Relationships

The Miami Herald has some interesting information in their article about people going online to look for married dating and affairs. The largest affair dating site of it's kind is Ashley Madison. As with most dating sites it is free to join but requires you to buy tokens or credits to message other members. AshleyMadison.com reported in March revenue in the 10's of millions of dollars and 3.86 million members worldwide. 12 months ago we reported that Ashley Madison had just over 2 million members (see Story). Business has been very good for them as they increased their membership by 50% in less than a year. The six largest markets for Ashley Madison in order are:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Toronto
• Dallas
• Houston
• South Florida - With over 177,000 members.

The gender split on average is 70 percent male and 30 percent females but in Florida it is more even with 60 percent of South Florida members being male. This ratio split is on par with other dating sites whose main theme is the intimate encounter.

Founder Noel Biderman when he launched the dating service in 2001 decided to name it after the two most popular girl baby names that year, which happened to be Ashley and Madison. He originally decided to create an affair dating site after he did some research and found that almost 35 percent of people using online dating sites already had a partner. He thought this would be a win-win situation by providing a place for cheaters to go and preventing singles on other dating sites getting duped by people just looking for affairs.

After seeing the Lindsay Lohan spoof TV ad (see Story), I decided to post some of the other higher quality eHarmony mock commercials I have found online. The only one I am missing is the parody commercial from Saturday Night Live called Me-Harmony.

Here is one called eHarmonize:

Here is one from The Daws Brothers called Lowered Expectations:

Note: Unfortunately the source to the video and/or image which once was displayed here has since been removed by the authors for an unknown reason.

Here is 3 separate skits from the television show MadTV:

For a more serious look at this online dating service, read our eHarmony review.

From a survey which looked at dating and married couples relationships, researchers learned that the primary predictor of happiness in a relationship is your perception of, if your partner motivates and supports you to live up to your dreams and aspirations. With married couples there was one additional need found that is required to make a marriage a successful one. You must feel that your partner is helping you with your current obligations and responsibilities.

The significant finding, the researchers say, is that we often believe that if our dating partner gives us support to follow our dreams, they’ll probably support other parts of our life, namely our immediate responsibilities. But the ability to inspire a partner is not an accurate predictor of support for the more mundane and immediate obligations. And this can sometimes lead to a rude awakening when the church bells ring.

77 married couples and 92 dating couples participated in this survey which is to be published this summer in the journal, Psychological Science.

For the full story, read Scientific American.

Last year, we looked at Second Life and how the members of this virtual world were dating and even having online weddings in the virtual universe (see Story). Newsweek is taking another look at Second Life and at the couple Lillie and Hawkins. Lillie lives in California and Hawkins lives half way around the world in Wales. Both have kids and neither have a lot of money. In fact, they have only seen each other in real life a total of three times.

Their life as a couple exists almost entirely online. In Second Life, they go on dates that would be impossible in the real world. They fly over cities and land on rooftops, go scuba diving on a moment's notice. Physical intimacy is out, but they use the technology to fake it as best they can. They hold hands. They kiss. Sometimes they have virtual sex. (It's possible—though they say watching their avatars knock boots is more comic than erotic.) Outside of Second Life, they use Webcams and Skype, the online voice-video-chat system, to peer into each other's worlds, even when they're just doing daily chores. At night, they hookup headphones, so that even while they sleep, they can hear each other breathing.

They both admit that the relationship is odd, but the romance does work for them.

The day after their digital wedding, Hawkins and Lillie saw and heard each other for the first time, over the computer screen. Hawkins's voice was soft and gentle; Lillie's warm and girlish. The connection, they say, was immediate—but it was also a wake up call. They'd moved the relationship from fantasy to reality, and suddenly they had to think about what that meant.

Obviously the hardest part for them was the physical component. In the end it took them more than two years before they would meet physically and have their first real kiss. This was back in 2007, when a British TV station flew Lillie to the US for free so she could meet her Second Life husband. It was filmed as part of a documentary about virtual lives on the internet.

For the full story of Lillie's and Hawkins virtual romance, read "A Geek Love Story" on Newsweek.

We have found a few articles lately which looked at what most people like to call Sugar Daddy dating sites. These sites for the most part offer a place for wealthy men to find attractive woman who are looking for the finer things in life (to put it politely). Similar sites also use the terms Wealthy, Millionaire, Sugar Baby and Gold Diggers. An article from ABC news recently asked the question if these type of sites promote a form of prostitution (see Story). This time, the New York Times is taking a look at the topic.

In an article called Keeping Up With Being Kept, the New York Times calls Sugar Daddy dating sites a down-and-dirty marketplace. The article is seven pages and goes into detail on several peoples experiences at the website called SeekingArrangement.com. Founder Brandon Wade says the site creates relationships that are mutually beneficial. With more than 300,000 registered members, nearly half the sugar daddies on Seeking Arrangement are married.

An Associated Press article pointed me to a new eHarmony spoof ad done by the folks at FunnyOrDie (which was co-founded by the former SNL comedian, Will Ferrell). In this new video, Lindsay Lohan makes fun of herself and eHarmony by pretending to talk about her dating profile. She brings up everything from her late night partying to her DUI arrests.

This video is the latest in a series, which spoof the now famous eHarmony TV commercials which interviews couples who found love on the dating service. Saturday Night Live and MadTV even have done parodies.

For a more serious look at this online dating service, read our eHarmony review.