Rating the Online Dating Game

I can’t believe how convenient online dating is! Now my dream of finding love can be crushed more efficiently and in the privacy of my own home.

RottenECards

Every dating site brags that they’re responsible for the most relationships and marriages. Since there’s never been a scientific study that measures the effectiveness of each online dating site and provides empirical data as to the results, the dating site brag-a-thon continues. Here are a few less than scientific observations about the online dating sites that my friends and/or I have used.

Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony, claims to be responsible for 5% of all marriages in the United States, but has no data to back up the claim. According to the Pew Research Center (which happens to be a reliable source of information and has the data to back up their statistics), 5% of Americans who are in a marriage or committed relationship say they met their significant other online. That’s 5% in total of all the online dating sites out there so there’s no way on God’s little acre that eHarmony could possibly back up their ridiculous claim. According to the experiences of my friends (I have never used eHarmony. I refuse to sign up for a year and pay way too much money for the privilege), eHarmony is the worst. They’ve met fewer people than on the other sites and none even had a second date as a result.

Plenty of Fish (POF) or Plenty of Minnows as I affectionately call it is the powerhouse of free dating sites. POF claims to have 3.5 million daily active users who have 9 million conversations every day. And they claim that every 2 minutes a couple confirms to POF that their relationship started on the service. Again, take the grandiose claims with a grain of salt. However, anecdotally, POF is the hands down winner in the success department. In my immediate circle of friends, there have been several long term relationships and a marriage. All I can say is that people are getting their money’s worth (it’s free) and their claims may indeed be accurate.

Match.com claims to have helped create 517,000 relationships - 92,000 marriages, and 1 million babies. However, the numbers that they quote are for the Match Group, not Match.com. And, what you may not know is that the Match Group bought OKCupid in 2011 and Plenty of Fish in 2015. So they now have the market cornered in the online dating world and their quoted statistics may not reflect Match.com, but the Match Group. What I found interesting was that the biggest user group at Match.com (according to Match) is the age range of 25-44 which makes perfect sense because none of my friends or I (in the 60ish age range) have had any success on Match.

OKCupid claims to have 1 million active members. One very odd statistic (at least to me) is that they boast that 58% of members indicated an interest in bondage in 2015. This is up 5% over the year before. For all of you who are into bondage, OK Cupid is the site for you. They offer no statistics about lasting relationships and marriage. What I find even more interesting is that one of my friends has had a bumper crop of dates on OKCupid. Perhaps we should have a chat about her predilection for bondage…

Based on your online dating profile I’m guessing literacy is not one of the characteristics we share.

QuotesGram.com

Make someone smile today.

Geri

5 Tips for Recognizing an Online Dating Scammer

Based on the content of your online dating profile I’m guessing that literacy is not one of the characteristics we share.

Somecards.com

Several of my friends and I have been off and on a variety of online dating sites over the years including POF, Match, eHarmony and OKCupid. This of course doesn’t qualify us as experts but collectively we’ve had some interesting experiences and would like to share our top 5 tips on how to recognize an online dating scammer. Beware of:

1.The GQ style photo: The photo typically shows a guy with a head full of immaculately coiffed silver hair, wearing designer clothes – a sweater draped jauntily over his shoulders, tied in the front over a perfectly pressed linen, button-down shirt, light coloured casual trousers and loafers worn without socks. Ladies, get real! Most men's profile photos are selfies taken in the bathroom (I have no idea why men are fixated with taking photos in bathrooms), corporate headshots or old photos taken with their ex poorly cropped out (you can usually still see part of an arm or long hair). 

2.The syntax is all wrong for a native English speaker: When the profile says that the only language they speak is English and the profile is written by someone who speaks English like a Spanish Cow, run for your life! I had an email from a guy who was supposedly born and bred in Toronto telling me that he went to university in Texas, United States of America. Sure thing! When in doubt, read the profile or the email out loud.  

3.The profile is clearly a cut and paste job from several different profiles: I’ve seen profiles from guys that had sections in their profiles that changed gender a few times. Lucky for us they don’t proofread.

4.The guys that ask you for your personal email address right away so that you can get to know each other better: There’s no need to communicate off the online dating site. After all, you live in the same city, so exchange a few emails and arrange to meet for a coffee. Don’t fall into the trap of getting lured off the site, even if they use the excuse that they’re out of the country for business…. It’s all the same ruse.

5.Of emails that start like “I’ve been struck by your beauty”. “God sent you to me”. “I knew from the moment I saw you that we were meant to be together”. Or emails that start with a love poem (plagiarized of course) or discuss love very intensely when you don’t even know if you want to have dinner with the guy.

Happy dating and stay safe! Please add your tips for recognizing online dating scammers.

Afraid of not getting what you ordered with online shopping? Ha! Try online dating.

Maxine

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Online Dating Commercials Are Like Fantasy Island

Have you seen the commercials for match.com? There are 2 very attractive people who have never met before, dressed to the nines and meeting for drinks in a very upscale bar in the evening. In no time flat they’ve figured out that they have everything in common and are planning their second date. On what planet did this online dating experience occur? 

I’ve been on and off several online dating sites (both free and paid) with equal results – unmitigated disaster! Yes, I’ve been on match, home of the perfect date. However, my experiences bear no resemblance to the commercials. In the real world of online dating no one meets in cocktail wear at upscale bars. You meet for coffee at a local Starbucks or Second Cup, or perish the thought, downscale at Tim Hortons. You don’t discover in a nanosecond that you were made for each other. In fact you’re farklempt if you can actually recognize him from his profile photo. I had a guy say that he was 5’8” tall when he would have had to look up to see a jockey face to face. Another said he was of average weight, and he was if you consider average at least 350 pounds. A guy who was supposedly an active outdoorsman 5 years younger than me was so frail that he could barely lift his coffee cup.

I’ve discovered that they lie about everything – height, weight, interests, job… I met a lawyer who said that he played golf. I love to golf so I asked where he usually played. He proceeded to tell me that he didn’t really play golf but he did take his son once to play mini-putt. I guess in his fine legal mind, this constituted playing golf. On top of that he was a communist and had a boa constrictor. The only boa I want to know about has feathers and can be worn to jazz up a great evening dress.

Of course these commercials try to make you believe that you’ll meet the great love of your life and get married on their online dating sites, but here are the real statistics according to the Pew Research Center:

• 20% of adults aged 25-34 years old have used online dating, but it’s also popular with older singles, too.  
•  33% of people who have used online dating have never actually gone on a date with someone they met on these sites. 
•  5% of Americans who are in a marriage or committed relationship say they met their significant other online.

Yes, only 5% of Americans met their spouse or significant other online. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it? And it certainly refutes the crap that eHarmony feeds you. Neil Clark Warren and his insufferable granddaughter are enough to make anyone vomit. Yet, as long as we’re all looking for love, online dating sites are here to stay. 

Here’s one of my favourite quotes about online dating.

“It's kind of freaky to send your picture over the Internet to someone you don't really know and then have to sit waiting for their judgement on how you look. Maybe that's why my aunt Penny, who got divorced two years ago, hates online dating so much. Mom's always nagging her to go back on Match.com but Aunt Penny says she'd rather have root canal work - without anesthetic.”
 Sarah Darer Littman

Make someone smile today.

Geri