Dating websites best place to find love

Millions of people are turning to the internet to meet new people

By Corinne Sato, Staff Writer

Courtesy of apparena, Flickr

Commercials on television display couples smiling and holding hands. The couples tell their stories about all the things they have in common and that they have been dating from one year or less or more to five years, and some are even married. All of the couples have one thing in common – they met through online dating sites.

Clint Drummond, from Calgary, met his wife on the free dating website Plenty of Fish.

“I don’t go out to bars, and I don’t drink. So, there were few social settings I could meet girls,” Drummond says.

Instead, he turned to online dating. “It opened up a door to allow me to meet people that I would not have normally met.”

One of these people included Drummond’s wife, Chauntelle. Drummond says that the emails were the best part of their online relationship. “The emails were very insightful and honest, and gave us a great idea of who we were chatting with,” he explains. “The anticipation of the emails was the only I could think about. I would check my inbox endlessly.”

Drummond continues: “If we met in person right away, I think we would have learned less about each other personally, and our interaction would have been basically physical.”

Drummond emphasizes that despite knowing so much about Chauntelle, they still talked for hours when they met in person. “To be able to meet a girl that is gorgeous and intellectually compatible is truly a blessing” he says.

Drummond’s story is not unique, as more and more people are searching for companions online. The Vancouver-based Plenty of Fish website says there are 45 million members and 20 million messages sent per day.

“A historically unprecedented number of single Americans are now turning to the Internet to find love,” says the 2013 Press Release, Singles In America: Third Annual Comprehensive Study on the Single Population for Match.com.

The press released also adds: “Connecting online ranks number one amongst places where singles meet.”

So, why have people turned to online dating to meet each other?

In a video interview on Thinkbig.com website, Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, explains, “We are no longer marrying the boy we met in high school. We’re not marrying the girl we met in college.”

Fisher says that people start to know everybody in their social circles, including the office. She also says that with such a high divorce rate, a lot of people are back in the dating game in their mid-30’s or older.

“At some point, you’ve to go find a new way of social networking and all of these dating services are doing that,” Fisher comments.

Fisher goes on to explain that: “We’ve got a society where people are very peripatetic and almost nomadic, and all of these Internet dating sites are a way to meet new people. With these new networking sites, you do get to know some basic things about somebody before you meet them, and that’s more natural.”

With so many people turning to the internet to meet people, more and more online dating sites and social networks are catering to specific interests or hobbies including vegetarian diets, religions, workouts, pets, and even Star Trek fans.

“We believe the future of online dating lives in sites being tailored to particular interests, hobbies or clearly specified needs,” the Trekkiedating.com website says.

Corinne Sato is a freelance journalist and photographer, who likes to bake, cook and travel.