“Given the likelihood an individual online date will not lead to a long-term relationship, this does not seem surprising.”
In many cases this is true. However, my wife & I have been together for 20 years. We met in a IRC chatroom in the Windows 3.11 days. We married in 1997. We have a dear friend who met his wife online as well. Folks can & do meet their spouse online.
According to princess riverdawg, the whole concept of a one-on-one dinner date is an anachronism. Dinners are now almost entirely group events comprised of approximately equal numbers of the opposite sex, with perhaps some (and maybe none) of the opposite-sex pairs attracted romantically. And Dutch treat is the rule. Times have certainly changed since my dating days.
I became active in on line dating as a 50 something, after my wife had passed away and I felt ready to do such activities.
Normally the first meeting was getting coffee, or meeting and taking a walk in the park.
Then, if there was mutual interest in more, then that’s when we would move on to dinner dates.
Yes, dinner dates can be expensive, especially for us older men who are seeking out women our own age, who in this age group, tend to have grown up expecting the man to pay.
You really need to meet in person, spend some time together, to see if there’s mutual interest. It should be done before you move on to formal dinner dates, in my opinion. And it can be done inexpensively, such as with a coffee date meeting.
I met numerous women through coffee dates before I met someone whom I became seriously interested in .
Can I add that among my criteria for someone, would be that she is conservative??? I rejected a few women out of hand (sorry ladies) because it was clear to me that their world view was liberal.
But, then again, as a long time participant in Free Republic, conservative values are important to me.
“Given the likelihood an individual online date will not lead to a long-term relationship, .. .”
My son signed up on one of those dating sites, first time he did that. Met someone the first two weeks, dated for a year and now they are getting married in a few months. She is beautiful, genuine, smart. . .heck, we’ve told our son if they break up we are dropping him and keeping her. Hah.
I have not tracked the stats regarding long term relationships resulting from on-line dating websites, so his experience may be unquie.