Online Dating Statistics

My blog is about online dating. For my first post I research statistics on online dating. The top site for online dating is Match.com with 9.9 million monthly users! I didn't realize that THAT many people used online dating. Also during my research it made me stop and think about my relationship that I have grown through the internet. No, I've never used online dating, but there are a few people on facebook that I have never met that I talk to more than the friends that I have actually met in person. Its crazy the comfort zone that a computer can be. Its almost an illusion that you can tell these people more about yourself, because they don't really know you they can't judge you. I also found out that there are 54 million total users of online dating sites in the USA, 52.5% males and 47.6% females, and only 10% of convicted sex offenders use online dating in order to meet other people. This statistic surprised me, since most people are afraid of online dating because we don't know who could be on the other side of that screen. 

I am also in the process of creating a fake online profile, and DON'T JUDGE ME! I'm going to create a fake profile, all fake information and pictures, and invite people to meet me at my bar, while I'm really bartending. I know, its a little messed up and heartless, but I'm not going to take it to the extend of the TV show Catfish. While telling some of my regulars about my plan, they were worried about people being able to hack the site and get my email address and find out who I really am and where I am posting information from. So, I got one of my good friends, who went to school for hacking, to try and hack the site that I was using, which was not a major dating website. Come to find out the sites are actually very hard to hack. He couldn't get into it just using his computer, he would have had to go and get more software designed to hack harder, more secure sites, which made me feel alot better. So maybe all the fear behind predators being on the other side of the screen and the sites being hacked and our location being found are all just taboo that isn't really correct.