There’s nothing quite like a week of Christmas festivities, family gatherings and overindulgence on alcohol surrounded by couples and their kids to drum in how sad and lonely you really are as a single person, or in your relationship! How much richer and fulfilled would you feel if you hadn’t broken up with yet another partner, probably over petty and meaningless reasons, or if you were free from your shackles and single again?
It’s no wonder dating websites report a 50 percent increase in traffic in the first week of January alone (PARSHIP research Dec 2010). That said, the first full week of January is also the busiest time of the year for filing divorce proceedings. And perhaps not surprisingly, January is also one of the busiest months for recruitment agencies, as people up and down the country reflect on their career, dread going back to the same job and start looking for a new one.
There are an estimated 15 million singles in Britain (according to ONS) and I’ve never seen so many adverts for dating websites as I have since Christmas – they’re springing up everywhere, each promising a more effective approach to match-making than the last, tempting you to browse other profiles for free, then urging you to part with your money for a monthly subscription if you want to contact that hottie you’ve come across.
Dating websites have taken over and become quite sophisticated since the first ones sprung up at the turn of the millennium. Gone are the days of placing personal ads in your local newspaper or community magazine, which seems to me like an almost desperate measure to find love. There is no stigma or shame in putting yourself ‘out there’ for others to browse anymore, and the best dating sites now have relationship experts and marital counsellors tailoring innovative match-making processes based on intellect, values and psyche, rather than leaving you to judge photos and self-descriptions for yourself.
There will always be an element of ‘trial and error’ in dating because in my opinion, physical chemistry cannot be measured by a third party. Only you will know this from interaction with another, which is why speed-dating organisers have done so well, but unsurprisingly, not as well as dating sites – why would you attend a second or third speed-dating event when you can be ‘matched’ to other singles of your chosen preferences and browse profiles from the comfort of your own home?
Like with most businesses, the key driving factor in the success of these companies is convenience. I bought into the idea of the dating site Gaydar over ten years ago, like most other gay men, and I have it a lot to thank for. I didn’t see it as a dating site at all, but I have met two long-term partners as well as a few great one-offs on there and I’d be the first to recommend it to any friend of Dorothy who is 'new in town'.
That’s probably part of the reason for my dating success on the site – not viewing it as a legitimate dating website, because it meant I had few expectations of what it could deliver, but then I wasn’t paying for it as a basic member. I had my naive, rose-tinted moments (okay, months) when I felt desperate for someone to love me and I did spend entire days in the chatrooms talking nonsense with the other regulars, but it taught me an awful lot about people and I met some life-long friends, too.
Gaydar is in a different league to other dating sites in the sense that it’s more of a social networking platform rather than dating-focused, but it’s been great at the latter for me and I have happily paid for a full member subscription in order to get more out of it. It’s not expensive, you get unlimited use and it also shows the other members you can afford it and that you’re therefore probably more financially stable than the basic members, so it really does ‘pay off’.
The choice is endless and so are the subscription packages. Some sites even promise you six months’ free use if you don’t find ‘love’, never mind a match, in your first six months, so we have almost nothing to lose and a lot more to gain if we manage our expectations well.
PARSHIP’s research suggests 46 percent of their users are optimistic about finding ‘the one’ in 2011 – with no shortage of ‘convenient help’ available on subscription, this translates to 7 million helpless romantics looking for love. If you’re single this New Year or no longer happy in your relationship, there's few reasons to remain that way and a good chance one of those could be your match.
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