Dating Web Sites Info

Posts Tagged ‘dating web site info’

About two years ago I arranged to meet for coffee with a woman I had corresponded with online. I arrived early and sat at a table in a conspicuous spot. After a few minutes, a woman came to my table, sat down and said with big smile, “Hi, I’m Chris!”

But Chris was not the woman in the online photos. This wasn’t a question of an age discrepancy or a new hairdo. She was a completely different woman. Chris was in marketing, you see, and to her it was simply a good strategy to post photographs that would draw in as many “customers” as possible. I never said a word about the photos. I just enjoyed our conversation and the refreshments. A few weeks later I noticed that Chris had replaced the photos with those of yet another woman.

In the U.S. alone, tens of millions of people are trying to find dates or spouses online every day. How accurate are the ads they find? And just how successful is online dating compared with conventional dating? These and other questions have recently stimulated a small explosion of studies by social scientists. The research is quickly revealing many surprising things about the new world of online dating, and some of the ?findings could be of great value to the millions who now look to the Internet to find love.

Deception at Light Speed
Experiences such as the one I had with Chris are multiplying by the thousands: some people online lie quite drastically about their age, marital or parental status, appearance, income or profession. There are even Web sites, such as www.DontDateHimGirl.com, where people go to gripe, and a few lawsuits have been filed against online services by disgruntled suitors. Just how bad is deception in online dating?

To put this issue in context, bear in mind that deception has always played at least a small role in courting. One could even argue that deception is a necessary part of wooing a potential partner (”Yes, I love sports!”) and even of forming successful long-term relationships (”No, that dress doesn’t make you look fat at all!”).

But cyberspace introduces a host of new possibilities. Survey research conducted by media researcher Jeana Frost of Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that about 20 percent of online daters admit to deception. If you ask them how many other people are lying, however–an interviewing tactic that probably gets closer to the truth–that number jumps to 90 percent.

Because self-reported data can be unreliable, especially those from people asked to confess bad things about themselves, several researchers have sought objective ways to quantify online deception. For example, psychologist Jeffrey Hancock of Cornell University and communications professor Nicole Ellison of Michigan State University bring people into a lab, where they measure height and weight and then check the numbers against those in their online profiles. The preliminary data suggest that, on average, online profiles shave off about five pounds and add perhaps an inch in height. According to Ellison, although deception is “fairly common, the lies are of a very small magnitude.” On the other hand, she says that the shorter and heavier people are, the bigger the lies.

In another attempt to collect objective data on deception, economists Guenter Hitsch and Ali Hortaçsu of the University of Chicago and psychologist Dan Ariely of M.I.T. compared the heights and weights of online daters with the same statistics obtained from national census data. Like Hancock and Ellison, they found that online height is exaggerated by only an inch or so for both men and women but that women appear to understate their weight more and more as they get older: by five pounds when they are in their 20s, 17 pounds in their 30s and 19 pounds in their 40s.

For men, the major areas of deception are educational level, income, height, age and marital status; at least 13 percent of online male suitors are thought to be married. For women, the major areas of deception are weight, physical appearance and age. All of the relevant research shows the importance of physical appearance for both sexes, and online daters interpret the absence of photos negatively. According to one recent survey, men’s profiles without photos draw one fourth the response of those with photos, and women’s profiles without photos draw only one sixth the response of those with photos.

There are a variety of dating websites available to both general and specialist groups. Dating agencies like singlesnet.com, Match.com, Yahoo Personals, and eHarmony deal with thousands of profiles worldwide, hosting millions of members looking for love. Other online dating sites, like JDate, ChristianCafe, BlackSingles.com, Hispanic Match.com, Senior Yahoo Personals, and more, concentrate purely on a single religion, ethnicity, or age group. I would never advocate selecting just a single specialist dating site at first because you really are putting all your eggs in one basket, but if you don’t find what you’re looking for on a general dating site, a specialty dating site may be just what you need.

Most dating sites have security and privacy policies and those that don’t are best avoided. A good dating site should vet their members and have policies within their terms of use allowing people to be removed or barred from the site for unreasonable behavior or misrepresentation. Any site you choose should have protective measures in place to ensure that members dating online will not face any serious annoyance when logged in. Some sites have data protection registrars and require a strict password system protecting accounts.

The very best dating sites will be aware particularly of women’s issues when dating online and will have a positive policy allowing women members to block, without repercussions, those with whom they do not wish to communicate. There are some sites that penalize for blocking and we would never advocate you to use them.

Email should always be a private affair when dating online. The top dating sites usually keep your email within the site itself so that you have a protected inbox but messages are never transmitted to your real-world address. Instant messaging is increasingly seen as very important when dating online and allows instant communication with other members who are online at that time. This facilitates easy and private chats which can lead to positive relationship building.

Not all dating websites have chat rooms, but I see them as very useful for new daters and socialites who love to chat to many people at once. It is a good way of boosting your confidence and eliminating your nervousness about the “getting to know you” part of dating. The best sites allow you to use a different name in a chat room to your regular profile to maintain anonymity levels. The other communication feature we now see increasingly is voicemail. Apart from being able to communicate online it is very useful to be able to lave voice messages and listen too without ever giving out a real phone number.

Here are some key things to always keep in mind when attempting to use the Internet for romance:

• Use a professional introduction agency or website — one that has been established for at least 3 years
• Use a website that specializes in Internet dating, not a dating service that is a part of a non-dating focused website
• Use an agency or site that allows free profile registration for all members
• Use an online service that allows you to post more than one photo for free
• Use a dating services agency that has a secure ecommerce
• Do not use completely free agencies as you don’t often get top quality or secure services
• Do find an online agency that offers email and messaging that are onsite
• Don’t use agencies that insist on sending emails to your own real-world inbox
• The best Internet dating specialists offer you great customer service
• Use an agency or site that is appealing and relaxed and suits your style
• Don’t go for an agency or website based solely on its advertising campaigns — look for the best fit for you
• Look for online agencies that provide detailed dating articles and advice
• Make sure that the online agency includes their full address and phone number
• International websites usually have the best variety of member profiles
• Find an Internet agency that has customer service available to members
• Use an agency that offers different methods of secure payment
• Some of the best dating agencies allow payment in different currencies
• It is essential that you can Browse & Find profiles for free
• Make sure that the search facilities are fast and suit your style of searching
• Be on the lookout for “free communication” weekends and free trials so you can try out different services before paying
• Beware of les-than-reputable services that send fraudulent emails or messages posing as interested potential dates as a means of getting you to buy a membership
• Research your potential dating agency or website on Internet message boards or via friends — find out what others’ experiences have been like with the service