Online Dating

If you're a staunch Republican or a true blue Democrat and this past election season has gotten you all fired up, are you also hurting your dating life? Some people avoid the subject of politics altogether at the beginning of a relationship, since it can make a flirtatious night turn contentious.

Politic Matchmakers, LLC has a different game plan, though. They offer two new sites for our polarized country - "Red State Date" (RedStateDate.com) and "Blue State Date" (BlueStateDate.com) - if your politics play a big role in your love life. With these sites, there's no need to avoid or pretend to tolerate the differences of political opinion between you and your date. Sounds great, right?

Well, ideally, yes. But I think a love connection goes beyond politics - and personal bonds are probably the one thing that can bring people with opposing views together. After all, you don't stop speaking to your uncle (except maybe during election season) because he's at the other end of the political spectrum. And you don't divorce your wife because she voted for a different candidate than you did in the last election.

But if you're tired of dating people who don't agree with your political point of view, and you don't want to defend yourself or get into more arguments, maybe it's time to try something a little more catered to your preferences.

Red State Date and Blue State Date not only offer databases of like-minded politicos, but also offer the latest news from your favorite conservative or liberal sources (Drudge vs. Huffington Post) so you can strike up a conversation. (But since you already share the same views about the world, I imagine you will spend a lot of your date nodding and agreeing with each other.)

While this seems like a good way to filter people who share the same values as you, it also leaves little room for all the other aspects of what attracts two people, not to mention all the people who aren't so led by political beliefs. I mean, what about the independents who share both liberal and conservative ideas that you'll miss meeting? And just because somebody shares your politics doesn't mean they feel the same way as you about relationships or anything else. What if your date is completely religious and you're an atheist? Or what if you are interested in marriage but your date prefers to keep things loose?

While political niche sites are great filters, they can also cause you to miss out on some great opportunities you have when you cast a wider net.

We have lots of online dating statistics for you today. Most of them have been compiled by comScore which is a company that measures internet traffic worldwide. This will make a nice wrap-up for the year 2012.

To start things, off did you know for the month of September 1 in 10 users on the internet visited a dating site? Well they did. For users of smartphones this statistic doubled to 2 visitors in every 10. Interestingly in quarter 2 of 2010 only 2 percent of every e-Commerce dollar was spent via a mobile device. In 2 short years this has risen to 10 percent which is 1 in every 10 dollars. I would bet that the online dating segment breaks down in a similar fashion since most dating sites have dating apps now.

Anyways, did you know visitors of online dating sites are not a fickle bunch? 26 percent of them visited more than one in a given month. Personal computers still win for quality time though with on average a user spending 80 minutes using online dating sites. This compares to mobile phone users who spent only 70 minutes. Facebook is a target rich environment for the dating site marking machine. 38 percent of all dating site ads are on Facebook. These ads reach almost half (47%) of their target users.

So what are the top ten dating site companies worldwide at the end of 2012 from comScore? Well compared to last year of the top 50 dating sites, 28 percent are new to the list! That is a lot for any industry.

• 1 - Match.com Sites
• 2 - Plenty of Fish Sites
• 3 - Zoosk.com
• 4 - Xpress.com
• 5 - Spark Networks
• 6 - eHarmony
• 7 - SpeedDate.com
• 8 - DateHookup.com
• 9 - Mate1.com
• 10 - Ashley Madison

So how do our English speaking friends overseas feel about online dating? In September of this year 5.7 million people in the United Kingdom (which has a total population of almost 63 million) visited an online dating site. This is a staggering 22 percent increase over the same time period last year. The 55 plus age group demographic led the charge with a 39 percent increase in visitors which topped 1 million unique visitors. The most active age group visiting dating sites was the 25 to 34 year olds with 1.3 million users which works out to 23 percent of all visitors. What was the most popular dating site in the UK? Why Plenty of Fish of course with almost 1.5 million visitors who spent on average for the entire month 115 minutes on POF.com.

A subject related to online dating is social networking. Worldwide for the month of November in 2012, on average a visitor spent 5.2 hours on one or more social network (excludes mobile phones). Over the past 3 months according to Alexa, Facebook came out on top followed by Twitter and then LinkedIn. In the top ten country list (see this) Argentina came out on top with an average of 9.8 hours in a month. Second went to Brazil with 9.7 hours and third was Russia with 9.6 hours. Canada came in 6th with 7.9 hours and the United States was nowhere on the list. This means in the U.S. visitors spent under 7.5 hours a month on social networking sites.

To find out more about the state of online dating in 2012 you can check out this page and view a presentation here. For more information about online dating and dating sites you can read our Statistics and Facts page.

My generally-cynical friend, Rose, announced that she wasn’t going to keep her online profile up through the month of December. “There’s no point,” she explained. “Last year it was totally dead in my area, and besides, people just want to have a date for their work holiday party or something to do on New Year’s.”

Now, in general I don’t agree with Rose when she becomes a Negative Nancy, but for a moment I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she was completely accurate. Perhaps the online dating site she uses was particularly quiet last December - after all, people often travel to see family, or use up their vacation time, over the holidays. Perhaps the majority of those still in town were looking primarily for a date to a holiday event. Still...

“So what?” I asked her.

She raised her eyebrows. “So what?” she repeated.

“So what if someone is just looking for a date to a holiday party?”

“Well,” she said, “It makes me feel like there’s just some ulterior motive - like I could be any random person, being used for some specific purpose. It seems hard to believe that a relationship could start under those conditions.”

“Sure,” I said, “I understand that. But the truth is, we never really know the motivation of the person we’ve just met. How is wanting a date for a party any different from wanting a first date to get back on that horse after a bad breakup? Or ultimately looking for a future spouse and parent to your future children? We all have some ulterior motive, but that doesn’t mean it’s sinister. Either way, we’re still not going to go out with someone we’re not remotely interested in. And if we have a great time, we’re going to want to see them again, even if we were just planning on finding someone for this one party. And what’s wrong with wanting someone to laugh with over the holidays?”

Rose looked thoughtful, but I wasn’t done yet.

“Besides,” I added, “Sure, it’s true that the majority of relationships probably start on some random day of the year and not in some ultra-romantic setting like waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve. But just because the majority of them start in more mundane settings doesn’t mean that all of them do. There’s no reason to avoid a potential relationship just because you think it’s a cliche.”

Perhaps I’m just a hopeless romantic. However, Rose did ultimately keep her profile up for the month of December, though she claimed it was just due to her “laziness.” What do you think?

Christian Carter’s ebook “Catch Him And Keep Him” is a great resource for women to figure out what a woman can do to meet and attract men. Our Editors review is now online for this book and can be found under our Dating Books category. This male perspective on dating and relationships is ideal for beginners and experienced women. It takes a direct approach in revealing the truth about what men want in a relationship.

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POF launched eVow back in September of 2010. Within a few months the dating site went paid. Members needed to buy a subscription to correspond with their matches and to use the advanced search features. eVow did well for a while especially when a link to the service was displayed on the Plenty of Fish website. Since then the site has seen traffic drop by about half according to Alexa. To counteract this it looks like eVow has developed a strategy which is their new dating app.

The eVow online dating app was released in October of 2012 on both Google Android and Apple iOS. The app currently has a 3.9 rating on Google Play with most of the reviews being positive and only a few minor tweaks/annoyances being mentioned. What is interesting is that the eVow app is completely free to use. You do not need a paid subscription. The eVow app doesn’t have all of the features of the website but it does have most of them. This includes sending and receiving messages, viewing your matches, and searching.

So those of you interested in using eVow I would recommend creating a membership on the dating site and then downloaded the app to message your matches. This way you can use the site for free and not pay the regular subscription fee that runs from $19.99 to $39.99 per month depending on the length of the subscription term. I am not sure how long they plan to keep the communication part of the app free so I would try it out as soon as possible.

The review for David DeAngelo ebook called "Double Your Dating" can now be found in our Dating Books category. This ebook was so popular that the author updated his source material and released a second edition. Double Your Dating is not designed as a quick fix for someone’s dating problems. David DeAngelo approaches are designed for single men who is interested in self-improvement and are looking to empower not just their dating lives but other areas of their life. This ebook is ideal for beginners.

To find out more about this popular dating book for men you can read our new Double Your Dating review now.