Online Dating Leads to More Break-Ups Than Meeting IRL
Bad news, cyber Romeos, researchers at Stanford and Michigan State University recently polled more than 4,000 people to find out whether couples who meet on Match.com and OkCupid are panning out IRL, and what they found ain’t pretty. Couples who meet online are actually less successful in the long run than those who meet in the wild (wild = Starbucks, some shitty bar, etc.).
From The Daily Dot:
According to the study, couples who meet on websites like eHarmony, Match.com, and Zoosk are less likely to get married than couples who meet offline. Furthermore, even couples who meet on those sites and do end up getting married tend to break up at a higher rate than their offline counterparts. Perhaps most damning of all, online dating isn’t the most efficient way to find a romantic partner, with online couples taking a longer time on average to initiate a relationship than couples who met offline.
Michigan State University researcher Aditi Paul speculates that the reason for this is that we take our online relationships less seriously. But! There’s good news too: We can overcome the stigma of online dating pretty easily. Just, you know, take your dates more seriously. Spend time with the people you meet online before dismissing them, and, as the study authors wrote, “develop interpersonal trust and intimacy with them.” Sounds easy enough, right?/dating is the worst.
