Online dating experiences

We spoke to 8 people in the Wellington area about their experiences with online dating. All the daters are users of FindSomeone or NZDating - some use both.

They were all satisfied with their site and felt it was simple to use and good value for money. They could meet a new person every week, which increased their circle of friends. But what about finding love?

The good, the bad, and the iLOVE ugly

The female internet daters had mixed experiences - some didn't find the experience very good at all. One single admitted that although she had more dates from the internet, the quality of men she met was lower: "It's a quantity versus quality trade-off."

Population Association of New Zealand demographic analyst Robert Didham agrees. He recently told 'The New Zealand Herald' women are lamenting not a lack of men, but a lack of suitable men. Didham also noted a similar sentiment in Alaska, where men greatly outnumber women: "Somebody had quipped that the odds are good, but the goods are odd."

Another dater said she found the "smorgasbord" approach distasteful. "I prefer the guy to put in a bit of effort to ask me out, make me feel a bit special. I don't want to be just another woman on the menu who gets sent the same bulk email as everyone else." All our daters said that it was obvious when a bulk email had been used to initiate contact. They found this a real turn-off.

Sexual predators

Daters also identified an alarming pattern of what they described as predatory sexual behaviour. This included lack of respect for personal space ("he would have pounced on me if it wasn't for the table between us"), inappropriate touching, pressure to accompany the man back to his place "for dinner" and over-the-top compliments that our single women described as "obvious lines ... just plain tacky".

Disturbingly, we discovered that our female daters were describing one particular man, and unfortunately they had all dated him. When she found this out, one dater commented "Gross. But now we all know who he is ... and Wellington is a very small town".

Some of the risks of internet dating have been highlighted by the arrest of a Huntly man for the alleged rape and sexual violation of two women. He had met them through an internet dating site. It pays to be cautious on a first meeting (see the box " Five iLOVE tips").

One of our male daters said he was really surprised to find out a woman he was meeting for coffee turned out to be married, despite claiming to be single on the internet. At the meeting she was upfront, complete with wedding band, asking "Do you mind that I'm married?" Unfortunately for her, he did.

But it's not all bad. Our daters said they had all met some lovely genuine people through internet dating and would continue to do it.

iLOVE you

Wellington couple Tamsin and Paul met through internet dating and have been happy in love for almost two years.

After returning from her OE, Tamsin found it hard to meet new people. "I was always out, but I just never met anyone new. All my friends were already in couples." Tamsin's flatmate was already online dating, so she decided she had nothing to lose and gave FindSomeone a go. "I decided to use FindSomeone because it's a moderated site and its popularity with the 30-plus age group suited me."

Tamsin was on the site for six months before meeting Paul. Tamsin says that if it wasn't for the internet she and Paul would never have crossed paths. "Paul was not remotely in my social circle and he lived in Lower Hutt. There was no way we would ever have met."

They now have a six-month old daughter, Eva, and are getting married at Easter. "We're a definite success story," she says, "but it's a numbers game."

Tamsin's advice to would-be daters is to get online, be proactive about looking for someone special and then stick with it.