Are single women more likely to meet their husbands at work, online or out at bars? A recent Match.com study of 11,000 revealed that one in six surveyed met their wives or husbands online. Online dating trumped bars and clubs as the third most popular place to meet prospective dates, trailing only behind work/school (#1) and mutual friends (#2).
Where do you go to meet decent guys? The answer, of course, is not bars. Going to bars works for drunken hook-ups (and, hey, sometimes that might be what the Dr. ordered), but for something more promising, you need to be sober and talking to someone who isn't just out for a wasted romp. Here are five tried-and-true places to meet guys more likely to be good relationship material.
Too lazy to leave the house to find love? A new dating site assigns you a virtual body that does all the work. Named after Amsterdam's Red Light District, RedLightSocialCenter.com, hopes to take the online nice-to-meet you experience one step further by assigning users a body and a menu of racy date activities.
Take a look at where some of these couples from across the nation met. You never know where you may meet that special someone.
It took a handful of Harvard alumni to create OKCupid, a site that uses math, psychology and a series of questions to derive a percent compatibility among its members. There's no fine print, no cost and no need for an Ivy-league degree to answer these brain-busters, and the more you answer, the higher your potential match percentile can be.
More than one million singles have logged on to the Lavalife, which claims to be the online dating site "where singles click." Cute. So hold onto your hats, folks, and get ready for this: whatever you're looking for (Date? Relationship? Fling?), Lavalife.com will hook it up. Amen to online dating. All cynicism aside, here's what Lavalife has going for it: the site separates users by what they're looking for, casual dating, a relationship or an intimate encounter. Other sites boast similar breakdowns but Lavalife goes one step furthur, using the same system to organize articles Click, its online magazine. Lavalife features a city guide, as well as LavalifePrime for singles over 45. An unscientific Love Buzz survey found that most regular members range from early twenties to late thirties.
A mediocre-looking guy recently approached my sister, a hesitant JDate subscriber, online. After a brief chat, the strangers decided to take things to the next level. Sex? No. Facebook? Yes. They exchanged names and allowed the inter-network stalking to begin. A day or so later, my sister burst into laughter at a Facebook message she'd received a video message from the JDate boy. Playing the piano and singing (in a surprisingly good voice, I might add) he began: Here I am writing strange girls messages via video, via song, but only because you looked like someone I'd like to talk to more.
Creating a profile, posting photos, searching for matches, and sending winks (a.k.a. flirting) on Match.com is free, but any further contact requires a paid subscription ($39.99 per one month, or as little as $19.99/month for six). Features include: IM, matchMobile for access on your phone/ PDA, sending and responding to e-mail sent to your personal box via double-blind name@talkmatch.com address. If you opt for the 6-month "Love Package" as it's called, and you emerge single you can qualify for six free months—as long as you've fully completed your profile and emailed five new members a month.
