I met my wife the old-fashioned way (in college) but I personally know a few people who met their significant others through online dating.
It seems like more and more people met each other through the web. And now, there's hard number to support this anecdotal evidence.
A study of more than 11,000 people by the online dating website Match.com and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey showed that 1 out of 6 marriages last year are between people who met through an online dating site. That's more than twice the number of people who met at bars, clubs, and other social events combined! If you count committed relationships, the number jumps even higher to 1 out of 5.
The following details the way people have met their spouse over the last three years:
1) Through Work/School 36%
2) Through Friend/Family Member 26%
3) Via Online Dating Site 17%
4) Through Bars/Clubs/Other Social Events 11%
5) Other 7%
6) Through Church/Place of Worship 4%“The world has changed,” said Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com. “We get married older, we work longer hours, we move around more, we’re generally busier. These changes have put pressure on the way we traditionally have met our significant others. Luckily, with these changes has come an increasing openness to doing new things. Online dating has grown so much in part as a response to these societal changes, having become the third most important way we meet our significant others, even though it didn’t even exist 15 years ago.”
The study: Link [PDF] - Thanks Kendyl Wright! (Photo: Shutterstock)
followed by
"3) Via Online Dating Site 17%
4) Through Bars/Clubs/Other Social Events 11%"
17 > (11*2)? Am I missing something?