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Bath (pte033/14.02.2005/12:30) - Dating website offer people "surprisingly high chances" of a long-term romance, a study to coincide with Valentine's Day suggests. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, 94 per cent of people that were surveyed saw their "e-partner" again after the first face-to-face meeting. According to Jeff Gavin, a psychologist from Bath University http://www.bath.ac.uk who surveyed 229 adults, web dating worked "for many people". However, four per cent of all customers that took part in the study "were already married".
Internet dating agencies based in the UK have an estimated six million subscribers. According to Gavin, most of these provided very little space for would-be romancers to describe themselves. The bonding between customers generally came later, particularly in online chatrooms. This was a more "immediate" way of communicating than e-mail and allowed people to express true feelings, the survey found. However, only nine per cent of chatroom users chose to converse via a webcam, most "shying away" in favour of "text-based relationships".
"What struck us was how the more traditional aspects of relationships seemed strong. Those people who wrote letters or sent gifts tended to help strengthen their bond," said Gavin. Almost one in five people interviewed had started a relationship lasting more than a year via a dating website. According to Gavin, this represented a "similar level of success" to partners who had met "in more conventional ways". The survey also found that male website customers tended to be "more committed" than female ones, as subsequent chatroom conversations gave them a way to express their feelings which did not normally exist.
"Lots of people join sites because they don't get time to go to bars and clubs to meet. When online dating agencies first started they were quite standard. Nowadays there are all sorts of niches. There are gym-goer's sites, where fit people meet other fit people, Christian sites and university graduate sites - it's incredibly diverse," Gavin added.
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