Do Online Dating Sites Work?

Every day, people looking for love log in to their accounts on Match.com, Date.com, Yahoo Personals, eHarmony, or hundreds of other such sites hoping to find a note from some stranger who they fantasize will become their true soulmate.

Unfortunately, very seldom does that happen. More than likely, contact with an online stranger will lead to nothing but dashed hopes. Such is the state of affairs in the relatively new phenomenon of online dating.

The concept of looking for a soulmate online harks back to the mid-90's, when the Internet was just beginning to gather strength in terms of widespread consumer use. Among the pioneers was Match.com, which started business on April 21, 1995. The Web site is now a massive conglomerate, with about one million paying subscribers from more than 246 countries. It is estimated that more than 60,000 new people across six continents register on the site every day, joining the 15 million people who already have accounts. The parent company now operates 30 dating sites in 18 local languages.

While Match.com is one of the preeminent dating sites, others have experienced similar huge growth in user participation and subscribership. There seems to be no end of people who are willing to put their life's details online for the online public to view.

But, is this development a positive one? Does online dating represent a positive development in male-female relations? Many experienced users of such sites say 'No', positing that the cons far outweigh the pros.

It is the established practice of lying that forms the basis of most complaints. You simply can't trust what you see and read in a given dating profile because it is far too easy for a person to untruthfully present himself or herself.

Misrepresenting oneself to gain an advantage, especially when seeking a mate, is probably as old as humanity itself. On dating sites, it has been shown that by falsely placing a picture of a more desirable person in a profile, and/or by dramatically overstating the stated income, an online dater can dramatically increase the number of daily responses that he or she receives.

So, the travesty continues and Web-based dating sites march on. Despite huge problems as a communication medium, literally hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are signing up each and every day. It seems that as long as the Internet exists, people seeking to find love will frequent it, hoping to find that once-in-a-lifetime hookup.

Matthew Paolini is a consultant with Citybook.com for the Los Angeles, CA business Yellow Pages division.