Finding Romance: Online Dating and Matchmaking in the Digital Age

The struggle for love and romantic relationships never changes. Life could be so much more meaningful with someone special who could share your everyday experiences. Especially if that someone was human rather than a fur baby who drools on your furniture or coughs up hairballs on the floor.

But how do you put yourself out there to even meet a ‘special someone’ these days? The fact is that the adult American in-a-relationship population is dwindling, while the number of singles is increasing. How do people get the time to go out and meet people when there’s a job to do most of your waking hours of the week? How can people even get started?

How to Make a Match

How do people go about finding a new romance? There’s the old-fashioned advice of “just get out and talk to people” or the questionable logic of pursuing a co-worker. However, the modern dating scene gives us two solid ways to help you meet new people: online dating and matchmaking.

Almost everyone knows about online dating these days. After all, it’s the second most common way for straight couples to meet (and the most common way for homosexual couples to meet).2 You can sign up, pay around $20-$40 a month for the service, make a profile, and have thousands (if not millions) of potential dates available for you to choose from.4 Some dating sites - including an app that uses a popular swipe left/swipe right interface - even have a free membership level.

Another modern way to meet your next date is actually a time-honored profession: matchmaking. When you go to a matchmaker, you discuss with him or her everything about you and what is important to you on a date. Then the matchmaker picks someone they think you should try going out with. If you don’t like the matchmaker’s pick, you let the matchmaker know, and they pass along the message to the would-be match.

Online dating and matchmaking are two very different approaches to the same problem. So which style of finding romance is better for you?

Online Dating: The Good, The Bad, The Many

When deciding how to find that special someone, there are many advantages to online dating. Here are just a few of them.

Pros:

• Using online dating services is relatively inexpensive.
• You are in control of every step of the matchmaking process. You choose what people will see in your profile and you can accept or decline the advances of potential matches.
• There are many more people to choose from on online dating sites than through matchmakers.
• You can even choose what kind of dating site to use. Should it be a huge, multi-million member site? Or a much smaller niche interest dating site?

However, every rose has its thorn. Here are a few disadvantages to online dating.

Cons:

• Having so much control over your online dating experience usually translates into being relatively time-consuming.
• Anyone can get an online dating profile, so you’re more likely to come across creepy, thoroughly undesirable, and/or deceptive people online.
• Having many potential matches can be a good thing, but it can also be overwhelming.

We can see that online dating might be less than perfect, so what does matchmaking look like? More specifically, what are the advantages and disadvantages to using a matchmaker’s services?

Matchmaking: Easy, Selective - and Expensive

Why do people still use matchmakers, like some of our great-grandparents (and even their parents) did before them? Let’s take a look at what keeps this profession still running strong.

Pros:

• Matchmakers are more selective than a website about who they will pair together. Therefore, finding a date through a matchmaker may be somewhat safer than when you connect with someone through a dating site.
• Matchmakers eliminate a lot of the time and hassle in finding you a date. They will present you with hand-picked, thoughtfully-chosen date options. No more scrolling for hours just to turn up bubkes.

Unfortunately for matchmakers, though, there’s a reason that millions more people use dating sites and apps than their services. Actually, there are a few reasons.

Cons:

• Hiring a matchmaker is significantly more expensive than using an online dating site.
• The dating pool through a matchmaker is much, much smaller than it is for almost any dating site.
• Relationships that start online tend to be stronger and last longer than those started in person.

Finding a Date in Modern Times

There are advantages and disadvantages to both online dating and matchmaking. Maybe you have the extra money for a matchmaker and want to let go of the reins of your dating life to see who someone else would pair you up with. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s certainly worked for some.

However, online dating is where most of the singles are (again, millions of them), waiting perhaps for you to come along and into their lives. It’s easy, more accessible, and certainly more affordable to get started online looking for someone special.

For those of us who are already tired of spending too much time alone, you have to wonder, why wait when you can start now?

1. http://www.newsweek.com/americans-are-more-single-ever-new-study-shows-682290
2. http://www.businessinsider.com/happy-marriage-online-dating-2017-10
3. http://misadventuresfindingtheone.com/online-dating-vs-matchmaker/
4. http://www.datingadvice.com/online-dating/matchmaking-versus-online-dating