Online Dating

Next Friday (10/16/09), Saturday (10/17/09) and Sunday (10/18/09) ALL Chemistry users will be able to communicate for free. This FREE Weekend will also be supported by TV commercials and increased online advertising so there should be plenty of extra activity on Chemistry.com

Free communication means all members will be able to send mail messages to any of their matches and receive mail from singles who are matched to them as well, all at no cost. As always, new members also receive a free in-depth personality test designed to match you with compatible singles.

The last Flirtathon happening last month in September (see Story) so this is Chemistry's 6th free communication weekend. For more information on this dating site with an in-depth matchmaking system, read some Chemistry reviews.

This time OkTrends took a look at almost 1 million people and their messaging habits on OkCupid. What they found may shock some people:

A message sender's race is a huge factor on the average reply percentage.

Here are a few interesting points they raised:

• Black women are the most talkative. They are more likely to reply to your message, about a quarter more than other races.
• White men get more replies from almost all groups when then send a message to someone on a dating site.
• White women prefer white men but Hispanic and Asian women do more so.
• Men don't tend to write black women back as often as the average response rate.
• White men are rude to all races. The average response rate of a white male is 40.5% across all groups but the average response for non-white men is almost 8% higher at 48.1%.

Visit the OkTrends for the complete details on this story including easy to read graphic charts. To find out about OkCupid, read our review.

Some people have this vision of the type of people on your average online dating site. Assuming the very worst version of this vision, here's what the legions of online daters are:

• Losers
• Freaks
• Geeks/Nerds
• Psychopaths/Murderers/Con Artists
• Depressed People
• The Mentally Ill
• Ugly People
• Fat People
• People with No Social Skills
• People with No Friends
• People with No Life
• Etc, etc, etc.

While ANY subset of the population will include the people above, it is unfair to assume that online dating contains a majority of the "undesirables" of society. Let me give you a little example of who is really doing online dating:

If you've ever thought, "I'm too old for online dating! That stuff's for young people, not me!" Prepare to learn something new today.

Online dating is not reserved for the 18-35 demographic. (Heck, it's not even reserved for the 18-65 demographic!) For example, meet Ruth and Leonard, octogenarians who found love on match.com. Their story was recently featured on Good Morning America called Finding Online Love at 80.

Ruth & Leonard were 85 and 87 when they got married. Both were widowed and had profiles on Match.com. Ruth was a little skeptical, since it seemed most of the men wanted women in their 60s and 70s, not 80s. But Leonard wanted her! He drove up into the mountains of Colorado to meet her at her place, where she made him lunch. It was love at first sight, and after three months, they got hitched.

The Yahoo marketing department must of reviewed Yahoo Personals lately. There are no real graphic changes but the wording has been updated on the homepage. The first thing I notice was the new page title. A few months ago it was:

Find Singles with the Top Online Dating Site -- Yahoo! Personals

Short and sweet, with the dating site name at the end. This wouldn't have been my first choice but let's see if the new one is any better:

Canadian singles will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend and that can only mean one thing... 😉

eHarmony Canada is having a Free Communication Weekend! This means all members will be able to not only review matches for free but they can communicate with them as well. Trying out eHarmony.ca to be matched and talk to members has never been easier.

The last free weekend for eHarmony Canada members was held the Labour Day long weekend in September (see Story).

If you would like more information on this matchmaking service, check out our eHarmony review. User reviews and ratings of eHarmony are also available on this page.