Recent studies have shown that while most people prefer one-on-one dates, a small but growing number of Americans are more interested in group dating, even for a first date. Perhaps because it takes some of the initial pressure off of keeping conversation flowing, or maybe because you can meet more than one potential single guy if you go with a dating site like Grouper.

But could there be another benefit of group dating for those already in relationships?

According to a recent study reported by DatingAdvice.com, double dating could actually help improve your relationship and connection with your partner.

The study was conducted by Richard Slatcher, an assistant psychology professor from Wayne State University. Slatcher recruited 150 couples for his research, all of whom were either dating or married for at least a year. They split the couples into two groups for two similar studies.

Double dates were conducted in the lab between couples who did not know each other prior to the experiment. The couples were given relationship questionnaires both before and after each date.

The questionnaires served a double purpose for the dates – in addition to Slatcher and his team collecting information for the study, they provided open-ended questions to spark conversation during the date. “What was the most embarrassing moment in your life?” and “What is your idea of a perfect day?” were two examples given.

“Opening up about your thoughts and feelings can increase feelings of passionate love,” Slatcher said. “When you and your partner are opening up to this other couple, the extent to which the other couple really responds to you in a way that conveys understanding and is really validating of you increases your feelings of passionate love toward your own partner.”

In other words, couples tended to feel validated about their own thoughts, beliefs, and form a deeper level of connection when talking about these things with another couple.

And maybe, you find out new things about your partner when you're in a group setting sharing life stories and ambitions, compared to a typical night of having dinner with your SO and talking about what happened at work that day.

So, if you’re in a relationship it seems that group dating might actually help break the ice with your partner, at least in terms of having a connection and memorable conversation, rather than if it was just the two of you.

The study will be discussed at a gathering in Austin, Texas at the annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

A lot of people love online dating because of its convenience. It's hard to beat being able to scan through potential matches from the comfort of your own home, entirely at your leisure. Traditional dating can be found, but it can also be a huge time suck. Sometimes all you want is an efficient way to weed out the frogs from the princes (and princesses).

Online daters already know that dating websites are a great way to save time, but it turns out they're also a great way to save money. Couples who meet online tend to marry after a shorter period of time than couples who meet in real life, meaning that a courtship that begins via the Internet ends up being thousands of dollars cheaper than meeting and wooing someone offline.

According to market strategists at New York City-based ConvergEx Group, the average dating period prior to marriage for a couple who met in real life is approximately 42 months. Let's do some math: if that couple goes on one date per week, and that date costs around $130 (for food, drinks, entertainment tickets, etc.), then the total cost of that couple's courtship would be around $23,660.

The average time between meeting and marriage for couples who meet online, on the other hand, runs around 18.5 months. The average dating site customer spends $239 a year for online memberships, according to ConvergEx Group, and if we assume that the amount spent on dates is the same, an online dater saves $12,803 in comparison to an offline dater.

And what if the dates go Dutch? In that case, each online dater saves just over $6400. Not too shabby at all!

But, just because it's more acceptable, easier, and less expensive for people to meet online doesn't mean more US citizens are using dating sites to meet marriage partners. According to the Pew Research Center, only 51% of Americans were married in 2011 – a significant drop from the 72% who were married in 1960 – and the numbers are continuing to decline.

ConvergEx suggests that the trend could be in reaction to the high divorce rates seen throughout the 1970s and 80s. “Seeing their parents and/or friends’ parents go through a divorce has made today’s young people more cautious when it comes to finding a mate,” they say.

Many more of today's young people are putting their careers had of relationships, making them less reliant on a spouse for support and possibly also contributing to the decline in marriage. Marriage rates are reportedly also dropping faster among people with less education. "Declining marriage rates among those with lower levels of educational attainment is a warning sign that is worth watching," says ConvergEx, "especially if the trend continues."

Are you passionate and romantic? Or do you consider yourself more rational and perceptive?

A new study came out from statistician, researcher and computational biologist Emma Pierson, who dug into some eHarmony-released data to produce some interesting findings. Apparently, the adjectives you use to describe yourself on the eHarmony site influences who you are matched with.

The study pointed out that many people tend to use the same adjectives together to describe themselves. For instance, if you call yourself passionate likely you also use the term romantic. If you describe yourself as intelligent you probably would agree that you’re also rational or perceptive.

Based on these adjective groupings, Pierson found that there are five basic types of eHarmony daters: The Romeos (passionate), the Spocks (intelligent, rational), the Snow Whites (sweet, quiet), the Teddy Roosevelts (optimistic and energetic), and the Hufflepuffs (hard working and loyal).

According to the study, most people will identify with one of these groups more than the others, and tend to use adjectives that describe them together – such as dependable and hard-working. This matters to eHarmony because it also determines who to match you with based on these adjectives.

The most striking observation from the data she collected: women tend to be matched with men who are in the same grouping – in other words, Teddy Roosevelts tend to go for other Teddy Roosevelts. There are two exceptions however: Spock women seem to have a thing for Romeo men (opposites attract?), and Hufflepuff women get matched up with Snow White men.

For the men, it lines up pretty closely as well. Though the majority of male members get matched up with women in their same category, Romeo men pair up with Spock women fairly often too. (Good to know that a passionate man likes a smart woman – maybe she keeps him reigned in?) Also, Snow White men tend to go for the loyal, dependable Hufflepuff women.

Where do you fall on the chart? Are you the rational dater, who carefully examines all the evidence before deciding whether or not to fall in love? Or are you easy-going and optimistic, assuming that when you meet the right person, things will work out, so you don’t sweat the small stuff?

There’s some truth to matching based on how you see yourself, because eHarmony claims that their members have longer lasting marriages and relationships than those who met on other dating sites. Mostly, it’s interesting to see that in the end, similar and complementary feelings, approaches and personality traits do tend to attract each other.

The results are in from Match.com and their annual Singles in America survey, and it seems that people are still looking for happily ever after when it comes to relationships.

Match.com surveyed over 5,000 singles to find out what they think about dating, love, sex and relationships today. The biggest find? Technology is changing how we meet each other and also how we date. The majority of singles met their last date online (31%) rather than through a friend (only 25%). Also, 29% of singles use video chat to communicate with a date. It turns out they want to see if there is a little virtual chemistry before they agree to meet in person.

It's no surprise however that women are pickier daters than men. The study found that the majority of men will date a woman who is more successful and makes more money than they do, or is more educated. However, the majority of women won't date a man who is less intellectual or shorter than they are.

What about turn-offs? Most singles judge their dates by how confident they are and by their teeth. It's also a turn-off if a potential date has bad grammar or uses text speak when sending an email. Most daters prefer someone who comes across as more educated.

A bit of advice for men: no sexy selfies! This is the number one turn-off for women. And for the guys? Don't text so often, ladies. If he doesn't respond, avoid sending two or three more texts to get his attention. This is the number one turn-off for guys.

Social media is another sticking point as far as turn-offs go. Avoid airing your dirty laundry and venting over Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms. It is the number one social media turn-off for both sexes!

Another big take-away from the study: be kind and respectful. One hundred percent of women and 98% of men value being treated with respect in a relationship and make it their number one priority. In addition, a whopping 97% of singles are turned off when a date is rude to the waitstaff at a restaurant and 96% are turned off by bad table manners. So mind your manners!

The best news? People are still romantics. Eighty-nine percent of singles surveyed agree that you can live happily ever after with a partner. And despite how much people seem to be hooking up, and the majority of singles are looking for commitment and want to get married.

For more information on the service that brought us this study you can read our review of Match.com.

File this one under “Not a surprise.” IAC/InterActiveCorp – owner of Match, OkCupid, Tinder, and more – has released its fourth quarter 2013 financial results, and things are looking good almost all the way across the bar.

IAC’s performance was strong in Q4 2013. Match closed up the year well with 12% revenue growth and 21% OIBA (Operating Income Before Amortization) growth in the fourth quarter. Total revenue for Q4 2013 was $203.9M, up from $182.6M in Q4 2012. For the year, Match grew revenue 10.5% and OIBA 16%, and the company predicts an even better year of growth in 2014.

After pulling out of European markets to focus on the United States in 2009, Match has managed to successfully grow in the US as well as across the globe. The company doesn’t hesitate to call itself “the unquestioned global leader in dating,” with 30 million active users and 3.4 million paying subscribers in 2013.

Core, Meetic and Developing revenues grew 4%, 8% and 69%, respectively, to $115.7 million, $58.9 million and $29.4 million. That growth was driven by an increase in subscribers and as well as the contribution of mobile app Twoo, which was not in the prior year period. On the whole, profits increased due to higher revenue and lower customer acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue.

The most interesting source of IAC’s potential growth is Tinder, the rapidly growing social dating app primarily owned by IAC. Tinder clocked in at 100M daily profile views in August 2013, and is expected to hit 1B daily profile views in April. That’s some serious swiping. Although Tinder's implied valuation today is low, it could prove to be worth more than IAC's current market cap of $6.4B.

Even for IAC’s traditional dating sites, mobile has been big. 50% of all communication for Match.com US is sent from mobile devices. At OkCupid, the number rises to over 60%. Those numbers were single digits as recently as 2010, and IAC says it has just barely scratched the surface where optimization for geo-specific features and mobile markets are concerned.

2014 promises to be full of mobile product enhancements across the board, so IAC expects to see even greater engagement and customer acquisition resulting from smartphones. These are the kind of changes that allow IAC’s portfolio to continuously thrive, despite the changing world around it. The future looks predictably bright for the company.

It looks like yesterday morning Plenty of Fish and its sister site eVow was down for about 4 hours. POF.com went down sometime after 6am and was revived around 11:30am. Visitors at our forum and elsewhere on the internet reported receiving a "500 - Internal server error" when they visited the site. The dating app was also reported not working during this time period.

A 500 error code is a catch all error message that web servers reports when something has gone wrong and the server is not sure what it is. It is not a problem with the visitors browser or DNS but an issue with the web server where the web site is hosted.

POF has not reported why the outage has happened. From previous experiences we do not expect an answer.

The last major outage that spanned more than 2 hours in which we know of for Plenty of Fish was in Aug of 2010 (see Story). 2010 wasn't a very good year for POF.com in terms of uptime as they experienced 3 major outages.