Years of online dating

I joined the online-dating world at the end of , and started this blog to keep track of my experiences. I wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly of online dating. I'm now engaged—to the wonderful man I met online—and this blog has come to an end. Thanks for reading. We're going to have a civil ceremony in September and follow that next summer with a wedding and reception with our friends and family. Online dating has many negatives, but so many positives too.

The explosion of online dating has given academic researchers an unprecedented opportunity: to analyze vast troves of digital data to tell a fuller story on how humans, in this moment in time, are approaching the dating game. New research from Australia sheds light on what online daters are actually looking for, and how those criteria dynamically evolve as they age. The researchers from Queensland University of Technology analyzed hundreds of thousands of online dating interactions from the Australian dating site RSVP, involving 41, individuals during a four-month period last year. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 80 years old. The study, to be published in the upcoming April issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences, shows that the importance of education levels is one factor that changes significantly with age. The study found that online daters with a high level of education are consistently likely to reach out to those who have the same level of education when they are younger. But, as that highly educated cohort ages, they care less about how much schooling a potential mate obtained.

I first created an OKCupid account in , and for nearly five years, online dating and I had a tumultuous, on-and-off relationship. Then, in December of , I decided I would take a break from online dating—and that unlike my previous "breaks," this one would last for more than a few weeks. It's actually ended up lasting a year because after seven months, I met someone—and it was IRL. The biggest reason I had for deleting my dating apps was just an insufficient return on investment. Whether because we didn't have much in common or we weren't willing to put in much effort, my conversations rarely left the texting stage.

These are the core obsessions that drive our newsroom—defining topics of seismic importance to the global economy. Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend. Dating online in is a dizzying virtual buffet of ways to connect with someone. You can change the location on your app to find a lover in a different country and see what happens.