Are those days of dating someone who you just meet in a bar, all gone out the window now?
Relationships on Female First
No, not necessarily it is now "lets get online, browse and pick the first person we want to interact with"….. "but no hold on….. there is another person online…. oh and another, hey this is quite addictive!!" - this was one person's view of online dating when he recently divorced and discovered a whole new world of dating.
So is dating really to be taken seriously these days? Can you genuinely meet someone online and that person is your one and only for life?
Well I decided to take action and see for myself and look at the top dating sites online in the UK as starters.
I started with match.com and where this site in particular, use to the be THE site to go to for dating and long term relationships, the percentage of interest is much less now. People are requesting less forms and online information to fill out, which is making these formal sites more of a hassle to meet someone and less exciting. Which only resulted in "I cant be bothered to continue on the site!" attitude.
This meant the percentage of people who had signed up and filled out all the relevant information online, were then soon after filling this out, not bothering to continue to the next stage or pay to meet someone and leaving altogether or just leaving their profile online but no action was taken.
Whereas when you look at the likes of Plenty of Fish and Tinder and Zoosk, which in comparison there is no fee whatsoever and just a case of signing up, popping on a few good photos of yourself and adding in a great profile page, this would be enough for half the population to feel the same excitement of meeting someone and less hassle too, surely this made more sense?
So when looking at eharmony, this was another debate, as many people mentioned that this site itself looked very professional and very much like a formal interview process. This I can see was very much the case, but was it the case to get excited about meeting someone when it felt like a job interview and nothing really to make you feel passionate about?
The results were quite strong in that, the less effort you have to put in, the more fun the site looks and the quicker access it is to log on and start a profile, the better your chances are of meeting someone online. However, did this only result in dating or did this result in long term relationships?
You see, with match.com, eharmony and the likes, you would assume that these two are only attracting the top end of the market and only looking for serious relationships and only that kind? In actual fact no, they had less time on their hands and were looking for instant dates, whilst on their lunch breaks, dating after work or one weekend when not out with their friends after slogging a 60 hour week at work.
So they, in actual fact, opted for the Plenty of Fish and Tinder sites for those reasons, which left many confused.
Did this mean that the top end sites now only had the desperate ones? no in actual fact many people were signing up for 2 sites or more to keep all options open, but this didnt mean they just focused on one site, the more sites you have open for yourself, (I am talking 2 or 3 not anymore), your chances of finding someone are exceptionally high.
80% of people said they met their matches online, after 3 months of dating (as in meeting up) many men/women of around 3/4 per week, against those who were on say 6 months to a year online, who hadn't dated anyone at all but had been on many sites too.
Could this mean that the ones who were dating constantly had more time? no, all this meant was that they made dating become a job, so they treated finding someone very serious to finding a job.
They set up a few profiles on various sites, in particular free sites and made sure that their profiles had in fact been recent photos, all happy, positive shots, no black and white serious ones…some with friends, others with family, some on their own to some doing their favourite hobby. All this, as well as a funny profile which genuinely was about them and not about impressing everyone, made them a perfect candidate to get many dates and seem really interesting.
They dated all kinds, from not their types, to older, to younger, some with children, some without and this is when they knew what they wanted. They went in open minded, came out with a date they then started to see on a more serious basis.
Many said that their confidence grew as a result, they started to dress more confidently as they asked for feedback to when dating (like you would a job) and asked for honest information even if it was hurtful - to a point.
You see dating is taken seriously, but this doesnt mean you need to spend any money on particular sites, you can as you so wish but this wont necessarily bring you the man/woman of your dreams, it will however bring you more options and give you more to date, which will result in a relationship.
When working this way, this result gave women more confidence too which meant they didnt feel embarrassed when asking men on dates either, which they now did and were amazed they said yes. From this, dating became less formal and more about fun and seeing what was out there.
One word of warning however, no matter who you talk to, if someone doesnt agree to meet up with you over a short space of time, after you have been chatting for a while, no matter how much they promise to, no matter how charming they are, the results are normally quite hurtful, either they are still married, not wanting a relationship or just playing around with everyone on the site boosting their own ego.
One lady was hooked in quite a lot from one man who did just this, it has knocked her confidence quite badly and resulted in her not being able to date anyone else for a while now, after nearly 2 years of waiting for someone to meet her. He was in fact still married.
Another result came about when a man who was emailing one lady asked to meet up after a month later, only for this lady to explain she didnt have any money to see him, to which he mentioned he would pay for her. When he did, she asked for more money and on it went, you can imagine what happened next? Yes, he lost a lot of money and never did meet her, but he was a few thousand pounds less in his pocket too.
Online dating has been a mystery for many years, with many shedding their negative thoughts on the whole dating scene. However with the results now being around 75% of meeting their partners online, this only meant that the rest were in fact trying other ways. The next highest level to meet someone was at work, then at the gym or your pastime hobby as well as via an introduction from a work colleague or friend.
Meeting at the bars and clubs seems to be now something of the past….maybe its a case of if you are single, just throw yourself online, still go out with friends and let your friends know what you ware looking for, either way could result in your long term partner.
One thing I have definitely learnt from working on online dating sites is that no matter what job you have, what you look like, how many partners you have dated, how many times you have been married and how many children you have, someone will love you for you. The more you impress, lie or push for your ego to be up there, the results will be disappointment and less dates for longer term….be yourself, be happy in yourself and let things just naturally flourish.