General News

Self Magazine did an informal survey of its female readers about internet dating, casual sex and porn. It doesn't say how many people took the survey but let's take a look at some of the results anyways.

Question: Who is using an online dating site?

• Age 18 to 25 - 29%
• Age 26 to 35 - 52%
• Age 36 to 50 - 51%
• Age 51 and older - 68%

Jude Law, David Letterman, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the list goes on and on. What do these people have in common? They have had sexual relations with someone when they were already currently suppose to be in a monogamous relationship with someone else. CNN asked an evolutionary biologist and psychiatrist if it still reasonable to expect people to partner and stay monogamous? According to them, yes, but it is not easy. A more realistic model that was suggest may be serial monogamy. This is when someone stays committed to one person for a certain stage of their life. Once that stage is over, both people move on and find another long-term relationship. Since the 70's, others have tried a similar idea, an open marriage (think swingers). You stay married to your partner but you both can still date other people.

The practice of polyamory is also on the rise. Polyamory refers to having multiple romantic relationships with several people, with all involved having full knowledge and approval. Newsweek estimates that there are about 500 thousand polyamorous families in the USA.

All of these types of relationships take hard work to ensure the happiness of all involved but being in a monogamous relationship probably has the biggest payoffs. You don't have the emotional chaos that WILL happen when dealing with multiple people and raising children becomes easier.

For more on the story, read CNN.

The Times Online UK took a look at what they called Quickie Dating Websites recently. When I think of a quickie I assumed they were referring to an adult dating site where people go looking for casual sex. I was only partly right. They were talking about Affair / Infidelity dating sites for married people. On this side of the Atlantic, the most popular dating site for people looking to have an affair is Ashley Madison, where it is even guaranteed. In the Times article they took a look at Forget Dinner (ForgetDinner.co.uk) which is very popular in London. It is not advertised really as an affair dating site but most people on the service seem to be married. Profiles tend to be straight to the point and a lot of the photos contain nudity. There appears to be about 10 men for every 1 woman on the dating site.

Here are some infidelity related figures for the UK. In 2008, there was 115,200 divorces granted and 29 percent of these divorces were the result of adulterous behavior. According to a Grant Thornton UK Survey (2009), 9 percent of women would cheat on their partner as long as there was no way to be found out. In comparison, 24 percent of men said they would cheat. In the same survey 20 percent of men admitted to having an actual affair where only 10 percent of women did.

In the United Kingdom every month 7 million people visit online dating sites. This is a 27 percent increase over last year, whereas the percentage of the UK population that used the internet only grew by 4 percent.

For more on this story, and to get a couple of men's and one woman's experience on Forget Dinner read Times Online.

A popular English web news portal for Africa wrote a piece on Nigerians who have used online dating sites. Apparently a lot of Nigerians who use dating sites fear being scammed, they treat dating sites as a two edged sword, something to be handled with care. Interesting enough the two success stories mentioned featured a Nigerian man living in the UK and a Germany business man who met a woman online living in Nigeria. Both deal with a person outside of the country.

No numbers are given but the article states that:

Internet dating appears to be fast gaining ground amongst Nigerian youths

This may be true but I have to wonder to what end. We did a story recently which looked at young Nigerians who used dating sites to try to scam money from unsuspecting people. Here in North America, for better or worse, when someone mentions an online dating scammer, people think of Nigerians. This is because a large percentage of the cases evolving dating scams reported in the media, the country Nigeria is mentioned.

I have no doubt that a large percentage of Nigerians on dating sites are there for the right reasons, to meet a partner. Dating scammers come from all countries and so everyone needs to be careful and use common sense. If someone asks you for money, it doesn't matter where they are from, igonre the request and move on.

For the full story visit AllAfrica.com.

Online Dating in the UK is booming. Last year more than five million adults in the UK used the internet to find their partner and the money these online daters spent on dating sites was over £80 million. Now days, one in five people who marry, met that person online. By next year (2010) it is estimated that there will be 16 million singles in the UK, which means there is only room for online dating to grow.

One segment of the dating industry which is becoming more popular are services that offer psychological questionnaires. Dating sites like Match.com UK, Chemistry (North America), DatingDirect.com and eHarmony all offer services that use science to determine matches. Each of these sites will ask you dozens (or hundreds) of questions on your values, attitudes, emotions and personality traits. These questions help the dating site to scientifically analyze how you interpret situations, how you react to problems and how you make decisions. With this information in hand the service then pairs you with potential partners who you should be highly compatible with. This goes beyond love at first sight.

But where did psychometric testing come from?

Developed in the early 20th century by scientists, these tests are detailed questions assessing your intellect, personality traits and knowledge. They were used to recruit spies by the British during World War II and were then later taken up by the CIA.

In the Sixties, Professor Raymond Cattell invented questionnaires that looked at a range of personality traits in the workplace. The Civil Service still uses the system today both in recruiting and to help its managers find the best way to manage their staff according to their psychometric profiles.

Psychometric testing does work but it is still only part of the matching process. People need to be honest with themselves about who they are or they are not going to get real compatible matches from these sites. Members also need to realize that what their perceived ideal match may be, it may not be what the science of matching has found to be the most highly compatible with their personality type. Members of these dating sites need to take a chance and go into online dating with an open mind.

For more on the story, read the Mail Online. To find further details about the dating sites mentioned in this story which offer psychometric assessments, read our Match.com UK review, Chemistry review, DatingDirect.com review and eHarmony review.

The chief executive officer of eHarmony Inc, Gregory Waldorf, talks with Bloomberg's Pimm Fox about the dating service.

Gregory mainly gives a brief overview of how eHarmony works and how members need to be honest with themselves so that the matching algorithms will work and give them highly compatible matches. He also talks a bit about the current recession and the boost of members eHarmony has seen. Over the last few years, eHarmony has seen a yearly increase in members of about 20 percent. Waldorf also further discuss what the company is most proud of, being responsible for about 2 percent of marriages in the United States each year. This works out to about 236 eHarmony members a day.

Most of the information we have heard before, but one interesting point Gregory Waldorf said is, what their researchers found really important is starting with a pool of compatible matches. With the matches given to members, eHarmony research indicates that these singles give that particular member the best chance of having a long term relationship. From there members can figure out if they live in the right place or have a job that interests them and that they have that " right amount of special click" (his words not mine).

If this online dating service interests you, read our full eHarmony review for more information.