increase between 2013 and 2030 - from 1.87 million to 2.41 million.

Romain Bertrand, marketing director of eHarmony, told the U.K.'s Daily Mail: "In the decades to come, online dating will not only be an efficient way to meet a partner, but will be by far and away the most common way that couples meet and initially communicate. One of the most significant developments we've seen at eHarmony is a substantial increase in the number of people who access our site on a smartphone or tablet device, which now stands at about half of all our members."

Part of the growing popularity of online dating stems from the fact that fewer people are meeting potential long-term partners through work or school. Since 2007, the number of couples who met through work or school has dropped from 18% to 12%. One explanation for this could be the rise of smart phones and dating apps like Tinder, which are easy to use and provide a convenient and fast way to meet new people. Young daters aren't necessarily ready to get involved in a serious relationship while they are in school, so online dating provides a viable way to meet people after they leave campus.

As for those who meet at work, there is a risk involved, especially if the company has a no-go policy on workplace relationships. Also, it's a lot more appealing to get involved with an online date than with a co-worker you will still have to see every day should things go badly. Online dating provides more options.

What if you could meet, woo, and win your fiancé in just 90 days?

That's exactly what Chris McKinlay, a Boston mathematician, did in June 2012. McKinlay was good at math, but not so good where his love life was concerned. So he did what any enterprising mathematician would do: developed complex algorithms and used robot profiles to systematically sift through thousands of profiles on OkCupid to find his perfect match.

McKinlay was working on his PhD at UCLA in June 2012 when he first joined OkCupid. After answering 350 questions from the thousands available on the site, he discovered that he only had a compatibility rating of over 90% with fewer than 100 women. Six disappointing dates later, and McKinlay realized that something needed to change. He decided to apply his data skills to his dating life.

He began by creating 12 robot profiles that answered all of the questions randomly and used them to mine the survey answers of all women on the site. Then, armed with 6 million answers from 20,000 prospective mates, he used an algorithm to analyze the women he would like to meet. He limited his search to LA or San Francisco based partners who had logged on within the last month and clustered their personalities into two types that appealed to him most: "indie" women in their mid-20s and slightly older creative-types. After creating two different profiles for himself designed to target each cluster, he then answered the top 500 survey questions for each group.

The hack worked. McKinlay suddenly found himself with a 90%-plus compatibility rating with more than 10,000 women. Because OkCupid notifies users when someone looks at their profile, McKinlay designed software that would automatically view as many profiles as possible, prompting curious matches to initiate conversation with him. He received about 20 messages per day and went on 87 dates, but just one - the 88th - was special.

28-year-old Christine Tien Wang, an artist pursuing a master's in fine arts at UCLA, caught his attention and the two hit it off. They've been together ever since, surviving through Wang's one-year art fellowship in Qatar and McKinlay's admission that he'd used rather unconventional means to meet the woman of his dreams. "I thought it was dark and cynical," Wang told Wired. "I liked it."

McKinlay maintains that he was just doing "a large-scale and machine-learning version of what everyone does on the site," and unusual though his approach may sound, it's hard to argue with success. McKinlay and Wang are now engaged, and he has written a book to help others find spouses through online dating...it doesn't get much more successful than that.