Click here for Online dating for professionals If online dating feels like an unsolvable puzzle in the search for “the one” (or whoever you’re looking for), you’re not alone. Pew Research Center data has found that even though the number of people using online dating services is growing and the percentage of people who think it’s a good way of meeting people is growing — more than a third of the people who report being an online dater haven’t actually gone out with someone they’ve met online. Online dating isn’t for the faint of heart or those easily discouraged, says Harry Reis, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Dean's Professor in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, at University of Rochester. “There’s the old saying that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince — and I think that really applies to online dating.” Reis studies social interactions and the factors that influence the quantity and closeness of our relationships. He coauthored a 2012 review article that analyzed how psychology can explain some of the online dating dynamics. There’s the old saying that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince — and I think that really applies to online dating. Meeting someone online is fundamentally different than meeting someone IRL. In some ways online dating is a different ballgame from meeting someone in real life — and in some ways it’s not. (Reis points out that “online dating” is actually somewhat of a misnomer. We use the term to mean “online meeting,” whether it’s through a dating website or a dating app.) “You typically have information about them before you actually meet,” Reis says about people you meet online. You may have read a short profile or you may have had fairly extensive conversations via text or email. And similarly, when you meet someone offline, you may know a lot of information about that person ahead of time (such as when you get set up by a friend) or you may know very little (if, let’s say, you go out with someone you met briefly at a bar). “The idea behind online dating is not a novel idea,” says Lara Hallam, a researcher in the Department of Communication Studies at University of Antwerp, where she’s working on her PhD in relationship studies. (Her research currently focuses on online dating, including a study that found that age was the only reliable predictor of what made online daters more likely to actually meet up.) “People have always used intermediaries such as mothers, friends, priests, or tribe members, to find a suitable partner,” Hallam says. Where online dating differs from methods that go farther back are the layers of anonymity involved. If you meet someone via a friend or family member, just having that third-party connection is a way of helping validate certain characteristics about someone (physical appearance, values, personality traits, and so on). A friend may not necessarily get it right, but they’re still setting you up with someone they think you’ll like, Hallam says. Professional dating Best online dating photographers Best dating site for mature professionals Professional matchmaking sites Professional dating profile writer
