To market to market to find a nice spouse..... Online dating is a little bit like ordering a bride through the mail. Now you don't have to wait for months before your desired spouse shows up at the train station. Instantly you can screen innumerable people for the qualities you want in the spouse of your dreams and send them a message that they will receive within seconds.
Online dating is becoming the way to meet eligible singles. In 2011, 5.5 million Americans were using dating sites out of the 45 million singles in the United States. Currently the online dating industry is worth 2.1 billion dollars and there might be as many as 1500 dating sites in the US. Dating sites target different audiences from the sweeping demographics targeted like match and eharmony to sites that emphasize a religious affiliation like christianmingle. Maybe you want a wealthy man or perhaps you want a soldier for your man, there is a site for you. Other sites market to older singles. Most sites charge a monthly fee to communicate with the other singles looking for companionship. There are a few sites like plentyoffish that opens its coffers of singles to anyone who cares to sign up.
When you sign up for a dating site you spend the first hour or two answering many questions including: ideal height, ideal body shape, eye color, hair color, economic status, religious affiliation.... the list goes on and on. Then you need to rate yourself, are you athletic, curvy, slender, or could you lose a few pounds? Do you say you are 5'7" or perhaps 5'9"? Are your eyes green or grey? Maybe you say they are blue because you have always wanted to have blue eyes. Then comes picking the picture for your profile. What picture do you have that best shows off your finest features? Which picture will attract the woman or man that you are looking for? Should you be smiling, laughing, or perhaps looking sultry. Maybe a picture including your pet will draw in the animal lovers. For me the most painful part comes from the last part, writing your profile. I like writing. I think I write fairly well, but writing a profile for a dating site is painful. What are my hobbies? What are my favorite places to hang out? What is my ideal first date? The questions go on and on. Then there are opportunities to free write about yourself. This excerpt should be witty, short, informational, persuasive. This couple of paragraphs needs to be catchy enough to attract attention, concise enough to not be boring, and honest enough to be realistic. The worst is picking the title for your profile. You might say, "looking for a good man" or "I'm all your dreams come true."
I'm sure many of you have looked at dating sites and maybe are even subscribed to one or two. I dabble with dating sites, but just like online shopping I struggle to find what I am looking for. Shopping online you look at pictures, you can change the angle and turn the item around, but you cannot touch it and don't know what it actually looks like or if the colors are true to reality. The company displays the items to their best advantage with catchy phrases, statistics and good reviews. You can buy the item and when you get it you can go to the trouble of returning it if you don't like it, but it is an austere, lonely process. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the computer order spouse process, but then again tomorrow I might receive a wink from the man of my dreams.
