Contents
Couples who met online are three times more likely to break up than couples who meet in real life.
Finding a loved one on the Internet – what could be easier and more reliable? We ourselves set the search criteria and choose the ideal partner – appearance, education, interests. But online marriages, studies* show, don’t last long—they break up three times more often than conventional marriages. Why?
One of the reasons, however paradoxical it sounds, is too wide a choice. On dating sites, we go through dozens, if not hundreds, of profiles and photos, choosing and rejecting as if we were talking about dishes on a restaurant menu. No matter how suitable the next candidate may seem, a sea of others is always waiting for us – you just need to click the mouse. “It really does feel like a restaurant,” says Frederick Toates, a professor of biological psychology and author of How Sexual Desire Begins**. Who among us, having eaten well, has not felt a sudden hunger at the sight of dessert? Sexual desire in this sense can be compared to a feeling of hunger – the abundance of potential partners on dating sites only whets the appetite.
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- Internet dating: who is lucky
In addition to the fact that reviewing questionnaires takes a lot of time, we imperceptibly become too critical for ourselves. The American Psychological Association found that the more profiles users of dating sites study, the more likely they are to condemn and reject candidates who do not meet at least one of their requirements. We want immediate rewards for the time and effort spent (he or she simply has to be perfect!), and we don’t want to invest in a relationship, get to know the person better.
Another problem with dating sites is that they offer us as partners those who love the same films, books, dog breeds, sports and recreation – in other words, we are looking for our own clone. From a biological point of view, this method is unlikely to help create a happy union. “Opposites attract” – remember the old saying? In fact, the most suitable partner for us is the person who looks least like us. “The best marriage partner is someone whose immune system is completely different from yours,” says geneticist Dan Davis***.
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- Internet: the supermarket of our desires
In this sense, dating in real life is more likely to succeed. Face to face, we can subconsciously assess whether a future partner is genetically suitable for us. Face oval, height, body size, skin tone, hair and, finally, smell are valuable clues by which we can judge our genetic compatibility with the man or woman we like.
“Sexual desire is born from a combination of sensory and visual stimuli, smells, sounds and touch,” explains Frederik Toats. “They affect the brain, on the one hand, here-and-now, and on the other hand, they awaken pleasant memories with which we associate stimuli.” It is impossible to reproduce this situation by examining the questionnaire on a computer. Based on it, we can easily miss our soul mate on a dating site, wasting time on those who do not suit us at all.
* Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2014, vol. 17, № 10.
** F. Toates «How Sexual Desire Works» (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
*** D. Davis «The Compatibility Gene» (Allen Lane, 2013).