Online dating websites can offer singles a very high possibility of longer term romantic adventures, reveals a study published as St Valentine’s Day for 2012 comes closer.
Almost 95% of British online dating site members questioned saw their Internet partner at least a second time after the first meeting.
Plymouth University researcher, Geoff Green, undertook a survey of 230 adults and discovered that web dating worked for a lot of people. But he told the BBC that 5% of those individuals who were part of the survey considered themselves married.
British based Internet dating sites have around 7 million members. Many of these, Dr Green said, offered little space for new romantics to write a good description of themselves.
The stronger link forged between members came, rather, from later intercommunication, specifically through web chat rooms. This is a much convenient method of communication than e-mailing and lets people express more freely their real feelings.
However, only 10% of chat room encounters choose to talk through the use of a webcam, many, being rather timid, favoured text only relationships.
Dr Gren said: “What surprised our research team the most was the way the more traditional features of relationships appeared to be quite strong.“
“Those individuals who wrote out long letters or went about sending gifts seemed to assist in strengthening the bond.”
Nearly 1/5 of those individuals interviewed who had commenced a relationship via a dating website had lasted more than 12 months.
Dr Green said this was similar to those partners who had met up “in more customary ways”.
Male online dating website customers were generally keener than females because further chat room opportunities gave them an avenue to show their feelings.
Dr Green added, “Many people add their names to sites because they don’t get much time to go out to bars and night clubs to meet and enjoy the company of others.”
“When online dating sites first began they were quite ordinary. Today there are all types of different niches out there to attract people. “There are fitness sites, where fit individuals meet other fit individuals, Christian dating sites and college graduate sites, the diversity is quite amazing.”
