(Disclosure, I may receive a small referral fee when you make a purchase through links on this post.)
Hate it or love it online dating sites are here and they are to stay. Many have their opinions about online dating sites and are entitled to it. There has been several discussion about the role of online dating sites. First lets get the business part out of the way. All online dating sites are businesses intending to make money off of someone whether it is from its membership fees or advertisers. Plentyoffish is one online dating site that is completely free and makes money off of selling advertising space. With that out of the way, online dating site’s main goal should be to encourage people to meet other people with the purpose of engaging in a relationship. People are social beings and desire to have a companion to love and be loved in return. It makes us unique and special.
There are many features that differentiate online dating sites. You have the sites where you can sign up and start reviewing profiles immediately such as Howaboutwe, Match.com, Spark.com, pof.com, and Matchmaker.com. Then there are sites where you go through an extensive questionnaire to evaluate your personality and match you via their personality matching system. The most popular of them all are eHarmony.com and Chemistry.com.
Sites like Perfectmatch.com gives you best of both worlds. You can review the matches that they put against you but you can also search against the large databases.
Why do people use online dating sites? One big reason is because people cannot find a suitable partner in the current environment. It could be that they exhausted trying to find someone within their current group of network or they simply stopped finding and meeting people that interest them. People want to try different things when they are tired of meeting people at the bar for example. Online dating is perfect to expand that network. We do many things online now such as finding a contractor, shopping, cleaning, business partners, jobs. Why not dating?
When trying dating sites we think it is important to keep in mind that it should not be a one stop shop of finding your perfect mate. As of any relationship, you need to take time to get to know the people through different tools that dating sites offer. You cannot and I REPEAT, you cannot find someone to marry by just looking at someone’s profile. Dating sites is just another venue for you to meet people. That should be it.
With that said, many people may wonder why people would hang around after they find someone. This is the million dollar question for many dating sites. Some sites are beginning to engage in date ideas, product, relationship advice hoping to continue to cash in. I’m mixed about this as it oversteps their role and boundaries. We have yet to see how much of a different dating sites may make for people who are already in relationships.