General News

Religious singles who are looking for love are turning to niche online dating sites for help in their searches. According to a recent article in The Denver Post, these singles are looking for someone to marry who shares their faith and values.

Dating website CatholicMatch.com boasts 150,000 active members and is the largest online dating pool of single Catholics. Its founder Brian Barcaro explains, "I think because of the high divorce rate and number of broken families, there is a resurgence in people looking carefully at what makes a successful marriage. They are turning back to their faith."

Barcaro says the website tries to serve a broad spectrum of Catholics, but it does include important religious questions such as mass attendance and adherence to church teachings on issues like contraception and premarital sex.

Some subscribers such as Erin McCabe, who has been on the site for four years, say that their faith and religious life have been enhanced since joining.

Barcaro was a law student looking to meet people when he launched the dating website back in 2003. Its tagline, "Grow in faith, Fall in love" is the reason Catholic singles find this option so appealing.

As Christina Newman states, before she married a man she met through CatholicMatch.com, "I was having a really hard time finding a young Catholic man who was willing to go to Mass with me and practice the faith." Also, many of her friends had divorced, and Newman wanted more reassurance her union would last.

Religious dating sites seem to fill a void for those who are looking for commitment and shared values. Turning to faith provides them more opportunities in finding love.

For more information on this dating service, read our review of CatholicMatch.com.

On March 26th the owner of Executive Dating, Barrie Turner, was arrested (see Story) when he attempted to cross into the United States from Canada. He ran over 200 web sites for dating and was trying to reach his postal mailbox in the United States where members send their fees.

Over 100 consumer complaints have been filed against Executive Dating web sites where members paid almost $1000 for 6 month memberships and where matched with people that did not exist. Barrie Turner collected $1.2 million in fees before his arrest and has now pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a Seattle court.

Sentencing will happen on September 24th where Barrie Turner will face a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

For more on this story, check out the following forum posts, here and here.

It looks like members of PlentyofFish.com will have another way soon to access the dating site. In a few weeks (July, 2010) an iPhone Application will be released which will allow members to access the dating site directly on their iPhone, iTouch and iPad. No information has been released yet on what features will be available on the dating application but I assume profile editing, searching and sending messages will be possible. I am curious to see if location based dating will be included with this new application.

Since an iPhone POF Dating App will be here soon I wonder how far off an application for Android will be? Android mobile phones are now outselling the iPhone here in the States.

To find out about POF, you can read our review of PlentyofFish.com.

Catholic singles who are looking to marry are turning to their religious roots, according to a recent article in The Denver Post. Rather than looking for matches based on similar interests or careers, they look for people who hold the same faith, values, and outlook.

When it comes to dating, Catholics do have a lot of choice. In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimated there were 22.6 million single Catholics in the U.S.

Anastasia Northrop, who founded the National Catholic Singles Conference in 2005, explains the high numbers of single Catholics. She believes that "endless choices" have made it easy for people to shy away from marriage. She maintains, "people hesitate to commit because they want to keep their options open."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Northrop could be right. In the past five decades, the percentage of married men ages 35 to 44 has fallen from 88% in 1960 to 69% in 2007. For women, it has fallen from 87% to 72%. However, the popularity of online dating shows that people seem to be looking for partners, and a growing percentage of online daters are turning to religious dating sites such as CatholicMatch.com.

Perhaps the uncertainty of dating today plays a part. With the number of people remaining single through their thirties and forties, coupled with the high rates of divorce and broken families, people turn to religion for guidance and stability.

This is especially true for Catholic singles. As of 2008, the Pew Forum states that 78 percent of married Catholics were married to other Catholics. The only religious affiliations with higher same-faith unions were Hindus, 90 percent, and Mormons, 83 percent.

According to founders of religious dating sites like CatholicMatch.com, people look to religion because shared faith seems to boost chances of marital success.

According to recent census data, young couples are putting off marriage until their late twenties. The average age for a woman to marry is 26, while for men it's 28.

It seems that young people prefer to stay unmarried through their mid-twenties, either in long-term relationships or dating casually rather than rushing into marriage Experts have noticed this trend as well. A recent article in USA Today notes that young couples are choosing to stay in relationships for years, even a decade, before deciding to tie the knot.

Author Hannah Seligson discusses this trend in her book A Little Bit Married. She notes that about 23 million young couples are in committed unmarried relationships, up tenfold from the 1970s. These young couples are primarily college educated and city dwellers. Some have also witnessed their parents' marriages fall apart, and so they want to be sure they are marrying the right person for the right reasons.

In a recent interview I did with Seligson, she notes: "The concept of rushing down the aisle is a gait of another generation. You are now in the slim minority if you have not 'tested the waters' before marriage. So most people, particularly if they meet in their twenties, think it's a good idea to put on your marriage training wheels."

Authors Shannon Fox and Celeste Liversidge of recently released book Last One Down the Aisle Wins discuss just how young is "too young" for marriage. They maintain that the last thing young people in their twenties should be thinking about is marriage. "It is wise to be purposeful about how you spend your single years," they stated recently in The Washington Post. "Young people are staying in school longer, living at home longer and achieving true independence much later in life. We strongly believe that these days, you need to be able to stand on your own two feet (financially, physically and emotionally) before you're able to make a good choice in a partner or be a good partner."

They add, "The purpose of your twenties is to become the best complete person you can be, not the best half of a couple. That's what marriage is about."

Well, the BeautifulPeople.com latest press release about them launching a virtual Sperm Bank sure has garnered some attention. Newsweek, Mashable, The BBC, and a pile of other media websites have all written articles on the news. Some of the articles are a little confusing though and make it sound like BeautifulPeople.com are actually running a Sperm Bank and distributing donor samples. In fact all they have done is created a forum on their dating site which allows people to connect with those who are interested in supplying their sperm/egg.

The BeautifulPeople.com virtual sperm bank is a forum where members register and state their procreation interests. A number of members already registered on the forum are married or in a relationship where for many reasons, an external donor is required. Likewise, many men have been able to register to help infertile couples or single women to conceive healthy, attractive offspring. ... Members wishing to donate will be able to access information on which clinics to contact and gather information on the donor protocol.