Lots of research papers flowing across my desk in recent months. Today I read that Iowa State University sociologists have found out that spouses who met online are older, less likely to be marrying for the first time, and have much shorter courtships — averaging 18.5 months of dating before getting married by comparison to 42 months for those who met in more traditional ways offline.
Another reason to believe that online daters (not sure if they measured free vs. paid dating) continue to trend older, while the younger set is still connecting at bars/events, through friends, etc.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Suspect that there are at least four reasons for it:
1. Older men & women have a much more clearly defined objective in going online to meet in the first place. If that objective includes marriage in the traditional sense, they’re more inclined to leap sooner, all other things being equal, knowing time’s a-wasting…
2. Most of us have already been to the dance. We’re much less likely to bite on a corvette full of candy bars. We’ve gotten cavities before from all the sweet stuff and we’ve ridden in the corvette & know it rides like a ten ton dump truck.
3. More and more, we’ve found which sites carry the like-minded and have migrated in droves to those sites. I won’t say you’ll never see a middle-aged to senior on Lava Life…but it’s less common.
4. From a demographic perspective, there are just more of us “older” folks in the society. The boomers have taken over every niche almost as soon as we’ve gotten old enough to care about it. Online meeting is no different.
Just one broken-down, baggy-eyed “old” fool’s opinion.
Dirk Sayers
Author of the Woman’s No-fear Guide to Online Dating
Besides the incorrect statement about the Corvette handling (when is the last time you drove a modern Corvette?) I agree with your reasons.
You know, I’ll stand corrected on that one…It really has been a long time since I drove a corvette…my apologies.