General News

In September we talked a bit about the Chinese dating site Zhenai.com for the first time and we discussed if it was truly the words largest dating site (see Story). TechCrunch recently did a post on Zhenai and called it the Chinese Match.com. This comparison mainly has to do with the fact that both are the leading dating site in their country of origin. Zhenai is free to join and free to search, just like most dating sites here in North America. What they do different is how you communicate with members. Zhenai has a 350 matchmaker call center. When a member finds someone that they want to date on the Zhenai website, they place a call to one of Zhenai's matchmakers to set up a date. The matchmaker confirms if the other person wants to date and if not, then an alternate is suggested. At least one person on this date must be a paid member. A 6 month membership runs 3,000 RMB which equals to about $430 USD.

The matchmakers at Zhenai want to make sure that your date is a success. If the person you want to be matched with is out of your league, they will go ahead and tell you politely and try to then, realign your expectations. The matchmakers have a custom computer system which they use to help them through the matching process. They also have many dating tips at their finger tips designed to improve the customers chance at a successful date. Some advice they may give includes, if a women has long straight hair, she has a 60% chance of getting a second date (short curly hair only has a 5% chance). Zhenai.com also found that .7 hip to waist ratio in women is universally the most attractive to men. Women on the other hand like it when their dates wear a suit, as it indicates a good provider.

The Zhenai.com matchmakers also follow up on dates to see how they went. If one of the people on the date doesn't want a second date, they found out why. The matchmaker will then inform the other person what happened and explain why. This way the person can improve on the dating experience they offer for the next time.

Zhenai has about 22 million registered members since launch and has been growing by 40,000 members a day. They generate about $2 million USD in revenue a month. The way this dating site works is much more labour intensive than other dating sites, especially in North America. The dating site found that the low cost of wages combined with the customer rapport that the matchmakers generates more than makes up for the additional labour costs.

For the full story visit TechCrunch. We don't currently offer a review of Zhenai.com due to not being able to read Chinese. If you wish to see a list of other dating sites designed for Asian singles, check out our Ethnic Dating Sites category.

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.