Dating

Tinder claims to have made about 30 billion matches to date over its highly successful app (about 26 million per day, according to an article in The Daily Mail), but it seems only 50 percent of them ever meet one of their matches face-to-face. In order to increase their chances of meeting a date IRL, users have to match with far more people than they actually expect to meet, according to the study.

On average, when participants were asked how many matches they had actually met up with in real life, men averaged 1.9 partners and women 2.2 partners, despite matching with 111 and 124 respectively.

A team from Norwegian University of Science and Technology surveyed 269 students in Norway who were all Tinder users, and 60 percent of those surveyed were women.

Host of Ghost Stories: Sydnee Washington

Image: Hinge

Dating app Hinge launched a new podcast in time for Halloween - appropriately called “Ghost Stories.” The podcast aims to try to get to the bottom of why people ghost, featuring real-life participants.

Ghosting happens when the person you’ve been messaging or dating suddenly disappears, not responding to texts or calls, and leaves you wondering what happened. For daters, this is a frustrating experience that begs the question: “did I do something wrong?”

The podcast aims to get to the bottom of why people ghost and offer ways to avoid the experience. Each episode also features a “ghostee” who will be able to confront the person who ghosted them, and therefore get an opportunity for answers.

The average American spends over $120,000 over his or her lifetime on dating, according to a new study. Not surprisingly, seventy percent of daters think that dating is too expensive.

Online banking company Simple.com partnered with OnePoll to survey 2,000 Americans about their expenses when it comes to dating and found on average it costs people $168.17 per month. According to Fox News, they also discovered that dating expenses actually increase once the couple gets married – on average to $185.65 per month - because they want to do things to “keep the spark alive,” according to the report.

Plus-sized daters are feeling more positive about finding love with dating apps, according to a new study by dating app WooPlus.

The company conducted a survey of its 3 million users to find out what they think of the body positivity movement, which has become extremely popular thanks to outspoken stars like Lizzo, Ashley Graham and Tess Holiday, who have brought attention to the cause. These celebrities have been instrumental in shining a light on the problem of fat-shaming by encouraging people to embrace their curves and recognize their own beauty in all aspects of their lives – including their love lives.

Image: Facebook

Facebook Dating made its much-anticipated debut in the US on September 5th, but concerns about its privacy issues have overshadowed the excitement in media coverage of the app.

Facebook was recently ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay about $5 billion in fines for privacy lapses, including its maligned partnership with Cambridge Analytica leading up to the 2016 elections. And most recently, the Attorneys General of eight different states have launched an anti-trust investigation of the company, specifically concerning the company’s privacy practices and purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Still, Facebook Dating is betting on its wealth of personal user data as a competitive advantage for creating better matches to directly compete with apps like Tinder. (Match Group saw its shares fall 5 percent on the day Facebook Dating was launched, a sign of investor concerns about the new competition.)

Researchers have long been fascinated by the ways online dating has changed how we meet and match. A Pew Research Center analysis of recently released survey data from Stanford University found that online daters are more likely to choose partners who are different from them in race or ethnicity, income level, education or political affiliation.

The Stanford survey, How Couples Meet and Stay Together 2017, collected answers from 3,510 U.S. adults who are currently married, currently in a relationship, or who have ever previously been in a relationship. Couples who met online were more likely to date someone with a different education level, political ideology or race/ethnicity than couples who met offline. The difference between those who met online and offline was particularly significant for political party and race/ethnicity.