Online Dating: It’s Bigger than Porn

Breaking It Down for Ya: Online Dating Statistics in a Nutshell

Online Dating: Bigger than Porn

Ever seen a knockout girl in the street and immediately thought: “Is there a chance I’ll spend the rest of my life with this person? What are the odds?” Crazy? Maybe, but in the online world, there’s no reason you shouldn’t know your chances of success.

Online dating is a bigger industry than porn (yeah, that big!), and every tiny piece of data is recorded and analyzed. So if you’re looking for love online and want to know how long it’ll take to land that first date, the likelihood of hearing wedding bells at the end of the road, or quite simply whether you’ll find yourself between the sheets with your internet encounter, we have the stats to give you the scoop.

Numbers games

Here at Virtual Dating Assistants, we stumbled upon this set of stats below, gathered by ‘Online Schools’, a website that trawls the internet for all kinds of trends. The image pretty nicely sums up a variety of the key facts and figures of our field. Based mainly on information provided by Match.com and eHarmony, it addresses sex and marriage… as well as lies and scams. Juicy.

Juicy AND misleading; because as with all stats – especially those surrounding the obscure subject of love – lies, scams, inaccuracies and questionable validity inevitably play a part.

Flaws in the figures

A big mistake straight up, there’s a sentence under point number 9 that says, “1 of 10 users LEAVE [online dating sites] within the first 3 months”. According to a study by Jupiter Research, only 1 of 10 STAY beyond the first 3 months… that’s right, NINE out of ten new online daters throw in the towel within 90 days! The main reason: dissatisfaction primarily stemming from lack of results (… and that’s where we come in )

Solid Stats or False Facts?

The marriage stats are sketchy, at best. Both eHarmony and Match.com are keeping quiet about how they found out how many of their customers tied the knot. As a result they have been accused of releasing these figures solely to attract new clients and advertisers.

Even as recently as last month, OKCupid.com, PlentyOfFish.com and Match.com have been publicly brawling over the validity of statistics. We will have more of our own input on these competitors’ recent fights in an upcoming post.

Lies and damn statistics

Or statistics about damn lies…  It’s interesting to see that the march of equality hasn’t made it as far as the realm of lies and untruths. Sure, both sexes lie when dating online, but about different things. For guys, age is the big problem, followed by height and income. But for girls, age is just a number, far more important are vital stats (are you trying to say we’re shallow, girls?), so the fairer sex prefer to shave a few pounds off here and there and throw in a ‘slim’ where maybe a ‘curvy’ would be more appropriate. In the long run you’re always going to get caught out, so our advice is… just be honest from the start!

Practice safe online dating!

Four out of five used no protection on their first night of passion? Come on guys, it’s 2010 for god’s sake!

VIDA’s Final Thoughts

So what have we learned from our voyage through the sea of online statistics? That Americans spend billions of dollars on online dating but the vast majority quit within three months; that guys online aren’t as young as they seem and girls are always a little bigger in the flesh; that it might not be as successful at securing marriages as some of the dating sites want you to think; and that guys really need to rubber up!

Thanks to the stats, you can now spend 10% of your time being wary of sex offenders, and know that you’re taking part in an industry that is bigger than porn. That’s big.