Kathryn's Blog: Online Dating Facts and Figures
eHarmony is well financed, for sure. In nine months last year, it spent almost double what Match.com spent on ads.
EHARMONY BLOG—Feb 11—
eHarmony spends $93.3 million in advertising in 9 months, almost twice as much as Match.com—see chart below, figures in the $100,000’s”
Rank Site Jan 07 to Sep 07 Jan 08 to Sep 08
1 eHarmony 79,019.631 93,255.171
2 Match.com 51,170.580 47,607.049
3 Chemistry.com 12,125.655 28,282.073
4 Cupid.com 1,067.142 847.231
5 Nocheatersdate.com 0.000 822.042
6 Blacksingles.com 272.964 510.251
7 AdultFriendFinder.com 0.000 243.553
8 AshleyMadison.com 59.977 243.420
9 Ciaorossano.com 0.000 212.750
10 ChristianMingle.com 0.000 201.213
Source: The Nielsen Company (2009)
According to Online Dating Insider, Match.com gets 25,000 new members a DAY! Match is always the top dating site that I recommend. Yes, you’ll see the same old profiles that get posted by non-paying members and then never taken down. What’s the risk if you are not paying anything? But a serious dater needs to check Match daily to see who is new. Do not fall into the trap of “there’s no one here that I like today, so Match.com is no good.” Keep looking! Match is the best show in town.
From a press release about LavaLifePrime—LavaLife’s new (and free for awhile) site for singles over 45:
A few interesting statistics on single Boomers:
* 30% of Boomers are single
* 70% of Boomers are internet savvy*
* 70% of single Boomers are dating regularly*
* Of those, 45% of men and 48% of women have sexual intercourse more than once per week*
* Only 14% of Boomer women and 22% of Boomer men are looking to get married or live with someone.* (For the younger groups these numbers are a significantly higher, ie. ages 30-39, 60%.) FULL ARTICLE @ PR LEAP
* AARP Study - American Association of Retired People
That’s SOME set of stats! If you are a single “Boomer,” get out there and have some fun!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
With computers and the Internet, men have traditionally outnumbered women, if you can call the history of the brief life of the Internet a tradition.
When Match.com first got going in 1995, they purposely made the site “clean and friendly” to attract women, figuring correctly, that if women came, so would the men.
Recent figures suggest that Match.com has done this very well: Match now has 55% female visitors to 45% male. Some sites have done even better: eHarmony is 69% female, Catholic Match 72% women, SeniorPeopleMeet.com 80.8% ladies, and LoveAccess.com 87% women!!! (figures according to Hitwise)
Yahoo! Personals still has a slight edge of more men: 51% to 49%, male to female.
What’s going on? Women are finding out that online dating works and is safe (at least as safe as regular off line dating). “The more monye and time involved in signing up to a dating site, the more the site the site would skew female. And, the more free pictures were available the more the site would skew male.”
Women are also going where the money is: Sugar Daddie is 68% women.
Where do the men go? Gay sites, of course. And the Internet equivalent of mail-order brides from abroad. While these articles don’t include the sexier sites, AdultFriendFinder is overwhelmingly male.
Good news for men, right. Not so good for women.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Facts and More Facts
The numbers keep rising…
From an article on DailyVidette.com
Last year (2006?), more than 500,000 reported to Match.com that they had “found a relationship that had changed their lives.”
90 million people in the US are single, 60 million are online, and 33 million are open to meeting a romantic partner online.
60,000 people register on Match.com every day.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
42% Find Love on the Net???
Market researchers Synovate found that 15% of Americans have used the Internet to find love, but of those, a whopping 42% have found what they were looking for: a spouse or life partner.
Wow.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Top Dating Sites as measured by ‘Unique visitors”:
In December 2006—
Total Web users in the U. S. (age 15+) 152,350,000
Personals Total 20,555,000
Yahoo! Personals 4,153,000
Match.com 3,970,000
True.com 3,086,000
Spark Networks 2,504,000
Singlesnet.com 2,173,000
From The New York Times, 2/26/2007:
Drilling Down
On Niche Dating Sites, Many More Women
By ALEX MINDLIN
During the week of Feb. 5, men and women visited online dating Web sites in nearly equal numbers, according to Hitwise, which measures online traffic. And to look at the 10 most popular sites not directed toward gay people, you might think that every dating site on the Internet was rigorously gender-balanced. All but one of the 10 largest sites came within 10 percentage points of being evenly split.
But among the smaller dating Web sites, many were drastically skewed. SeniorPeopleMeet, the 41st most popular site, had 80.8 percent women. BBW Datefinder, for “big beautiful women and admirers,” was No. 63, and had 76.3 percent women; and Catholic Match, No. 81, had 72 percent.
“It is a problem for them,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise. “It’s like any market; you want an equal number of buyers and sellers.”
But Greg Waldorf, the chief executive of eHarmony, the sixth most popular site and one with 68.6 percent women visitors, begged to differ. “If you asked me would I rather have more women or men, I’d rather have more women. If you have a good healthy population of women, I think men are attracted to that.” ALEX MINDLIN
My comment about this article that I posted on Mark Brooks’ Online Personals Watch
“If you asked me would I rather have more women or men, I’d rather have more women. If you have a good healthy population of women, I think men are attracted to that.” Well, duh! Yes, it’s good news for dating sites who want to increase their memberships, and great for guys who want easier pickings. But it is disaster for women, particularly those in the older age ranges, when the numbers are skewed enough as it is.
It’s so important that this kind of information (the gender ratios on sites) becomes available. Sites like eHarmony and Chemistry appeal to women because the are more “passive,” in that the site does the work of the matching and women do not need to put themselves so much on the line. What women don’t understand is that the numbers are so bad for them.
Openness and transparency (big buzz words nowadays) would go a long ways with Internet dating. Keeping women happy and on dating sites will be key to success. If all singles understood the gender ratios and the paid vs. unpaid numbers, then they could pick sites that would be most likely to work for them. The gender ratios would balance out, singles would get more responses to their emails, more matches would be made, customers would be happier, which would be great advertising, and dating sites would get more business. What could be better?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Very interesting figures from Mark Brooks’ Online Personals Watch:
Male/Female Quantcast Ratios of Top Dating Properties
MalefemaleOPW—Feb 26th—Here are the male/female ratios, most popular age range, and proportion of visits from ‘regulars’ and ‘addicts.’ Ranking courtesy of Hitwise. Ratios, age range and addiction levels courtesy of Quantcast. ‘100’ represents the ‘internet average.’
1 Singlesnet
Male 112, Female 88, age 45-54, 91% of visits from regulars and addicts
2 Yahoo Personals
Male 114, Female 85, age 45-54, 78% regulars and addicts
3 TRUE
Male 116, Female 83, age 45-54, 77% regulars and addicts
4 Match
Male 100, Female 99, age 45-54, 94% regulars and addicts
5 eHarmony
Male 73, Female 125, age 25-34 and 35-44, 95% regulars and addicts
6 Plentyoffish
Male 112, Female 87, age 45-54, 98% regulars and addicts
7 Mate1
Male 97, Female 102, age 45-54, 74% regulars and addicts
8 Blackpeoplemeet
Male 94, Female 105, age 35-44, 96% regulars and addicts
9 Manhunt.net
Male 177, Female 24, age 35-44, 99% regulars and addicts
10 Adam4Adam
Male 170, Female 31, age 35-44, 99% regulars and addicts
11 American Singles
Male 120, Female 89, age 45-54, 82% regulars and addicts
12 Gay.com
Male 171, Female 30, age 35-45, 96% regulars and addicts
13 Hot or Not
Male 122, Female 78, age 18-24, 95% regulars and addicts
14 MSN Match
Male 103, Female 97, age 45-54, 71% regulars and addicts
15 Cupid
Male 110, Female 89, age 45-54, 95% regulars and addicts
How to read this information:
Note that the numbers following “Male” and “Female” add roughly up to 200 for each site. I read that as meaning for Singlesnet, for instance, that for every 112 men on the site, there are 88 women. Therefore, the numbers on Singlesnet favor women.
The age ranges are the sites’ most popular, so Yahoo! Personals and Match.com attract heavily from the 45-54 age group, while Hot or Not draws the kiddos at 18-24.
The percentage figures indicate regular visitors vs transients. So Yahoo! at 78% has much more transient traffic than Match.com at 94%
The sites with very large numbers of men are gay male sites (like gay.com). (What are those 30 ladies doing doing on gay.com? Are they real ladies?)
What that means for you: If you are a man, it would pay you to go to a site that is more heavily female dominated, like eHarmony (73 men to 125 women). Not such a good site for the ladies.
Look for a site that has large numbers in your age range.
A high percentage of “regulars” says to me that the site has a loyal and active membership. With few browsers. Good news.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The Numbers
It’s Good to Know: If You’re Looking for Love on Valentine’s Day
* For 20-somethings: There are 119 single (never married, divorced, or widowed) men for every 100 single women.
* For the over-65 crowd: There are 34 single (never married, divorced, or widowed) men for every 100 single women.
* To find those singles: There are 904 off-line and online dating services in the U.S.
(Source: The U.S. Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features”)
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
In a powerful article aobutabout Online dating in the 1/30/2007 Scientific American (how much more legitimate can you get???), finally, validation of what I have been preaching about for years:
According to Trish McDermott, a longtime spokesperson for Match and now an executive at Engage.com, the confusion over membership figures results from the fact that while a large company such as Match might advertise that it has 15 million members, less than a million are actually paying customers. The others have full profiles online—an important marketing draw—but cannot respond to e-mails. This is one of several reasons, according to McDermott, why many paying members get frustrated by a lack of response to their e-mails; the vast majority of people in the profiles simply cannot respond.
Trish McDermott was the “Vice President of Love” (or some such title) at Match.com for years. In fact, before we met, both my now-husband and I heard Trish on NPR’s “Technation” and were inspired to sign up on Match.com, where we met a few months later. So, thank you Trish! On many levels.
See my earlier blog postings (rants?) on this topic: 1/31/07, 3/06/05
This paid/unpaid secret that almost all dating sites have exploited is the worst and most discouraging aspect of online dating. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my clients asks “Why don’t they answer my emails?” And NONE have understood the odds of paid/unpaid until I explained it. On Match.com, the odds are great than 11 to 1 that the person behind the profile has NOT paid.
Non-responses to first emails are very ego-bruising. Dating sites need to keep in mind that it is extremely easy for people who gather up courage to email a stranger to feel rejected and even crushed. These folks very often drop off the dating site—and convert to being non-paying! These are your best customers, dating sites!!! They PAY!
The reasons that dating sites are set up this way—they allow people to post for free, and the profiles look just like those who have paid—is that then the dating site has more profiles listed and looks busier. And then, if the unpaid people are contacted by the folks who have paid, then maybe the unpaid people will convert to paying clients.
However, that means that the paying clients are supporting all the rest, and do not know the full story. I tell my clients that you know three things about someone who does not respond to you initial email: They are either rude (because is the polite thing to do to at least send a “Thanks, but no thanks” email to those who put themselves out to contact you) or they are cheap (because they haven’t paid up and are freeloading), or they are both rude and cheap.
Come on, dating sites. Come up with come kind of system that indicates to everyone who has paid and who hasn’t.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
My friend Meg drove to Louisiana last weekend for the wedding of
her guy friend Shef. Why is that of interest to you? Well,
because Shef met his bride on eHarmony during 2006. Come to find
out (via Meg), Shef’s new sister-in-law met her spouse online
too.
I don’t know all the details, since I haven’t seen Shef since he
fell in love—he’s been spending a lot of time on I-10 between
here and there. But I do know that Shef is Of a Certain Age
(over 50), and apparently the two are going to conduct their
marriage long distance while her daughters finish high school.
Yea for them both, and my heartiest congratulations!
You know that I am all in favor of online romance. And I
understand long distance ones, too. Drew and I were 482 miles
apart, door to door, when we met. Lucky for both of us, I could
move and did, or we would have been burning up the miles like
Shef and his Sweetie.
Online daters have gotten spoiled in a comparatively short time,
not wanting to travel at all for love. But I wanted the best,
and he was an eight hour drive away.
Just two years ago, WeddingChannel.com’s survey found that “12%
of engaged or recently married couples met online.” I was wowed
by that figure then. reported on January 4, 2007,
that a survey by WedAlert.com found that 20% of the respondents
met through the Internet. Wow, WOW!
A year ago, eHarmony claimed slightly over 90 marriages a DAY.
I’m not crazy about eHarmony for a variety of reasons. You can
read some of them on my blog (category: eHarmony):
But hey, you can’t quarrel with eHarmony’s success, and that they
have spent the money to track it.
Internet dating is HOT! And this is the best time EVER to get
online and look for love. Remember, memberships on dating sites
go up around 30% between now and Valentine’s day. That means new
faces, maybe one of them your future spouse. Get on and get
looking!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
From my January 1, 2007, *eMAIL to eMATE*:
Internet dating is LOOKING GOOD!
My, how things have changed since I first tried online dating on
Match.com in 1997. Looking for love on the Net was brandy new
then and quite suspect. A few brave souls were tip-toeing onto
the sites and trying out the medium, but, land sakes, was it
scary or what? And no help anywhere. I know, because I looked.
For you newbies to the Internet dating scene, matters took a
dramatic turn after 9/11. The tragedy suddenly refocused the
country: Everyone now ached for connection and family. Singles
started signing up on dating sites by the hundreds of thousands.
Listing on a dating site became okay, even mainstream. No longer
is it unusual to hear that a couple met online. Now, your
computer is second only to friends and family as a way to connect
with possible mate candidates.
The influx was heady. Online dating sites experienced mammoth
growth for several years as folks signed up and plunked down
their credit cards. Growth has slowed to single digits, but that
does not mean that Internet dating is a fading fad. Far from it.
Did you know that online dating is one of the top money makers
online? “After nearly a decade of double-digit growth, online
dating revenue rose 7% last year to slightly more than $515
million, per Jupiter Media. (Match’s share is about $250
million.)”
Remember that there is only a somewhat finite number of singles,
so at some point the growth would have to stop as the percentage
got close to 100. At present, the estimates are 1/3 of singles
have visited online dating sites. Also, people come on and off
the sites every day. Taking your profile down off the dating
site where you and your Sweetie met has become a sign of
increasing commitment with cyber couples.
My buddy Mark Brooks recently posted some interesting info on his
OnlinePersonalsWatch.com blog: Here’s a summary and link to an
article on dating site usage in 2006.
Interestingly, Yahoo! Personals is pulling way ahead of
the crowd in membership and visits. Since I write for Yahoo!
Personals, I’ll take a little credit for their #1 position.
True.com’s stats are deceptive, as comparing the two charts show.
(I cannot recommend True.com—if you wonder why, look at my
https://find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/C37/ ” title=“many blog posts”>many blog posts:.
Match.com (my personal favorite, since that’s where I met hubby
Drew) is stumbling on in 3rd and 4th place on the two charts.
Another of Mark’s postings led me to
Distilling the verbiage, it looks like number of visits
to dating sites are down, but revenue is nicely up. To me, that
says daters are getting serious and paying up, and fewer people
are visiting sites to snoop. Good.
Interestingly, the article also points to what I have sensed:
Singles get busy after Christmas, and particularly after New
Year’s. Online dating sites’ business soars then (and so does
mine). Seems as if the loneliness of the holiday coupled with
New Year’s as a time to start new habits gets folks off the
stick.
Tip: That means new people are signing up, right now! This is a
particularly good time of year to be active and looking on your
favorite site. Remember, new people come on every day—and
others drop off as they find partners. Be ready with your spick
and span profile. Be proactive: Contact others. Don’t wait,
because you don’t know how much longer this new Cutie might be
available.
A third posting on OnlinePersonalsWatch is an interview with
Match.com’s CEO Jim Safka. Looks like Match is going stylish and
pursuing a more upscale market: a new look to its site (adding
lots of snazzy black), offering a stylist to help with photos
Lots of
black and white there, too. And Match is piloting a real
matchmaking program with what looks like real matchmakers:
Platinum.Match.com It’ll probably be
pricey, sounds like perhaps around $1000 per year. Still less
that a tractional matchmaker, though.
Yahoo! Personals still looks about the same, and I think is a bit
more unwieldy to maneuver than Match.com. But they are doing
something right at Yahoo! You can’t argue with #1.
So I will stick with Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. Why go
elsewhere, except for a special niche site like JDate? Stay
where the numbers are.
From YOur Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Facts from MIT about Internet Dating Habits
From my October 1, 2006, newsletter, too good not to reprint here:
We really know that Internet dating has made it solidly when
academics start studying it. What could be more impressive that
MIT’s Sloan School of Management? Gunter J. Hitsch, Ali
Hortacsu, and Dan Ariely have written “What Makes You Click?—
Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating,” a
working paper on their study.
At 62 pages long, almost half of which are graphs and charts,
this is not an easy read. And there are formulas: here’s a short
example— Um(m,w)>- vm(m) (not written here exactly right, but
you get the idea).
Lucky you: I’ve managed to digest most of it and pull out what is
really interesting, so here goes. Keep in mind, this study is
reporting on singles’ actual data and behavior—this is not as
things “should be,” but as things “really are.”
The authors used data supplied by an Internet dating company for
22,000 users in the Boston and San Diego area. While they did
not have access to the actual identities of the users, the
researchers did have just about everything else: Profiles,
photos, and preference data, as well as records of who browsed
who, when and if contact was made and reciprocated or not, and if
a meeting was requested or planned. Yikes.
Here are some of the conclusions they reached from their well-
massaged data:
Motivation for using the dating service: Singles interested in a
long term relationship generated the most activity. While 36% of
men and 39% of women declared that a relationship was what they
were looking for, 55% of all emails sent by men were from this
group, and 52% of all emails sent by women. Those “just
looking/curious” (26% of men, 27% of women) did 22% of the
mailing (men) and 21% (women). Only a small percentage of the
email generated was from those seeking casual relationships
or sex: 3.6% for men and 2.8% for women.
The authors thought it was likely that those who indicated they
were “just looking” were actually seriously looking, and
therefore the percentage of emails generated by people looking
seriously was closer to 75%.
Kathryn’s comments: You can probably assume, at least on the
mainstream sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals, that
nowadays, most folks posting are seriously looking for a
relationship. Sites like AdultFriendFinder.com have siphoned off
most of those just looking for sex, and AshelyMadison.com and the
like have gotten noticed by married folks looking to cheat.
Demographics: Men dominated the site in both cities: 54.7% in
Boston. 56.1% in San Diego. Age concentration was in the 26-35
year old range. 2/3’s were never married (sounds right, given the
age concentration). Education and income levels were slightly
higher than national averages, but about right for Internet
users. The authors conclude that “during recent years, online
dating has become an accepted and widespread means of partner
search.”
Reported physical characteristics: I love this part.
The site asked users to rate their looks on a subjective scale:
19% of men and 24% of women rated themselves having “very good
looks.” 49% of men and 48% of women described themselves as
“above average.” 29% of men and 26% of women described
themselves as “looking like anyone else walking down the street.”
Less that 1% declared themselves “less than average looks.” That
means that 78% of the men and 74% of the women were above average
looking, which is either statistically impossible, or the dating
site attracted only the most attractive people. We do like to
think of ourselves as above average, don’t we?
Women reported they weighed less than the national averages: 6
lbs. less in the 20-29 age group, 18 lbs less in the 30-39 group,
and 20 lbs. less in the 40-49 age group. Either these women
dieted before going on the site or are fibbing. Men reported
weights slightly higher than the national averages.
Men’s reported heights were 1.3 inches above national average,
women’s 1 inch above average.
Kathryn’s comments: Buyer beware! when it comes to an
individual’s self-description of attractiveness and physical
attributes. People have a real tendency to distort or downright
lie. Or maybe they really believe that they are “above average,”
whether you do or not. To do your part, NEVER LIE! It’s big
trouble. See my recent blog posting:
https://find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/item/winners_never_cheat/
Fascinating tidbits: 71% of men’s and 56% of women’s first
emails did not receive a reply. Men are much more receptive to
first email contacts than women are. The average man can expect
35% of the average women to respond, where the average woman can
expect 60% of the men she contacts to respond. The more
attractive men and women are less likely to respond (are
“pickier”). The least attractive are more likely to write back,
two or three times more likely.
First contacts are usually made by men. Women receive an average
of 11.4 first emails, and men got 2.3. 56.4% of all men in the
sample did not get any first emails at all, with 21.1% of women
never being approached the first time.
Kathryn’ comments: This absolutely validates what I have been
telling my women clients: Men like it when you email them
first!!! Do the picking yourself. You’ll be much more likely to
get what you want!!! And remember, a 30% response rate to first
emails is GOOD!
Guys, if you want the contacts from women, be interested in a
long-term relationship. Men are penalized and receive less
emails if they indicate that they want a casual relationship or
“just sex.” Women however receive 17% MORE first contacts if
they are looking for casual or sex.
Looks: Not surprisingly, the better looking folks got the most
emails. Interestingly, men in the top 5% got about twice as many
contacts from women as the next 5%. The researchers called this
the “superstar effect” and did not observe it with men’s contacts
of women.
Photos count—and I would add, good photos count even more.
Women with photos got at least twice as many emails, and men got
60% more.
Women like tall men: men 6’3” to 6’4” got 65% more emails than
men 5’7” to 5’8”. Women are increasingly penalized the taller
they get.
Men prefer skinny women. Really skinny women. The researchers
used body mass index (BMI) which adjusts weight for height. The
most preferred BMI by women in men is 27. According to the
American Heart Association, a BMI of 27 for men is slightly
overweight. Men however tended to prefer women with a BMI of
about 17, which is considered underweight and corresponds to the
figure of a super model. Women tend to feel they look their best
between BMI’s of 20 and 22. 50 year old women at the 50% of
BMI’s would be about 27.
Hair: Men with red hair had a moderate penalty, while women with
“salt and pepper” hair had a large penalty. Men with “long curly
hair” got 18% less email than men with medium straight hair.
Kathryn’s comments: The ideal guy? 6’3” tall, very attractive,
slightly overweight, with medium length straight brown hair. The
ideal woman? Be between 5’3” and 5’8”, very attractive,
emaciated (How can that thin be attractive??? It would hurt if
you bumped into them.), and have long, straight, blonde hair.
What’s new about that?
Of course, only 15% of men are over six feet tall. And only
around 10% of women have a BMI of 17 or under. (Want to
calculate your BMI and see where you stand compared with other
men or women? Go here:
http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm ) Less that 2% of
the world population has blonde hair. Those stats cut out lots
and lots of perfectly lovely people. Are you sure you want to do
that?
Tidbit: You can tell the difference between natural and dyed
blonde hair by exposing it to ultraviolet light (bleached hair
will glow, while natural blonde hair will not).
Income: Income strongly effects the dating success of men, while
only having a slight effect for women. In general, the higher a
man’s income, the more first emails he got.
Education and occupations: Women seem to prefer men with similar
educational backgrounds. They also preferred lawyers, fire
fighters, military, and health related professions. Women’s
occupations and education had little influence on first email
results. In fact, most women’s professions did not do as well as
students.
Ethnicity: Overall, 38% of women and 18% of men stated they
preferred mates of their own ethnicity. 49% of Caucasian women
and 22% of Caucasian men preferred Caucasian mates. But only 30%
of black women and 8% of black men stated a preference for the
same ethnicity. The researchers also found that even when the
individual stated that ethnicity did not matter, they behaved as
if it did, showing same ethnicity preference in their email
contacts.
Kathryn’s comments: Guys, if you can make more money, you can
catch up to other men who may be taller or better looking. The
researchers were actually able to figure out that a man at the
bottom in the looks category could make up for that with an
additional income (on TOP of the assumed $62,500 average) of
$186,000. A man 5’6” tall needs to make $175,000 MORE that
$62,500 to compete equally with a guy 6 feet tall (assuming
everything else being equal). Ethnicity is the most expensive
catch-up: for equal success with a white woman, an African-
American man needs $154,000, Hispanic men $77,000, and Asian men
$247,000.
Women cannot compensate for looks or ethnicity with higher
income. It’s mostly about looks. Sigh.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Fascinating Facts
Quotes from the most recent Pew Internet and American Project survey: Among young, single Americans, 74% have used the Internet “In one way or another to further their romantic interests>” 61% of Americians think Internet dating is okay. 29% think online daters are “desperate.”
From an article in the Edmonton Sun by Sun Media:
In a survey conducted by FastLife and Lavalife with more than 400 singles aged 18 to 55—
44% of men hoped to have sex on the first date (only 23% of women were interested). Both sexes thought that kissing on the first date was okay.
66% of women thought men should pay on the first date.
Women valued humor over intelligence, physical attributes, confidence, and social skills.
Men were most impressed by intelligence, with attractiveness next.
A eHarmony survey of 628 singles showed more than 60% believe that the Internet is the least stressful way to get to know someone that you may want to date.
PARSHIP, a European dating site, surveyed over 5000 singles accross Europe.
30% of men say they fell in love on the first date. 47% fall in love by date 2 or 3.
Only one in ten women fell in love quickly, 72% falling in love between date five and ten.
More than 63% of British men had side effects from falling in love: 12% suffer dizziness as a result, blotches, and stomach ache. 22% had heart palpitations.
24% of men took time off work as a result of falling in love.
30% said their thinking was impaired.
Only 42% of French men were phycially effected by falling in love.
The Tom Cruise Syndrome—a need to go on and on about their new love to anyone who will listen:
6% of French men and 15% of French women talked like Tom. JUst 1% of British men and women chattered obsessively about their new love.
More on Wealthy Men and the Women Who Want Them…
Rich men will pay big money to get (pretty, young) women. And women look for men who don’t mind a definite financial element in the deal. So what’s new about that?
Well, nothing much, but there’s been a lot of attention to it lately on the wires. Must be a slow news season, huh? Not actually. Most of the stuff came out right around the election, and that was plenty newsy. But maybe the print media wanted to write about plain old heterosexual sex and money, rather that politics, pederasts, and male ministers willing to pay for sex with men.
Dr. Phil chimed in early (before the election on November 3) with a show on Sugar Daddies and Cougars (the female version of Sugar Daddies—older women with younger men, though money did not seem to be so much a part of that equation). Sanjay (40) and Jacqueline (18) met on SugarDaddie.com Creepy site, creepy couple. You can read some of the online postings that the show generated here.
The Seattle Times’ Meghan Barr wrote “Online dating sites where Mr. Right is Mr. Rich” which appeared on 11/15/2006. The article mentions SugarDaddie.com of the Sanjay and Jacqueline fame, and WealthyMen.com. A seeming big advantage for men is the gender ratio: Meghan Barr writes that the male/female ratio on sites like Match.com and AmericanSingles.com is 70/30. (I wonder about those stats—what I had heard was more like 55/45.) But even so, WealthyMen.com claims a male/female ratio of 1/5. Pretty good for the guys, wouldn’t you say? But not so good for the ladies. Maybe women think they have at least a 20% chance at the big $$$. Better odds than the lottery, for sure.
BTW, sites that women like (eHarmony, PerfectMatch) have ratios that favor men. EHarmony avoids stating the ratios, but PerfectMatch blatantly advertises to men their good numbers: female to male: 2 to 1. I suspect eHarmony is similar. And PerfectMatch seems to have really dropped in the ratings. Mark Brooks’ blog listings (top 15) don’t even include PerfectMatch.
Mark Brooks blogged about Meghan Barr’s article, and I commented. Here’s what I wrote:
There are a number of sites aiming to hook up (appropriate term?) women with wealthy men. As long as the guys recognize the bargain, I suppose there’s no problem. But I have run across wealthy folks, both male and female, who are in a quandary about how to find a mate who will love them for who they are and not for their money. How can they get to know someone while being open and honest and not have their wealth become the prime focus? One guy naively joined one of these sites and honestly answered all questions, including income. He was swamped with offers from women, clogged up his mail box, and had eight proposals of marriage in the first contacts. It’s not easy being rich.
Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach
PS Interestingly, one of my blog posts that has been getting attention lately is about Sugar Mama’s. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Interesting Tidbits about Online Dating
According to a Channel3000.com article, 10% of Internet users report having visited a dating site. That sounds low to me, even though it means 16,000,000 people. Of that group, 43% have gone on dates with people they have met on the sites, and 17% reported long-term relationships or marriage with those online dating partners.
According to a new study out of the UK (reported in cellular_news.com), less serious daters (in their terms, love-cheats, two-timers, and commitment-phobes) are twice as likely to use text messaging to arrange first dates. 67% of people looking for a serious relationship used their phones to actually call for that first date. The same study revealed break-up habits: 30% ended a relationship face-to-face, 22% used distance and the silent treatment, 28% of men and 16% of women ignored their soon-to-be ex, the phone was used by 16%, and 15% used email, 14% text messaging.
Medical research out of the Universities of Callifornia at San Diego and Los Angeles (via an article in the BillingsGazette) of nearly 67,000 Americans between 1989 and 1997 indicates that those who are married live longer. Divorced or separated people were 27% more likely to die than married folks, and widows and widowers were 39% more likely to die. Never marrieds were 58% more likely to die than those still married.
I published the following piece in my most recent enewsletter *eMAIL to eMATE* October 1, 2006. It is too full of interesting info to let it pass unnoticed on my blog. Here goes:
We really know that Internet dating has made it solidly when
academics start studying it. What could be more impressive that
MIT’s Sloan School of Management? Gunter J. Hitsch, Ali
Hortacsu, and Dan Ariely have written “What Makes You Click?—
Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating,” a
working paper on their study.
At 62 pages long, almost half of which are graphs and charts,
this is not an easy read. And there are formulas: here’s a short
example—Um(m,w)>- vm(m) (not written here exactly right, but
you get the idea).
Lucky you: I’ve managed to digest most of it and pull out what is
really interesting, so here goes. Keep in mind, this study is
reporting on singles’ actual data and behavior—this is not as
things “should be,” but as things “really are.”
The authors used data supplied by an Internet dating company for
22,000 users in the Boston and San Diego area. While they did
not have access to the actual identities of the users, the
researchers did have just about everything else: Profiles,
photos, and preference data, as well as records of who browsed
who, when and if contact was made and reciprocated or not, and if
a meeting was requested or planned. Yikes.
Here are some of the conclusions they reached from their well-
massaged data:
Motivation for using the dating service: Singles interested in a
long term relationship generated the most activity. While 36% of
men and 39% of women declared that a relationship was what they
were looking for, 55% of all emails sent by men were from this
group, and 52% of all emails sent by women. Those “just
looking/curious” (26% of men, 27% of women) did 22% of the
mailing (men) and 21% (women). Only a small percentage of the
email generated was from those seeking casual relationships
or sex: 3.6% for men and 2.8% for women.
The authors thought it was likely that those who indicated they
were “just looking” were actually seriously looking, and
therefore the percentage of emails generated by people looking
seriously was closer to 75%.
Kathryn’s comments: You can probably assume, at least on the
mainstream sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals, that
nowadays, most folks posting are seriously looking for a
relationship. Sites like AdultFriendFinder.com have siphoned off
most of those just looking for sex, and AshelyMadison.com and the
like have gotten noticed by married folks looking to cheat.
Demographics: Men dominated the site in both cities: 54.7% in
Boston. 56.1% in San Diego. Age concentration was in the 26-35
year old range. 2/3’s were never married (sounds right, given the
age concentration). Education and income levels were slightly
higher than national averages, but about right for Internet
users. The authors conclude that “during recent years, online
dating has become an accepted and widespread means of partner
search.”
Reported physical characteristics: I love this part.
The site asked users to rate their looks on a subjective scale:
19% of men and 24% of women rated themselves having “very good
looks.” 49% of men and 48% of women described themselves as
“above average.” 29% of men and 26% of women described
themselves as “looking like anyone else walking down the street.”
Less that 1% declared themselves “less than average looks.” That
means that 78% of the men and 74% of the women were above average
looking, which is either statistically impossible, or the dating
site attracted only the most attractive people. We do like to
think of ourselves as above average, don’t we?
Women reported they weighed less than the national averages: 6
lbs. less in the 20-29 age group, 18 lbs less in the 30-39 group,
and 20 lbs. less in the 40-49 age group. Either these women
dieted before going on the site or are fibbing. Men reported
weights slightly higher than the national averages.
Men’s reported heights were 1.3 inches above national average,
women’s 1 inch above average.
Kathryn’s comments: Buyer beware! when it comes to an
individual’s self-description of attractiveness and physical
attributes. People have a real tendency to distort or downright
lie. Or maybe they really believe that they are “above average,”
whether you do or not. To do your part, NEVER LIE! It’s big
trouble. See my recent blog posting.
Fascinating tidbits: 71% of men’s and 56% of women’s first
emails did not receive a reply. Men are much more receptive to
first email contacts than women are. The average man can expect
35% of the average women to respond, where the average woman can
expect 60% of the men she contacts to respond. The more
attractive men and women are less likely to respond (are
“pickier”). The least attractive are more likely to write back,
two or three times more likely.
First contacts are usually made by men. Women receive an average
of 11.4 first emails, and men got 2.3. 56.4% of all men in the
sample did not get any first emails at all, with 21.1% of women
never being approached the first time.
Kathryn’ comments: This absolutely validates what I have been
telling my women clients: Men like it when you email them
first!!! Do the picking yourself. You’ll be much more likely to
get what you want!!! And remember, a 30% response rate to first
emails is GOOD!
Guys, if you want the contacts from women, be interested in a
long-term relationship. Men are penalized and receive less
emails if they indicate that they want a casual relationship or
“just sex.” Women however receive 17% MORE first contacts if
they are looking for casual or sex.
Looks: Not surprisingly, the better looking folks got the most
emails. Interestingly, men in the top 5% got about twice as many
contacts from women as the next 5%. The researchers called this
the “superstar effect” and did not observe it with men’s contacts
of women.
Photos count—and I would add, good photos count even more.
Women with photos got at least twice as many emails, and men got
60% more.
Women like tall men: men 6’3” to 6’4” got 65% more emails than
men 5’7” to 5’8”. Women are increasingly penalized the taller
they get.
Men prefer skinny women. Really skinny women. The researchers
used body mass index (BMI) which adjusts weight for height. The
most preferred BMI by women in men is 27. According to the
American Heart Association, a BMI of 27 for men is slightly
overweight. Men however tended to prefer women with a BMI of
about 17, which is considered underweight and corresponds to the
figure of a super model. Women tend to feel they look their best
between BMI’s of 20 and 22. 50 year old women at the 50% of
BMI’s would be about 27.
Hair: Men with red hair had a moderate penalty, while women with
“salt and pepper” hair had a large penalty. Men with “long curly
hair” got 18% less email than men with medium straight hair.
Kathryn’s comments: The ideal guy? 6’3” tall, very attractive,
slightly overweight, with medium length straight brown hair. The
ideal woman? Be between 5’3” and 5’8”, very attractive,
emaciated (How can that thin be attractive??? It would hurt if
you bumped into them.), and have long, straight, blonde hair.
What’s new about that?
Of course, only 15% of men are over six feet tall. And only
around 10% of women have a BMI of 17 or under. (Want to
calculate your BMI and see where you stand compared with other
men or women? Go here. ) Less that 2% of the world population has
blonde hair. Those stats cut out lots and lots of perfectly lovely people.
Are you sure you want to do that?
Tidbit: You can tell the difference between natural and dyed
blonde hair by exposing it to ultraviolet light (bleached hair
will glow, while natural blonde hair will not).
Income: Income strongly effects the dating success of men, while
only having a slight effect for women. In general, the higher a
man’s income, the more first emails he got.
Education and occupations: Women seem to prefer men with similar
educational backgrounds. They also preferred lawyers, fire
fighters, military, and health related professions. Women’s
occupations and education had little influence on first email
results. In fact, most women’s professions did not do as well as
students.
Ethnicity: Overall, 38% of women and 18% of men stated they
preferred mates of their own ethnicity. 49% of Caucasian women
and 22% of Caucasian men preferred Caucasian mates. But only 30%
of black women and 8% of black men stated a preference for the
same ethnicity. The researchers also found that even when the
individual stated that ethnicity did not matter, they behaved as
if it did, showing same ethnicity preference in their email
contacts.
Kathryn’s comments: Guys, if you can make more money, you can
catch up to other men who may be taller or better looking. The
researchers were actually able to figure out that a man at the
bottom in the looks category could make up for that with an
additional income (on TOP of the assumed $62,500 average) of
$186,000. A man 5’6” tall needs to make $175,000 MORE that
$62,500 to compete equally with a guy 6 feet tall (assuming
everything else being equal). Ethnicity is the most expensive
catch-up: for equal success with a white woman, an African-
American man needs $154,000, Hispanic men $77,000, and Asian men
$247,000.
Women cannot compensate for looks or ethnicity with higher
income. It’s mostly about looks. Sigh.
Forbes and Dating Stats
Forbes magazine has come out with its “Best Cities for Singles” list for 2006. Interestingly, they are including the best cities for online dating, using figures provided by Match.com. The Match.com figures reflect the number of active members per capita in each metropolitan area. Here are the winners, listed in “Bean Town Wired for Love”:
1. Boston (No. 2 overall)
2. Denver- Boulder (No. 1 overall)
3. Seattle (No. 7 overall)
4. Washington, D.C.-Baltimore (No. 9 overall)
5. Raleigh-Durham (No. 6 overall)
6. Orlando (No. 24 overall)
7. Tampa (No. 35 overall)
8. Minneapolis/St. Paul (No. 14 overall)
9. San Francisco-Oakland (No. 4 overall)
10. Las Vegas (No. 21 overall)
Interestingly, the Forbes online articles also included a survey on where the best places to meet singles are. “Friend’s house” is tops at 14%, followed by “Parties” (13%), “Bars” (11%), and “Church” at 9% before we get to “Online dating” at 7%. Since around 12% of newly married and engaged couples report meeting online, those figures might be slightly skewed.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Potpourri of Facts
A study by a German Internet dating site (www.single.de) found that older singles did better with online dating than younger folks. The figures quoted in a posting on IOL Technology are a bit confusing, but interesting. The site (which has more than 2.4 million visitors monthly) found that 15% of people age 40 to 50 said they had found a lasting partner on the Internet, while the figure was 11% for those 31 to 40 and only 10% for those 21 to 30.
Buried in an article in Forbes were these figures from Jupiter Research: Online dating is a $494 million industry, expected to reach $642 by 2008. The big three dating sites (Match.com, Yahoo! Personals and eHarmony) account from between 2/3’s and 3/4’s of the total online dating traffic.
Also quoted in the Forbes article was the results of a February 2005 survey by WeddingChannel.com that 12% of engaged or recently married couples met online.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Stats About Baby Boomers
Here’s an interesting set of stats from Match.com about Baby Boomers that “Flying Solo” columnists Jan L. Warner and Jan Collins mentioned recently:
_70 percent of their boomer members are divorced or widowed;
_More than half of the boomers using their site exercise, and their favorite activities are walking, hiking, dancing, swimming, bowling, and golf.
_The boomers like the finer things in life: 39 percent enjoy dining out, 34 percent like to travel, 24 percent go to museums, 20 percent attend performing arts events, and 19 percent attend wine-tastings.
_Boomers say intelligence is the most important personality attribute in potential partners, followed closely by fidelity, confidence, and humor.
_Those boomers who have not retired are most likely to be self-employed entrepreneurs, followed by executives and physicians. Boomers using the site also have higher incomes than the average member (22 percent of the boomers earn $50,000 to $100,000 annually).
_38 percent are empty nesters.
_47 percent have a bachelor’s degree, while 15 percent have a graduate degree.
_Baby boomers’ biggest turn-off is sarcasm.
_Boomers are the least likely to believe they have only one soul mate.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Gumtree.com, a London, England, site, surveyed 1600 of it’s members about their Internet dating experiences. While it doesn’t mean much for U. S. singles to know that Glasgow came out on top for dating site usage and success (almost 3/4 of the men and over half the women reported having a “fling” with someone they met online), still, the numbers indicate the growing importance of dating sites for singles to connect. Glasgow men and women also reported high percentages of longer term romance: 68% of men, 71% of women reported at least one serious or long-term relationship stemming from an Internet meeting.
Here’s the figures that I found most interesting: 77% of men and 33% of women from Glasgow said they found Internet dating more comfortable for connecting than a bar or the workplace. Wow.
This all points to the growing acceptance of online connecting. Singles like the ease, simplicity, and privacy. Not to mention the ability to meet many, many more eligible singles than has ever been possible before.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Interesting Online Dating Stats
Buried in an article on azcentral.com are some interesting stats:
eHarmony says 16,500 of their clients married in the year ending August 2005.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, “an estimated two million married Internet users met their spouses online.”
Also quoted is Anna Murray, who used her therapist to review profiles of possible mates. Her current husband passed both of their judgments. That’s a great idea, and something I regularly help my clients with, screening potentials through their profiles, helping read between the lines.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Stats from the NYT
Here are some interesting figures from the NYT article I wrote about in my last posting:
According to Jupiter Research, online personals account for more than $500 million in annual Internet business. “No other industry makes as much money online from monthly fees, not even pornography.”
During the first five years of marriage, couples with the same religious background divorce at a rate of 24%. Divorce rates between mainline Protestants and Catholics jump to 38%, and between a Christian and a Jew, the rate is 42%.
Divorce rates for interracial couples are somewhat higher, as are rates where the woman is more that 4 years older than the man.
The lesson? The more similarities between you and your future spouse, the better your chances of staying married.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The Percentages Get Better and Better
A recent indicates that more and more singles are having success with Internet dating. on biz.yahoo.com, 76% of singles who used Internet dating sites found “someone special.” 58% had built an online connection into a relationship that lasted at least several months. Online dating (16% met their last dates online) now beats out every way except friends and family (21%) for meeting prospective partners.
Interestingly, the survey picked up that 82% of women say it is okay for the woman to call a man after the first date, 49% say they never make that call.
I find with my clients that right after the first date is when things either pick up or start dropping off. While it is natural to have mixed feelings so early in the game (you can’t possibly be ready to MARRY yet, for heaven’s sake), it’s important to register strong interest about seeing your date again, unless you already fell a strong “No!” Both men and women are nervous and quick to pick up signals that are not clear. Many would rather fade away than get rejected, so that’s what happens. They fade away.
Fade away prevention: Register your interest clearly. Do not leave a date you’d like to see again without a clear plan for the next contact. Go to the date prepared with a suggestion for another meeting.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
British Singles are Leading the Way Online
My, things have come a long ways since I first heard of Match.com and this thing called Internet dating, way back in 1997. And those singles in Great Britain seem to be taking to finding their mates in cyberspace like a good cup of tea. Maybe even better than us…
On January 31, an article in the Mirror (a UK company that bills itself as “The Best Newspaper on the Web”) listed tips for finding a partner. Look at what tops the list, and what author Flic Everett say about it:
DO IT ONLINE
THIS method of finding a partner offers the highest chance of success.
There are hundreds of good websites featuring literally millions of profiles - try www.mirror.co.uk/dating, where you can specify how near you’d like your matches to live, alongside age, interests and appearance. Online dating has a high success rate because you can check out a photo first and decide how much information to reveal - or not.
BEST FOR: Busy people looking for long-term love, because it offers a huge number of potential partners and allows you to communicate before you actually meet.
Even more interesting is the “Don’t try” list:
NIGHTCLUBS The people you meet will be drunk and on the pull.
YOUR MUM Mother does not know best when it comes to dating - and she’s still going on about that lovely boy/girl you dumped when you were 14.
THE CINEMA How are you going to get chatting in the middle of a film? If you like movies, join a film club to meet a partner.
BLIND DATES You’ll only be insulted by what your friends consider suitable date material.
WORK Although most Brits meet their partners at work, it’s not easy - because if you split up, there’s no place to hide.
I saw recently that more than 60% of British singles are looking for love online. That’s astonishing! I wonder if it has anything to do with how small the country is geographically? Searching all of British singles for possible mates would not pose as difficult a problem as it does here. The country is so small that even if your Sweetheart were at the opposite end of the country. likely you could get there in a day’s drive. Or an easy train ride.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
According to Christopher Palmeri’s article “Must Love Wing Tips,” Match.com says that men do indeed seek younger women: typcially 13 years younger. But at eHarmony (where 25% of men over 55 want women under 40), Dr. Neil Clark Warren often finds himself in the awkward position of explaining to these guys that the younger women just aren’t interested. “I’ve had men ask: ‘Do they know what I’m worth?” Warren says.
I guess these guys are aware that they are making a deal, they just don’t know the price yet.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Since I am a Romance Coach specializing in helping singles find partners using Internet dating sites, I read with interest Vanessa Juarez’s article “www.findlovehere.com” in the February 20th issue.
The first half of the article is essentially correct, but falters in the second half when Juarez starts talking about specific dating sites. First off, folks 50 and over, divorced or not, find the best and most choices on the largest Internet dating sites, Match.com (where I met my husband in 1998) and Yahoo! Personals. Smaller sites have correspondingly smaller numbers.
What Juarez did not mention is that sites like PerfectMatch and eHarmony (which have built-in a more passive role for singles—the web site does the matching—and therefore appeal to women) have very skewed gender ratios that do not favor women. PerfectMatch openly courts men, enticing them with 2:1 male to female ratios. That would include all age ranges, so likely the older women get (when they outnumber men anyway), the worse the ratios.
Most of my clients are women over 40, and I NEVER suggest either eHarmony or PerfectMatch for these because of those bad numbers. All have gone to either Match.com or Yahoo! Personals or both and been pleased and astounded at the large numbers of quality men just waiting to hear from them. Internet dating is in large part a numbers game, and a single is best served by going to the sites where the numbers are in his or her favor— large numbers of singles in gender ratios that favor the individual.
Best, Kathryn Lord
What Are Online Daters Looking For?
Cahterine Holahan recently wrote an article for NorthJersey.com on the motivations of online daters. In the true “If it bleeds, it leads” tradition, Holahan led with the Nielson?NetRatings survey stats that 30% of men and only 8% of women are using online dating sites to find a “No strings” fling. Okay, so what’s news about that?
Then buried in the article are more optimistic numbers:42% of women and 46% of men on Internet dating sites are looking for long-term relationships. Now why were those numbers buried? Because they are boring! At least as far as grabbing eyes is concerned.
But I don’t think that 42% and 46% are boring at all! Those figures include ages 21 or so all the way up. You’d expect younger men and women to be more casual in what they were looking for. I’ll lay money that the older the individual, the more serious their intent. Frankly, it’s all good news, as far as I am concerned.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
eHarmony released some eye-popping numbers on January 31: According to an independent survey by Harris Interactive, 16,630 marriages between September 1, 2004, and August 31, 2005, resulted from eHarmony matchups. Since each marriage consists of two people, that means slightly more than 90 singles per day get hitched because of Dr. Warren and company. (16,630 times 2 divided by 365 = 91.12) Those are some numbers by anyone’s calculations.
These are the “hardest” numbers that I have seen so far, at least gathered in what appears to be a legitimate effort. Up until now, the only number I have seen have been from Match.com, and those are self-reports: From my website—“In 2003, more than 200,000 members reported that they were resigning from Match.com because they had met the person they were seeking.” And ” Match.com claims to initiate over 130 engagements and marriages each month.”
There’s a big gap between 130 engagements and marriages a month (3,120 a year at that rate) and 200,000 satisfied resignations. Even eHarmony’s numbers are only 33,260 happy singles a year.
Probably the truth is somewhere inbetween. Or maybe not, since those figures are a year or two old. We know that Internet dating continues to grow as an industry, though not as fast as the 75% growth rates of a few years ago.
Regardless, that’s a lot of happy people, or at least we hope that they are all happy. If “The proof is in the pudding,” that’s quite a set of plums.
I do wonder if Harris Interactive asked about couples who met on other dating sites like Match and Yahoo! And I also wonder how many couples, total, got married in the time frame specified. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Though a survry in mid-2004 indicated that about 15% of marrying couples met online.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
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