The old adage “misery loves company” is truer than ever. As our withering economy spawns feelings of hopelessness, more and more people are trying to find love. In a world where everything — wealth, employment, success – seems temporary, people are beginning to see that the prospect of finding a long-term commitment is important. This is the reason behind eHarmony’s recent 20% increase in user registration and OkCupid’s similar 50% spike.
Online dating services are a great money-saver. Rather than going out and spending a good hundred dollars on drinks for someone that may not even end up taking home, you spend up to $60 a month, to interact with millions of singles.
Certain dating websites, such as E-Harmony, strive to appeal to singles looking for more long-term commitments, which is what more and more people are trying to obtain. While serial-dating and short-term commitments mean shelling out a lot of dough to impress your date, long-term relationships are less superficial and require far less money to maintain. While you could spend hundreds of dollars on a night on the town with a new date every week, you could alternately spend half that with a stay-at-home movie night with your long-term squeeze.
Finally, people are opening themselves up to dating prospects they would have never otherwise considered. Many singles are dating people who live further away or who are not they’re “usual type”, allowing them to look for love in places they wouldn’t normally be searching. Internet dating services allow you to make this switch, by simply changing your preferences in your profile, rather than going to a singles bar that’s part of different scene or out of town, potentially creating an uncomfortable situation.