Problems with Online Dating

First, a Long Island couple used a popular online dating site to find people going through divorces and arranged to have consensual sexual encounters with them, the authorities said yesterday. Then they secretly videotaped the encounters and blackmailed the victims

The hype is huge, and the findings are somewhat disturbing--but the future of online dating looks good

There are 90 million singles in America, and online personals Web sites such as Match.com, Yahoo! Personals and eHarmony have brought matchmaking into the mainstream since 2001. However, we are now seeing the first wave of divorces of people that found their soulmates online and consumers are not happy with the accuracy of online profiles. State lawmakers are not happy either. There are bills proposed or pending in IL, TX, FL and VA, to require dating services to state whether they perform background checks. This has become a controversial battle. The novelty of online dating has worn off and revenue growth for the 850+ websites operating has slowed drastically—to only 4.5 percent last year, versus 47 percent in 2003.

Online dating profiles tend to portray fantasies of who we want to be… not the reality of who we are. This is because we (people) understand that online dating sites are a meat market, and we want to advantage ourselves however we can… thus, we stretch the truth a little bit… not a lot… just enough to give us that edge!