Do Online Dating Sites Work?
Every day, people looking for love log in to their accounts on eHarmony, Yahoo Personals, Date.com, Match.com, or a dozen other such sites hoping to find an e-mail from the individual who they pray will become their true soulmate.
Unfortunately, not often does that happen. More than likely, contact with an online stranger will lead to nothing but dashed hopes. This is the state of reality in the relatively new phenomenon of online dating.
The concept of searching for that 'special someone' online harks back to the mid-90's, when the Internet was just emerging in terms of widespread consumer use. Among the pioneers was Match.com, which started business on April 21, 1995. The business entity is now a massive conglomerate, with about one million paying subscribers from fully 246 countries. It is estimated that more than 60,000 new people across six continents join up on the site every day, joining the 15 million people who already have accounts. The parent company now presides over 30 dating sites in 18 local languages.
While Match.com is one of the preeminent dating sites, others have experienced similar overwhelming growth in user participation and subscribership. There seems to be no lack in the number of people who are willing to put their life's details online for anyone with an Internet connection to view.
But, is this development a positive one? Does online dating represent a quantum leap forward in male-female interaction? Many experienced users of such sites have good reasons to respond in the negative, positing that the cons far outweigh the pros.
It is the endemic lying that forms the basis of most complaints. You simply can't believe what you see and read in a person's dating profile because it is far too easy for a person to lie about himself or herself.
Misrepresenting oneself to gain an advantage, especially when seeking a mate, significantly predates the Internet by a long while. On dating sites, it has been definitively demonstrated that by falsely placing a picture of a better-looking person in a profile, and/or by dramatically overstating their income, an online dater can significantly increase the number of daily responses that he or she receives.
So, the farce continues and online dating sites march on. Despite huge problems as a communication medium, lots of people around the globe are signing up each and every day. It seems that as long as the Internet exists, people seeking to find love will frequent it, hoping to find that magic hookup.
Matthew Paolini is a consultant with Citybook.com for the Los Angeles, CA business Yellow Pages division.
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