Dating Services

Two of OkCupid's co-founders, Chris Coyne and Christian Rudder (who met in a Harvard math dept.) created OkCupid's complex matching system, which they have coined the UberAlgorithm. The UberAlgorithm is all mathematics and essentially tracks the tests and quizs members take at OkCupid. The test answers are tracked and then analyzed so they can be compared with other members to create a compatible percentages. Members can then view these matches when they log on to OkCupid. One of the unique things at OkCupid is, these tests are created not only by staff but by users as well and cover all sorts of topics, whether serious or goofy. Members of OkCupid to date have answered more than 500 million 3 part questions, which equals over 1.5 billion pieces of data. From this data, personality trends are calculated based on 60 axes in which OkCupid tracks (religion is one such axis). Each member information is compiled and compared to each axis, which is also compared with others of your gender, age and sexual gender preference.

As other dating sites like Chemistry and Perfectmatch promote the fact that they have famous psychologists working for them to help create matching systems, OkCupid has stated that they don't need psychologists because their own members create their match algorithms. The UberAlgorithm takes care of figuring out each person's personality and the user tells OkCupid what type of person they want to date.

OkCupid has created a very interesting matching system that does work for a number of people. The problem is taking tests is not every persons cup of tea. This is why OkCupid tends to attract singles in their low to mid twenties. OKCupid hopes that as these singles age and mature, they will continue to use their site, increasing their over 30 age demographic. By being a free dating site, OkCupid doesn't have the funds for a research team of psychologists to help design a matching system. While users who know specifically what they want shouldn't have a problem with their matches on OkCupid, it's the members who are not sure that may suffer poor matches. Based on the members own personality, a match system needs to know that what the member is asking for in a partner is something that is compatible with his or her personality and requirements, not because that is who they think would make a good match. It is the job of the automated match system to know what makes a relationship last.

For the full interview, read Gelf Magazine. For more details on this dating site, read our OkCupid.com review.

eHarmony released the results of a single parent survey which they had conducted by Opinion Research Corp. 252 single parents in the US where interviewed for this survey in April and May, of 2009. The margin of error is 6 percent.

According to the eHarmony survey:

• 51% of single parents believe they are better off emotionally when they are in a committed relationship and 47% of single parents believe their children are better off emotionally when they (themselves) are in a committed relationship.
• Of these 51% single parents, only 40% are in an actually relationship.

So what these stats are basically saying, is about 50 percent of single parents really should not be dating, if you take your child's emotional well being into account. The problem with these type of surveys is, the information can be skewed one way or the other, depending on how you look at it. For one thing these singles are self-identified as single parents, this fact is open to interpretation. The other thing is, it doesn't say is how many kids these parents have or their ages. Looking at a single parent with one child who is 10 years old is completely different than if you look at a single parent family, with 3 kids under the age of 6.

I found the following information regarding some of the challenges single parents face when dating again, interesting:

• Finding the time to date (74 percent)
• Getting back into the dating world (69 percent)
• Finding the money to date (42 percent)
• Finding a babysitter so they can go on dates (37 percent)
• Telling a new love interest that they have a child (22 percent)

Finding the time and the money to date is not surprising since, if you have children, you know both are in short supply. Telling a new love interest you have young ones is a challenge that is best done right away, before any type of relationship has a chance to develop. You are not doing yourself any favors by holding this information back. This is one of the reasons why online dating sites are popular with single parents. You can state in your profile up front that you have children, which never makes it a "challenge" for you to tell someone.

For the complete release and all of the statistics, read Business Wire and for more information on this dating site, read our eHarmony review. You can also find dating sites that cater exclusively to single parents in our Single Parents Dating category.

One of eHarmony's senior research scientist is psychologist Gian Gonzaga. He holds a doctorate in personality / social psychology from UC Berkeley. KansasCity.com has a short interview with him where he describes briefly what the core qualities partners need to share to have a successful relationship.

The big ones — some of the most powerful ones — are personality traits. Things like how agreeable of a person you are, how open you are to experience. Are you extroverted? So are you looking for a lot of interactions in the social world? Or are you introverted?

Dr. Gonzaga also talks about why it matters that couples share these types of traits.

Because if you are similar to someone, it’s a lot easier to understand what it is they’re thinking. ... They like to believe that what they think is true, and one of the ways that we do that is to look to other people who have the same interests and beliefs and values. So when we see that in a partner, we feel validated in our sense of self, which makes us feel better and makes us like that person.

He further explains that opposites may attract but, these type of relationships really don't last. If you are really different from your partner, negotiating the way you see things from how your partner does over and over again, as each new conflict situation arises, is extremely difficult to do. Over the long run these type of relationships just fizzle out.

Dr. Gonzaga mentions Compatible Partners as well. This is eHarmony's new dating site for gay and lesbian relationships. He was asked a question about if gay relationships share the same characteristics as a heterosexual relationship:

We think so. The existing literature on same-sex couples indicates that a lot of the same theoretical basis of sharing the same deep values is going to predict better relationships over the long haul. So right now we’re moving on the assumption that the same kinds of models are going to apply well, and then over time we’ll work on that model to tailor it as best as possible.

This is the first time that I know of were eHarmony has said they are going to spend some research money to see if gay relationships actually do differ from heterosexual relationships.

For more information on this popular personality matchmaking site, read our eHarmony review.

Sam Moorcroft of ChristianCafe.com let us know that Singles Christian Network is currently merging with ChristianCafe to create a larger online community for single Christians looking for a partner. Both of these service have been around for over 10 years and "have been friendly competitors".

The president of Single Christian Network, Clark Sloan, mentioned in an interview that his father actually first started the matching service way back in 1991 as a newspaper for single Christians. Soon after Clark took over and armed with his computer programming skills created a service called Christian Computer Match. This service went online in 1994 and became the Single Christian Network.

Sam Moorcroft and his brother Philip first started ChristianCafe.com back in 1999 and the website almost instantly became a success. Unlike most other dating services in the same niche The Cafe is Christian-owned and operated.

Both Sam and Clark feel that bringing the two religious dating sites together will benefit all members. The Christian Cafe currently has transferred over 70,000 plus active profiles and when completely merged with Single Christian Network, members will have the potential for hundreds of thousands of additional contacts.

For the full press release, visit ChristianCafe.com Media Center. For our review of the dating service, read our ChristianCafe.com review.

The Online Dating Insider, David Evans, was quoted in an article on the Washington DC radio station website for WTOP about online dating safety. Apparently another woman last weekend was kidnapped on a date by a man she met on Craigslist.

In the Fairfax County incident, the 23-year-old woman on her third date with Dennis Rother. Police say while at her Fair Lakes apartment Saturday, Rother ordered the woman to undress, threatened her with knives then told her to get dressed and forced her into the car. Her erratic driving caught the attention of a George Mason University police officer. He followed her and she was able to flee at a stop light.

I believe this is the third reported incident in the last month or so of a woman getting kidnapped or murdered by someone they met through Craigslist.

For more on the story and some pointers on how to be safe on a first date visit WTOP.com.

You want someone special in your life but, you don't want to use online dating and your circle of friends have limited social networks, what do you do? You could try a Professional Matchmaker. They bring singles together by offering a personal touch with face to face interactions. A professional matchmaker is ideal for you if you have a very busy schedule and you don't want to spend inordinate amounts of time searching and viewing online dating profiles of potential partners. The 3 most popular matchmaking services available in most major cities in the United States are The Right One, It's Just Lunch and Great Expectations. Both The Right One and It's Just Lunch state that:

... the majority of their clients are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and come from all walks of life. And while there are fluctuations in the number of males to females who use the service, both sexes, for the most part, are evenly represented.

Members of these services tend to be the busy professional who wants to have a partner in their life but don't have the time to find one. For this premium type of service don't expect to pay online dating site prices. Prices start at around $1000 for a year of service with a professional matchmaker (this depends on the level of service you want), about 3 times as much as the average major dating site for the same time period. For this price all you need to do is give details on yourself, your personality and what type of person you are looking for. From here, most of these services will take this information and your schedule for the month, figure out who suits you best and setup some dates for you.

The Right One matching service is the oldest and has been around for 34 years (1975) and promotes the fact that nationally, they are responsible for, on average, 1 match every 17 minutes and 1 marriage per day. They also belong to an independent organization called the Matchmaking Institute which we discovered recently (see Story). The Matchmaking Institute was established in 2003 to set strict quality standards and a code of ethics in the matchmaking industry.

It's Just Lunch International has been matching singles for the last 18 years (1991). They offer their service not only in the US, but in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe and Asia from 100 different locations. It's Just Lunch has about 30,000 members in total. who on average go on 50,000 dates a month. About 70 percent of dates lead to a second date.

Great Expectations has about 30 years of experience in matching (1980?) and over 50 locations nationwide. According to their website they have 100,000 members across the US. Currently, we do not recommend this service, do to the Arizona Attorney General filing a lawsuit against them in 2008 (see Story).

Professional matchmakers usually always are in major cities and have a smaller pool of daters than the major dating sites. What professional matchmakers may lack in number of clients (when compared to online sites) they make up in servicing the customer. You also are paying for the human intuition of the ability to size people up to determine what type of person would make a good match for them.

For more information on matchmaking professionals, check out our Matchmaking Services category.