"I fell in love online"

Meet someone in a bar or in a nightclub, flirting with a classmate, keep an eye on the most attractive guy/girl of the office, meet interesting people through friends and friends of friends,…there’s still people who resort to these “old tactics” to hook up, but we have to say that the new technology has put the hook up into a new level. In fact, according to a study done by Stanford University, California in which they asked more than 3.000 couples how they had met, Internet was the third resource most used for find a relationship. It was positioned behind the chances of “hook up in a bar” and “hook up through friends in common”.

The steady growth of the online world has opened different doors to personal relationships through different and new ways of communication: Messenger, Skype, social networks and even, through the video games! But we can’t forget the most important sites: the web pages specifically intended to find a partner (Meeting, eDarling,…). 

Find a relationship through internet is, relatively, a new option, but each time, are becoming more and more the singles who opt for this choices when it comes to dating. In sooth, according to a recent survey, it’s more than probable that you have already date someone who you met on Facebook or in any of this sites and if is not that way, I’m sure you know someone who has made it. Actually, there’s any difference between the “online” meeting and the traditional methods for find a parted, people who use this sites are searching for new friendships, casual encounters or an stable partner, the only difference is in the way to do it. Internet is another tool, neither better neither worst, it can go right or wrong, like in any other situation. In the same study mentioned at the begging, more than the half of the survey respondent, 59%, said that they were agree with the quote “Internet dating is a good way to meet people” in front the 21% who said that “online dating is for desperate people”. But, what happened to romance? Your eyes meet from across the room. He grabs your hand by mistake. You laugh, you talk and you marry two years later.

We all have our fantasies about that first magical meeting. I doubt any of us envisioned beginning our love story with “I logged on and liked his profile so I sent him a message’. Not romantic.  But if we really think about it, many events in our lives haven’t gone according to plan… and maybe for good reason.

There are stories with happy endings, but there also are cases in which at the other side of the computer, there was a person completely different from the one that the profile shows and not with the best intentions...What If he/she is a psychopath? Another concern is the chance of meeting someone crazy, socially inept or worst yet… married. It’s certainly valid.

The good online services have methods to minimize your contact with these types of people. Extensive questionnaires, private chats with usernames, and in-depth personality profiles are now common features of the services. Some of these test results are surprisingly insightful, the process of finding someone could actually help you find yourself. Go with sites recommended by friends who have used them. With the right service, meeting someone online is no more risky than meeting someone in a snack bar.

Anyway, a recent study have shown that it seems that Internet not only has changed the way people discover the love in life, but it also showed that couples that have met through chats, social networks and online platforms offers more guarantees of success in the relationship. This research was conducted through a survey of 20,000 Americans who married between 2005 and 2012 and of them, one out of three, had met her current partner online. Moreover, we also have to highlight that since 2005, the number of people who had had a meeting with someone that have met online grew from 43% this year to 77% in 2015.

At this point, we can say the phenomenon of dating 'on line' has become popular in a way that is not strange to meet someone who has met their partner on the internet. In fact, if we look at the most important sites as eDarling, for instance, we are surprised to see that there aren’t a “particular profile” but there is people of all shapes and colours: we can find young and not so young people, divorced and, why not, married people. In this particular site, eDarling, the 70% of the users are between 26 and 50 years-old, in FriednScout24, the 60% of the users is between 30 and 55 years-old, with 60% are men and the other 40 women.

So online dating has been around as long as the web made it possible for two people to communicate and now, millions of people search everyday profiles and photos of total strangers hoping to find that special someone. Ten years ago, told someone “we met online” was the equivalent of saying, “I’m desperate” but nowadays, it has completely change, either for better or worse.