To answer the question posed in the title of our article, just look at the results of the observations made by Stanford University from 1995 to 2017. The main goal of these observations was to understand where future couples most often met for the first time.
The results of the surveys are as follows (the first value is 1995, the second is 2017):
- Dating through mutual friends: was 33%, became 7%.
- Dating in bars and restaurants: was 19%, became 27%.
- Dating at work: was 19%, became 11%.
- Dating at school, college, university: was 19%, became 9%.
- Dating through family members: was 15%, became 7%.
- Online dating: was 2%, became 39%.
Obviously, it was online dating that made the biggest leap due to the active development of the Internet. And this is without taking into account the growth in engagement after 2017, because the study was suspended. As we know, the pandemic has become the most powerful catalyst for the dating industry around the world. In the US alone, there were over 30 million users on online dating sites and apps in 2021. And many experts are confident that by 2027 this number will exceed 35 million.
Tinder has attracted special public attention in recent years. The service is far from new, but in the wake of the pandemic, it has found a new life. According to the company in 2021 the number of site users exceeded 9.6 million people. For comparison: in 2020 there were 8.2 million, in 2019, 7 million, and in 2018, 3.7 million. The growth rate is amazing!
Tinder representatives report that in 2020-2021, 13.6% of couples who met on the app and continued to communicate offline are now engaged or married. On the one hand, the percentage is relatively small. On the other hand, these people would not have met at all if not for Tinder. But is it worth focusing just on this site? Of course not! There are a lot of alternatives to Tinder. And among them there are those that might suit you much better. The main thing is to understand what you really expect from a dating service.
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What users are looking for on dating sites and apps
There is a myth going around Tinder that users are only looking for sex without commitment. And that supposedly it is nearly impossible to find a match for a serious relationship. This misconception attracted the attention of many researchers, and they shared the results of their observations.
Elisabeth Timmermans, Ph.D., studied Tinder and the psychology of its users back in 2015. According to her, the desire for a relationship without obligations is not a priority for most users. Moreover, sex is not even in second place for people who meet online.
What, then, are users looking for in Tinder and its rivals?
- About 13% of all users plan to find a soulmate here and start a strong romantic relationship.
- About 15% want to find a match for sex without commitment.
- About 20% wish to make new friends with similar interests.
- More than 48% use dating platforms purely out of curiosity.
The remaining few percent pursue a variety of purposes. There are even those who register on a dating site in order to catch their partner cheating. There are many such cases.
The conclusion is as follows: if you have already decided to use a dating platform, then first of all set a clear goal for yourself. What do you want? Sometimes a simple misunderstanding of your own goals and desires completely spoils your whole impression of online dating.
What you need to remember on the dating service
- An empty profile — a guarantee of failure. If you have no time or are just too lazy to fill out a questionnaire on a site or in a dating application, it’s better to abandon this idea altogether. Empty profiles will not attract anyone but scammers.
- Avoid any negativity and vulgarity — both on your part and on the part of the other person. If you find it unpleasant to communicate with a person, stop this communication. You don’t owe anyone or anything.
- Create a wish list for your partner. Believe us, this will help you better select candidates and eliminate those who do not suit you. Just write down the main criteria on a piece of paper and refer to it. You’ll save a lot of time.
- Don’t delay meeting offline. If you’ve met someone you like online and are ready to take the next step, don’t delay. The longer you hesitate, the less likely you are to meet.
- Be honest, as the truth will come out anyway. Sometimes it is difficult to overcome the desire to embellish your biography and filter your profile photo. But what’s the point? Lies are the main cause of disappointment.
- Don’t draw all the attention to yourself. There are people who want to please the other person so much that they try to explain as much as possible about themselves and demonstrate how good a match they are. But long monologues and stories are very tiring. Learn not only to speak, but also to listen.
- Use the right dating sites. Whoever said that Tinder is the best dating service in existence? We don’t think so. There are many much more interesting alternatives. It is worth talking about them in more detail.
Choosing the best dating service for your purposes
Tinder, despite some disadvantages and an abundance of paid features, is still a good tool for finding a potential match based on location. But a multi-million audience is not the best thing. We advise you to take a closer look at several dating services.
- OkCupid — a dating service where users can be very specific about their sexual orientation and gender identity. There are over 60 available. The selection of the ideal match is based on the answers to questions in the questionnaire. The algorithm works, albeit not perfectly, but quite well.
- Hinge — the only dating app that uses a Nobel Prize-winning matchmaking algorithm. According to the developers, Hinge members are eight times more likely to go on dates than users of other dating services.
- Bumble — quite a classic dating app, the only difference being that only girls make the first move here. Men can’t message first. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages. You decide!
For many users, we recommend abandoning the classic dating services and choosing an alternative. For example, video chat — a platform for communication with random users. Such video chat sites will allow you to chat with interesting strangers and possibly meet your love without a long registration and a great deal of searching.
Among the most interesting random web chats are:
- Omegle — a standard online video chat and the first chat roulette in the history of the internet. The site does not offer anything extraordinary, only basic functions — search by interests, language selection, and the like. And Omegle still has no smartphone apps.
- CooMeet — one of the best video chats for men as coomeet.com connects them exclusively with girls. Moreover, only with those who verified their identity. This is very convenient, since there are no fakes and bots here at all. We can safely recommend CooMeet to everyone!
- Chatrandom — a more versatile alternative to Omegle. This video chat offers several additional features: themed chat rooms, a gender filter, as well as a separate chat with girls. However, you will have to pay to access the latter.
These are interesting and convenient services with an audience of many thousands. If you are tired of the classic Internet dating format, online video chat will be a great alternative for you. Recommended!
The dating world is your oyster
We are lucky! Despite the difficult situation in the world, meeting and communicating on the Internet today is easier than ever. Hundreds of sites, dozens of applications, millions of users — the whole world of online dating is open to us. The only thing left to do is to take advantage of this opportunity!
We wish you interesting, fun and fruitful acquaintances on the Web. The world is much bigger than many people think. It’s time to see it for real and erase all boundaries!
