Online Dating

If you've ever been curious about what online dating is all about, whether it works or it doesn't work, read this article, you'll be impressed by what you learn.

Being an ex-life coach I feel more than qualified to write about online dating sites. --In some regards they were my competition, because people would rather hide out on online dating sites rather than fix whatever problems that they have that prevent them from having a relationship. In other regards, I've tried scooping up the online dating crowd in my marketing efforts and I had to do a lot of research in order to figure them out. In fact, I was interviewed at one time for a newspaper article related to this topic.

Here's what I've learned from it all:

1. Women are only online because they either a) lack the social skills to attract the attention of males in person or b) they are just investigating it because it is marketed as some mythical golden goose and they want to see if it really does produce golden eggs.
2. Men are only online because they either a) lack the social skills to attract the attention of females in person, or b) they are just looking for some easy action.
3. There ARE a lot of creeps online--in fact, you have a 1:5 (my estimate) chance of meeting a pedophile, rapist, druggie, thief, or other creeps online who if you meet in person will either rape you, molest your kids, steal your money or things and sell them to buy drugs and leave you without anything.
4. The women who lack the most social skills tend to be predominantly A) single mothers and secondary to them are B) women with weight issues.
5. There are three predominant (specific) reasons for a single mother to use online dating (remember that these women are either just investigating or they lack social skills) A) they feel that their efforts in a non-online-spurred relation have failed resulting in them being a single mother and that somehow it will be easier for them to have a committed long-term relationship with someone who they believe is a "nice" guy because he survives online. B) they're just looking for no strings attached sex and aren't really interested in a relationship. C) they are too lazy and gutless to develop a relationship in person, i.e. they are scared to take risks, believe they don't have enough time, or they are unmotivated to meet new people.
6. Most women who resort to online dating have a poor opinion of men, specifically, they believe in generalizations such as that men lack chivalry or men are players.
7. Those "normal" women who are only experimenting with online dating are likely to only stick to it for three weeks or less. Again, the rest--the ones who stay--have some social malady.
8. Not all dating sites imply the same things. Some dating sites attract a specific type of people. I attribute this to their marketing and branding efforts.
9. There are plenty of free and semi-free dating sites that are moderately respectable and therefore there is no reason to invest in a paid dating site because they all attract the same two kinds of people (read #1 and #2 again).
10. Few people use more than one dating site, most find one they like and stick to it.

Notes
This is heavily weighted towards what I learned about women in online dating because my target market for my research was women. I already know a lot about men because I am one. Also, bear in mind that I stuck to the age limits of over 18 and under 30.

Summary
If you're looking for someone to have the perfect relationship with don't use online dating. If you're a male and you insist on it, you had better be comfortable with inheriting kids because she probably has at least one. Also, there is no significant difference between the level of maturity of someone who is 18 online and someone who is 28 online. If you're a female, and you insist on online dating, you had better be comfortable with guys that want sex--some of them may hold out for a short while but they'll all eventually expect sex.
The physical quality of the people you see on online dating is a good reflection of the physical quality of those you would meet in person--I would suggest that there is even an accurate ratio of the number of "good looking" (I know that that is a subjective term) people compared to not so good looking.

I think really I would be scared to do online dating knowing what I know now.--I still have accounts online but I use them for experimentation and occasionally I like to look at pictures of people, it's an odd fascination of mine I know, but I feel like self-taken photos and the photos people choose to represent themselves say a lot about them and it's all very interesting.