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Match.com Claims Their Marriages
Are Successful
(onlinedatingmagazine.com -
February 18, 2004) According to Match.com, a January
2004 survey of more than 800 married people in two
distinct groups -- those who met on Match.com and those
who met through any means other than an online dating
service -- almost all Match.com marriages were reported
to be happy, loving, romantic and likely to continue,
measuring stronger in these qualities than the sample
group that did not meet using an online dating service.
According
to Dr. Andrea Baker, Associate Professor of Sociology
at Ohio University, "Online couples can potentially
have a higher success rate or longevity than offline
couples,
or those who did not meet first online."
In her
research, Baker learned that couples who
first met online:
* Have many interests in common, as they have either
met in a virtual community or discussion group designed
to share those topics, or they selected each other
from a dating site because of similar or complementary
leisure and work pursuits.
* Have chosen each other
from a much wider pool of people than they would
likely find in everyday life, increasing chances
of compatible personalities and lifestyles.
* Wrote
to each other online for a time, revealing themselves
and getting to know more aspects of each other
before they became involved in activities other than
their own focused communication. They may have developed
their own communication style that they can carry
into their offline lives together.
* Related first
by email or chat or later by phone without overemphasizing
physical chemistry, which can attract people but
can also overshadow conflicts or problematic issues
that will surface later.
Match.com's Survey
Findings:
* Match.com couples tended
to date for a shorter period before getting married
than the offline couples, with 72% of Match.com couples
getting married after dating for a year or less,
vs. only
36% of the other couples.
* Ninety percent of Match.com
married people indicated they felt "very optimistic" about
their marriage, vs. 75% of the other married people.
Sixty-four percent of the Match.com group knew they
were in
love within 5 dates, vs. 57% of the group that did
not meet using an online dating service.
* In both
groups "quality of character" was
the most likely to be cited as the attribute that
made the person surveyed fall in love with their
spouse. "Sense
of humor" was the second choice for both groups.
*
Eleven percent of the Match.com married people
surveyed said they knew they were in love with their
spouse before they ever met in person, vs. 5% of
the married people who did not meet on an online
dating service.
* More than half the Match.com married
people surveyed know friends, colleagues or family
members who also met their spouse online.
"Based on resignation survey data we calculate
that more than 200,000 Match.com members met the person
they were seeking on the site in 2003," said Trish
McDermott, Vice President of Romance and resident dating
expert at Match.com. "We expect many of these
relationships to lead to marriage and, based on our
research, we're confident that Match.com marriages
have real staying power."
Both surveys were anonymous and included marriages
that formed in or after 1995 only. The Match.com couples
in the survey were more likely to have been married
in the last four years, while the couples who did not
meet using an online dating service were more equally
distributed over the period from 1995 to present.
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