Online Dating

You'd have to be living under a rock not to be familiar with the cooler-than-thou hipster subculture. While self-identified hipsters believe they value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, and intelligence, what their philosophy looks like to an outsider is completely different. "Effortless cool" takes a whole lot of effort, and edginess ceases to be edgy when everyone's doing it.

Still, the hipster ethos persists. Hipsters reject the mainstream in every way possible, including online dating. The more unusual the dating site, the better. Can a single hipster say they were using a site before you started using it? Or, better yet, that they'd gotten bored of the site before you'd even heard of it? Bingo - we have a winner.

Luckily, single scenesters have plenty of niche dating sites to choose from. There's GlutenFreeSingles.com, for those with actual intolerances and those who just want to jump on the bandwagon of the latest cool food trend. There's ClownDating.com, for those who love clowns and would like a clown to love them. Can't get enough of Sriracha? Join Hot Sauce Passions to find a fiery flame. There's also Mullet Passions, Trek Passions, Sea Captain Date, and Purrsonals (hipsters love their furry friends!). Or maybe you'd prefer to try what might be the most hipster niche dating site of all: Amish-Online-Dating.com.

Can the Amish even use computers? Who cares? That makes the site even more underground and cool.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, hipsters, but the days of cool cachet from niche dating sites are almost over. When the Wall Street Journal publishes a trend piece on Atlasphere, a dating site for Ayn Rand appreciators, and Farmers Only, a self-explanatory dating sites that proclaims "City folks just don't get it," it's safe to say they've officially made the jump to mainstream.

"A growing number of niche dating sites have popped up to serve people who think they know exactly the type of person they want," The Journal writes. And that's awesome - part of the beauty of the Internet is its ability to connect people who never would have connected otherwise. Even the most specific single stands solid chance of finding someone who sets their stomach a-flutter.

On the other hand, that could also be the downfall of online dating. If we live in a world where niche dating sites rule, what happens to opposites attracting or chance encounters? What awesome people are we missing out on if we narrow down potential loves by one or two traits?

Fortunately, I don't think there's much to worry about. With all the new mainstream media attention on these unconventional dating services, it's probably only a matter of time before curious folks flood the sites and hipsters are forced to leave for cooler pastures.

You know how speed dating works. An equal number of men and women attend an event. Each person spends a set period of time chatting to a prospective date, before half the guests rotate and everyone is introduced to a new potential partner. At the end of the night, each person indicates who they are interested in seeing again, and if there's a match, the organizers arrange an exchange of details.

But there's plenty you probably don't know about speed dating. Like the story of its origin: did you know that speed dating was invented by a Rabbi? Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, a Los Angeles resident and director Aish HaTorah (a Jewish Orthodox organization with a network of branches around the world), originally founded speed dating as a way to help Jewish singles meet and marry. In fact, SpeedDating, written as a single word, is a registered trademark of Aish HaTorah.

The first speed dating event took place at Peet's Café in Beverly Hills in late 1998, but it didn't take long for the idea to spread beyond Southern California. Within a year or so, the speed dating idea had gone viral and imitations had popped up around the country. It was a revolutionary way for busy singles to meet each other without the stigma associated with other kinds of dating agencies.

Although online dating is on the forefront of everyone's minds these days, it doesn't mean speed dating isn't worth a try. Science has a few interesting facts to keep in mind if you're looking to take the leap into speed dating:

1. First impressions really do count, and they happen fast. More than one study has concluded that most people make their choices within the first 30 seconds of meeting someone new.
2. Deeper issues, like religion, previous marriages, and smoking habits, were found to play a much smaller role than expected.
3. If you're looking to woo someone quickly, talk about your adventures abroad. Studies have found that dialogue concerning travel results in more matches than dialogue about films.
4. Don' judge a book by its cover, if you can help it. As is the case with online dating, what people say they want in an ideal mate when asked about it frequently does not match up with their subconscious preferences in practice.
5. Meeting in person has one serious leg-up on meeting online: your sense of smell. Scientific research has found that olfaction plays a major role in attraction, and that people wearing pheromones receive more matches. Try getting that through a computer screen.
6. Studies of speed dating events have generally shown more selectivity among women than among men, but more recent studies suggest that selectivity is based on which gender is seated and which is rotating. It may be that whoever is seated is more selective, regardless of sex.

According to a recent study aiming to find the most desirable single in 2014, you'll have the most luck if you're 25 years old and rich.

The study pooled information from about 81,000 singles between the ages of 25-35 on the dating website Plenty of Fish, along with about 1.8 million messages to see what traits were the most desirable in both men and women who are online dating.

For both sexes, men and women in their twenties received more messages than those in their thirties. Women who were between 25 and 26 years old received the most messages, with a sharp decline once they turned 33.

It seems that both men and women prefer singles who make money. Women who earned between $50,000-$75,000 and men who earned between $75,000-$150,000 attracted more prospective dates than those earning less. And men who have law degrees are also likely to be the most successful in garnering attention online, with 33% more messages than the average single guy.

While data like this paints a certain picture of online dating, it's good to keep in mind that this is information gathered from only one online dating site and from just one demographic. If we were to look at online dating as a whole, the fastest-growing segment is singles over 50. And many people prefer paid dating sites like Match.com or eHarmony because daters tend to be more serious if they buy a subscription.

Free dating sites have always skewed younger, because many young daters aren't interested in serious relationships and want a chance to meet a lot of people. Paid dating sites tend to attract users of all ages who are on different levels of the dating spectrum - from casual to marriage-minded.

Twenty-somethings are also gravitating towards dating apps rather than online dating sites. Apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Are You Interested have been on the rise, mostly because of the ease of creating a profile and meeting people immediately, whereas most online dating sites require a little more effort and time before you're meeting each other face-to-face.

So while the POF study might feed into the stereotypes that persist about online dating (that singles prefer if you're young, earn a lot of money, etc.) - there are in reality a wide variety of singles who are online dating. Don't be afraid to explore a number of dating sites and see which one works best for you. This is the best time of year to do it, since more people than ever are online dating!

In an expansion to reinvent itself as a lifestyle media network, HowAboutWe announced the acquisition of long time dating site Nerve.com.

HowAboutWe caters to both singles and those in relationships with separate subscription-based memberships, one for meeting singles and dating and one that is more of a date-planning service for couples.

The addition of Nerve.com means HowAboutWe is acquiring Nerve Dating and a database of singles who had already been using the service. Members will be automatically rolled in to the HowAboutWe for singles service, and offered a free sixth-month membership to try it out.

Nerve.com's main attraction was not its dating site, but the edgy content of its online magazine, with articles that discuss all things sexual and offbeat. HowAboutWe will be doing a redesign and relaunch of Nerve.com, though they haven't announced what that would include or how much (if at all) the content focus will change. The strength and appeal of Nerve is the brand itself, which has been around since 1997 and was one of the first web-only magazines.

HowAboutWe is focused on becoming a media powerhouse as well as an online dating service. Its roster of online magazines also includes Swimmingly.com for couples and Famously.com for celebrity news and gossip, both of which were launched the last week of January. Also under the HowAboutWe media banner is TheDateReport, which centers around dating and the single life and will also get a fresh redesign by HowAboutWe.

Brian Moylan, a former Gawker writer who has been editing TheDateReport, is now editor-in-chief of the new HowAboutWe Media, which includes all four sites.

The founders of HowAboutWe are purposeful in their media pursuits: they recognize the competition in the online dating industry, where IAC owns the majority of branded dating sites such as Match.com, OkCupid, and a number of niche sites like BlackPeopleMeet and OurTime. But these dating sites are specifically geared towards singles looking for dates. They want HowAboutWe to be a destination for people not only to meet each other, but for singles and couples to get news, advice, and also ideas about what to do together and how to nurture their relationships.

With the new sites and new content, HowAboutWe is also hoping to cash in on new advertising revenue, instead of just relying on subscriptions.

"Every lifestyle publication is speaking, in one way or another, to people and their love lives," HowAboutWe co-founder and co-CEO Brian Schechter told Observer.com. "We think that there's actually a huge opportunity to address that consumer demand as opposed to just circling around it."

It's a question I hadn't given much thought to (and I'm guessing I'm not the only one) until Slate posted it: Why don't single sitcom characters date online? Everyone and their mother (quite literally) is doing it in real life, so why haven't televisions shows jumped on the bandwagon?

Earlier this month, The Mindy Project used mobile dating as a marketing device. Tinder users swiping through profiles could come across two fictional characters from the show, which would then direct to videos promoting the sitcom if they made a match. It's was a clever marketing gimmick, and relatively unobtrusive for a generation of people who have grown accustomed to seeing ads everywhere. But it begs the question: why is Mindy on Tinder, but Tinder isn't on The Mindy Project?

"In two seasons of casual dating," writes Amanda Hess for Slate, "Mindy's been set up on a blind date; she's met suitors on the subway, in her office building, in the hospital, and on the street; and she once even unwittingly employed the services of a male escort. But she's yet to locate a date through her phone." New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, and Parks and Recreation have all featured online dating, but only as a one-off, single episode gimmick.

What gives? In real life, we'd be looking for love online or on our phones at least once an episode, not once in an entire series. Could it somehow be that we're doing away with the online dating stigma everywhere but on television? Are sitcoms just totally out of touch with modern dating?

Slate says there's another way of looking at it: "Sitcoms and dating sites are both built to organize our messy romantic lives by corralling our desires into neat narratives. Sitcoms offer an unrealistic version of modern singledom, but so do online dating services." Sitcom characters have a team of writers controlling the narrative structure of their dating lives, while those of us who live nonfictional lives require technology companies to provide a script for us.

Expect to see more online dating on your screen soon, however. Bravo plans to launch a show called "Online Dating Rituals of the American Male" in spring. The series will follow a cast of men in their search for love (or whatever else they're looking for) online. The hope is that it will provide an insider's perspective on the male psyche and dating in the digital age.

Being on Bravo, it's bound to be a sensationalized, over the top, drama fest of a show, but maybe it's still a step in the right direction.

Much has been said about online dating's transition from stigmatized service used only in the shadows to full-blown pop culture trend. The term "meteoric" has never been more appropriate. Online dating's rise to total world domination has been unprecedented...and we might have mobile to thank for that.

With the equally meteoric rise of mobile dating, online dating has become a social activity - one that people are happy to discuss in public in a way they've never been before. Tinder turned public perception of online dating on its head, especially for the young people who primarily make up its userbase.

It's not unusual to see friends using the app together, sharing images and messages amongst the group, or sending each other screenshots of especially notable Tinder chats. It's what people talk about on the bus, what they use to pass the time while waiting in long lines, and what they turn to when they're feeling awkward at a party. The online service is rapidly becoming integrated into our offline lives, and no one is embarrassed about it.

Though all online daters have benefited from the attitude adjustment that came along with Tinder, one group may be discovering some very important bonus benefits: women. Traditional thinkers say that women only want relationships - they're not interested in casual dating and would never judge someone on appearances alone. Yet 45% of Tinder users are women, and they seem perfectly comfortable with the app's low-commitment approach to relationships and reliance on physical appearance.

Tinder's non-profile profile offers up very little information (all culled from Facebook) about users, meaning it disproves a second common stereotype: that, unlike superficial men, women require detailed information about men before deciding if they're interested. The stripped down profile also prevents users from feeling exposed in an uncomfortable way they might on an online dating site. If you haven't spent hours on a meticulously crafted profile that digs into the heart of the "real you," rejection hardly feels like rejection.

There's also the message problem. Female users on online dating sites are famously bombarded with messages from admirers, an overwhelming experience that turns many off from online dating as a whole. But Tinder users can only receive messages from people they've indicated an interest in, and the app doesn't allow users to send photos (meaning unsolicited scandalous pics are kept at bay). It's a perfect solution.

And then there's the final plus of Tinder: it's fun. It manages to be silly, exciting, intriguing, and socially acceptable at the same time. Online dating has yet to crack that code.