Online Dating—A Total Waste of Time? Here's what YOU say!

"Profile on the rocks, please!" This is the new rallying cry of singles, according to Shine's new Online Dating Survey, conducted by Dan Ariely, PhD, a professor at Duke University. "I was a bit surprised," he admits.

Trading barstool for mouse, you guys say that clicking is as good as clinking when it comes to finding love. Not that you're naive: No question the dating sites draw liars, psychos, and shut-ins like pigeons to stale bread crumbs. And they're virtual museums for accomplished photoshop artists. But you have learned to work the system. You deftly sort the contents like airport security scanners, dumping the scary baggage and frequent fliers for the kind of person you want to get on board with. Or at least accompany for a shuttle ride or two.

The myth is that it's easier to fall in love via www.

"Online dating is a full time job," Diana comments (read the rest of the original post here). "One you get used to it, though, you weed out the players, the married men, the phone 'voyeurs,' the email addicts. And you can actually meet a few people who are great." She goes on to explain that the key is to get together in the flesh, and quickly-not after weeks of flirty emails and phone calls. "I met my husband online," she continues, "and he was worth the endless work involved."

Margaret I also had success: "I met my bf on chemistry.com," she writes. "I just had to be ruthless about filtering people out and only talking to the ones I thought might REALLY be a good match." Her strategy is talking a lot on the phone to see if there's "phone chemistry." If the answer is yes, she meets in person. Even if there's no physical attraction, she points out, you've got a new friend.

"The Shine community is much more optimistic than I would have thought," says Ariely, whose latest book is called, The Upside of Irrationality: The unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home. Here's how the survey results break down:

* More than 650 of you responded: 78% women and 22% men.

* Almost two thirds of you are active members of at least one online dating site.

* The most popular sites are, in order: Match.com, Plentyoffish, OkCupid, and eHarmony.

* Online dating is pretty satisfying. On a scale from 1 to 11-(1) being "waste of time" and (11) being "the best thing that ever happened to me"-the average rating was 5.11.

* It's not exactly fast, though-less efficient than dating in person. When asked how much time in the next month it would take to find someone you'd end up going out with, the average estimate was 20.5 hours.

* Men consider the picture to offer better information than women do. This is not surprising, but it's interesting considering that women tend to use older shots of themselves than men do-18 months versus 7 or 8 months-according to research by Jeffrey Hancock, PhD, at Cornell University.

* Both sexes say the profile text is somewhat revealing, but not as much as talking in person for 30 seconds.

"Overall, survey takers felt that pictures, profile text, or a single email only tell you enough to rule someone out, or at the very most, give you a vague sense of compatibility," Ariely says. "They also believed you could learn a lot from exchanging text messages, multiple emails, and talking on the phone. But most informative? Meeting for a single date.


"If you think you might have a chance," Ariely concludes, "cut to the chase and meet for coffee. One awkward 5-minute chat could save you hours on the web, and if all else fails, at least you'll enjoy the latté.


What's your worst online dating story? Have you had a digital love nightmare?


If you're still in an online-dating mood...
How Much Should You Fudge?
The 9 Best Sites
10 Online Dating Rules to LIve By

[Photo Credit: Thinkstock/iStockphoto]