Louise Wright set one non-negotiable condition in choosing a man: he must
accept her horse as part of the relationship. The 29-year-old blonde from
Bristol has been riding since she was six, and with Tigs, her black Irish
gelding, competes enthusiastically at weekend showjumping trials when not
mucking out at the stables. Non-horsey boyfriends have generally been
dismissive if not downright suspicious of the three hours a day she says
that Tigs demands of her. So when she found herself in a romantic rut last
winter, she began to despair of ever meeting Mr Right.
Then she stumbled across an item in Horse & Hound magazine that was to
change her life. LoveHorse.co.uk was a slick new internet dating service for
the equestrian community. Never having used a dating agency, and unaware
that the site — along with LoveAir.co.uk for cabin crews and LoveYoga.com
for the karmic set — was operated from an IT engineer's laptop, Wright wrote
a profile under the nickname "Scrappydoo", describing herself as "a
fun-loving country girl" and adding some eventing photos.
"You hear horror stories of people meeting weirdos online, but I figured
that if I was careful I couldn't really lose anything," she recalls, in
the cosy living room of a North Yorkshire farmhouse. This, her new home,
belongs to her serendipitous LoveHorse match — a 33-year-old cattle farmer
and divorcé who, logging in as "Martin", had sought a riding
partner, a pen pal, perhaps even a soul mate to share his life.
"We got on so well online," Wright recalls with a grin, "that I
had a mad moment when I thought, I'll take my dog up here, book a B&B,
and if he's not nice then I'll just take the dog for Yorkshire walks."
In fact, on her first country walk with Martin Baines, she knew this was it.
Within weeks she had moved up here with Tigs and the dog, and they are now
talking about a wedding. "It's definitely heading that way," she
says contentedly. "I never used to believe in the 'you've met the one'
thing, but now I really do."
Internet dating, long derided either as a virtual meat market or as a last
resort for social misfits, has finally come of age. Between 3m and 7m of us
are using these sites each month, depending on which survey you believe, and
the numbers keep growing, with the biggest sites reporting a near-doubling
of members in the past year alone. Men still outnumber women by three to
two, a gap that is narrowing as overall internet use grows, and though
London and the southeast make up a third of all UK users, the Midlands and
northwest are catching up (at 15 and 11% respectively), according to the
consultancy Hitwise, which has logged more than 800 dating sites in Britain.
Another research body, Nielsen/NetRatings, says the typical user is a man
aged 35 to 49 — although the under-24s and the over-55s between them make up
almost a third of the market.
In other words, online personals are now a routine means for millions of
Britons to seek out marriage or simply an illicit affair. With their
personality-matching software and complex search algorithms, these sites
have become the established way to peruse likely lovers according to
religion, lifestyle, locality or physical attributes. Yet even as the bigger
sites trumpet the thousands of weddings and babies for which they claim
credit, some important questions remain about the safety of internet dating,
its effect on marriages, and the degree to which prospective partners can be
trusted as honest. In cyberspace you can be anyone you want — hardly an
ideal basis on which to risk your heart to a stranger.
At LoveHorse.co.uk, the only "inappropriate" behaviour that Louise
Wright has encountered was a posting by "Whippy", "a
submissive male slave looking for a bossy/dominant horsey male/female",
whose photograph depicted him with a whip and wearing little more than boots
and jodhpurs. The site is free to browse and £9.95 a month to join. But
despite its low-budget provenance — built with off-the-shelf software, and
needing barely an hour's human intervention a day — the website, with its
partner sites, is already responsible for dozens of successful matches this
year. Its founder, Ben Lovegrove, a 45-year-old network engineer from
Hampshire, can already see it becoming a full-time business. Next year, he
suggests, it has the potential to earn him a five-figure spare-time income.
Louise Wright is not surprised. "It's bringing people together who'd
never otherwise meet," she says. "We are proof that it works. In
fact, Martin's horse is also completely in love with Tigs, and his
rottweiler has fallen for my dog. I guess it's worked out all round."
Britain is increasingly a singleton society. With our growing affluence and
job mobility, and the pressure to work longer hours, we are marrying later,
divorcing more readily and feeling less constrained about treating
relationships as something to be conveniently arranged online. By 2010,
according to government forecasts, 40% of us will live alone, making the
single-person home the most common household unit. Nor can the trend be
dismissed as a Bridget Jones phenomenon led by newly empowered young women.
According to a University of Edinburgh study on "solo living", men
between 25 and 44 are currently twice as likely as women to be living alone.
For established dating websites — with enough matches to offer most users a
satisfactory choice — this signifies a huge commercial opportunity.
Globally, according to the internet-tracking firm comScore Networks, online
personals are now the single most lucrative category of online content,
beating even pornography. The US market, estimated by internet analysts at
JupiterResearch to be worth $516m, is now assumed to have peaked. Today the
boom is in Europe, where over the next five years it is reckoned that our
annual spending will more than double from £115m to £260m.
British singles are leading the way. Around 11% of internet users visit these
sites each month, according to Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst at
Nielsen/NetRatings. "Which means that 9 out of 10 still aren't using
them," Burmaster says, "so there's plenty of opportunity to grow."
At the same time, much of the social stigma associated with computer dating
appears to have dissipated. "A couple of years ago, people said it was
just for geeks and losers," recalls Nate Elliott, an online-dating
analyst at JupiterResearch. "Not today. Online dating sites have
revolutionised the business of matchmaking, making it more acceptable,
offering more detailed options than ever before, and doing so cheaply. In
the past, a newspaper ad would give you 30 words and no picture; or you
could go to a matchmaker, which was costly and time-intensive. These sites
take the best from both and give you control over who you meet."
So easy has it become to "click" discreetly online that relationship
counsellors blame internet dating and reunion sites for contributing to last
year's rise in divorce to 167,116 in the UK. At 0.2%, the rise might appear
hardly worth noting — except that it was the fourth successive annual
increase, and took the total number of divorces to the highest since 1996.
Relate, the marriage-guidance body, blames the ease of internet-enabled
affairs for the breakdown of 1 in 10 of the relationships where it is called
in — either because one partner met a new lover online, or because they were
able to arrange meetings discreetly through e-mails.
Whatever your proclivities or requirements, somewhere in cyberspace there is a
dating site promising to find your soul mate. The UK's most-visited include
Match.com, which arrived from the US in 2001 and now claims 1.5m registered
members paying up to £26 a month; Udate, which Match bought three years ago
for $150m, earning its founder, the entrepreneur Mel Morris, a reported
£20m; and Gaydar.co.uk, the gay personals site favoured by Chris
Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, who as "Alfa101" was revealed
to have posed in his underwear and advertised himself as "very versatile".
Yet there are also specialist sites catering to vegans, bikers, fetishists,
herpes carriers and poets. If TallPeople.com stretches your wish list, there
is DwarfDate.com; should CelibatePassions.com fail to arouse you, go kvetch
with the modern Orthodox Jews at Frumster.com. The Tories may disagree over
Europe, but they can find harmony at ConservativeMatch.com. There is even
now a dating site for those seeking a sexual affair without the hassle of
actually meeting a human being. The HighJoy.com online dating community, run
from Los Angeles, allows consenting adults to meet online and "control
each other's pleasure" by plugging internet-enabled Doc Johnson sex
toys into their computers. "It's the logical next evolution of online
interaction," insists the company's CEO, Amir Vatan.
Bertram Pridmore had been married for 49 years when his beloved wife died from
a hospital MRSA infection following a road accident. "It left me in a
bit of a state," the 78-year-old recalls three years on, sipping tea in
his Norfolk village bungalow. "With my being blind, I'd lost not just
my wife but also my eyes," he says, stroking his wispy white beard and
pursing his lips to suppress a tear. "Not being able to get about, it
was getting so lonely, especially in the evenings. Either I was going to end
up a bloody loner, or I'd have to do something about it."
Pridmore was learning to use a computer specially adapted to read text aloud
and magnify files for his remaining peripheral vision. Despite his initial
wariness, he registered with an online dating site in March 2004. "It
was the only outlet I could think of for meeting people," he recalls. "The
net was an Aladdin's cave, hard work to use without my sight, but it kept me
occupied."
Almost immediately, his inbox buzzed with possibilities: dinner invitations
from enthusiastic Dorset widows, awkward approaches from anxious
septuagenarians, time-wasting private messages from women he dismissed as "queries"
and "religious freaks". He arranged a few pleasant dates, but
there was never the magic that made him want to take things further.
And then he noticed the intriguing profile of Janet, a divorcée 16 years his
junior, who lived just a few miles away. When he approached her through the
site, Janet quickly warned him that she had been deaf since birth. Don't
worry, Bertram replied, I can't see. Janet protested that she had specified
a clean-shaven man, as a beard made it hard to lip-read. If we click, said
Bernard, I am quite prepared to shave mine off. Plus, she added, you're far
older than I wanted. Ah, he replied, but I am young at heart. They arranged
to meet for tea in the Norwich Co-op and were still chatting after two
hours. Four months later, in November 2004, Janet became the second Mrs
Pridmore at North Walsham register office. "People said it was too
quick, but I love him and it's my life, so I was going to go ahead
regardless," says Janet, 62, sitting beside Bertram on the sofa.
Bertram adds: "I said to Janet, she's given me my life back, didn't I,
dear?" "You've given me mine too," she says, beaming back.
The digital Cupid who helped the Pridmores find love is a 39-year-old former
Tamagotchi salesman based in Birmingham. Eight years ago, Darren Richards
was using the internet to import microscooters, yo-yos and other Asian
novelty toys, when he reflected that the web's efficiencies might also
source him a girlfriend. Staggered to find no British site to take his
money, he went to Dixons to buy the software FrontPage 98, put a one-page
website together, and registered the domain DatingDirect.com.
()
From that initial investment of £250, DatingDirect.com has grown to become the
UK's largest dating service, according to Nielsen NetRatings, which monitors
internet use. It claims 3.2m UK members, of whom almost 2m have been "active"
in the past three months. Turnover — based on fees of up to £99.95 for a
year — was forecast to exceed £10m last year, although reinvestment limited
the profit to around £1.5m for the last half of 2005. But next year,
predicts Richards — who owns the company outright with his business partner
Andrew Pike — the business is on course to turn £5m profit on a £15m
turnover, and all with just 13 employees. "We've had some very serious
approaches in the last six months, and have engaged a company to look into
those offers," Richards says proudly. The valuation, he suggests, would
be comparable to the e380m (£260m) accorded to the French dating site
Meetic, which floated on the Paris Bourse in October.
Not that money is Richards's only goal, he is at pains to point out.
DatingDirect.com has also perked up his romantic life, introducing him to
Claire, his former girlfriend of five years, and to his current partner of
four months. "My 65-year-old father joined too, having divorced when I
was 14, and I've seen a big change in him since he met Joanne, his partner
for the last three years," Richards says. "Dad's not the most
sociable sort of bloke, and he'd never join the local salsa class, but
online he could meet people. As for me, I don't consider myself attractive,
hardly the silver-tongued charmer in a bar. But gone are the days of eyes
meeting across the room — now it's messages meeting across the internet."
Online dating remains primarily a man's pursuit, and an older man's at that.
At Match.com, around 60% of UK members are males, predominantly aged over
35. Their behaviour also tends to fit a few gender stereotypes. According to
a survey of 3,400 internet users by Nielsen NetRatings last summer, men are
four times as likely to look for a no-strings affair as women, who mainly
want friendships rather than physical relationships. Men, too, tend to
select their dates mainly according to looks. Women, by contrast, value
personal characteristics and descriptions, putting more than twice as much
emphasis as men on a partner's job and income.
The key to the medium's rapid expansion has been its databases' ability to
match us efficiently and relatively cheaply with others like ourselves. We
are not just looking for partners of the same faith, age or marital status:
according to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), we
also seek our equals in attitudes, values and perceived attractiveness.
Analysing the messages sent among 65,000 heterosexual users of an American
online dating site, the MIT researchers found attraction highest between
couples of similar physical build, educational attainment and even pet
ownership.
"We're providing access to people you'd otherwise not get to meet,"
says Samantha Bedford, the 35-year-old UK managing director of Match.com. "You're
a thirtysomething woman who finds that her circle of friends has shrunk, and
some are married with children. Let's say you're a lawyer — do you really
want to marry a work colleague? With us, you may meet a teacher, an artist,
a doctor . . . We've also got people coming out of serious relationships,
many divorced with children, who see us as a gentle way of getting back into
dating while the kids are in bed, glass of wine by the computer, no make-up
on. And then we've got the fiftysomethings not ready to go to bed at 9 with
their Horlicks. Online dating doesn't get rid of the romance: it increases
your opportunities. You can put your heart out there."
The problems begin when those using these sites are not all they seem. Many of
the bigger sites claim to vet members' profiles, but there is often little
to stop those with dishonourable or even criminal intentions from lying
about themselves. In the recent Nielsen NetRatings survey of 3,400 internet
users, a third admitted to lying in their profile, often on minor details
such as age or income. Yet occasionally the deception is far more serious,
wrecking the lives of those unlucky enough to open their hearts.
In June 2003, Karen Carlton, a divorceé with three children, met up with a
former US Marine with whom she had exchanged e-mails. Within weeks, she had
invited the charming former special-forces officer to move into her home
after his flat's lease expired. His tales of Gulf-war heroism, including an
account of being tortured in Iraq, had Carlton transfixed: "His deep
southern drawl used to send shivers down my spine." But Adrien Sears
was actually a fantasist from Leicester. "Everything about Adrien was
phoney, from his accent to his life story," she claimed. "Naively,
I believed that the dating site vetted members."
In another reported case, a 39-year-old London man flew to Delhi to meet a
potential bride he had found on the Shaadi.com matrimonial site, only to
discover that the woman had begun life as a man. Her photograph had been
that of a cousin, according to the man (who wanted to stay anonymous), and
her sister had made her phone calls. Then there was Mark Ridgewell from
Gloucestershire, whose profile at Udate.com claimed he was "totally
faithful" and "loving and sincere". When four women he had
been dating simultaneously discovered the truth two years ago, after he
accidentally sent an e-mail intended for just one date to all his online
contacts, they confronted him jointly.
Last January, a team from the University of Chicago and MIT analysed the
behaviour of 23,000 users of one of the big dating sites. Their findings
suggest that many were flattering themselves in their self-reported
profiles. Whereas almost three-quarters of men and women claimed to have "above-average
looks", just 1% admitted to being below average. Women were
miraculously slimmer than the researchers would have expected: overall 6lb
lighter than the national average among 20- to 29-year-olds, and 20lb
lighter among those in their forties. Men tended to be remarkably taller
than the norm. Perhaps, the researchers suggested, that was because men in
the 6ft 3in to 6ft 4in range tended to receive 60% more first-contact
e-mails than those from 5ft 7in to 5ft 8in.
The Sunday Times Magazine decided to test the hypothesis. After registering at
Match.com, we conducted searches for men and women aged 18-45 living within
five miles of Leeds. There were 546 women available, whose mean given height
was around 5ft 5in — almost exactly in line with the national average, as
measured by the UK National Sizing Survey. Yet among the 1,052 men, the
average stated height was just over 5ft 11in — almost 2in taller than we'd
have expected. In itself, this evidence of online dishonesty is fairly
inconsequential. Perhaps the beer in Leeds is unusually nutritious. Yet what
if a member of one of these sites intended to use it for criminal purposes?
What, beyond the "dating tips" generally displayed on inside
pages, would there be to stop another Yosuke Naito, who admitted killing a
17-year-old girl he met through an internet dating site; or another Hardy
Lloyd, who also murdered a woman he had met online?
One American site, True.com, has been campaigning for criminal- background
checks to be mandatory for all new registrations. Not surprisingly, the
British sites insist that the risks are overplayed. "We can't change
society, and you have to remember your instincts," says Samantha
Bedford of Match.com. "But if you go into a bar tonight and meet a guy,
you'd know less about him than if you'd met him on Match. Most people are
honest. We've had no major issues in the UK." At DatingDirect.com,
Darren Richards says he knows of no serious complaints received about his
members. "And if we did get any, these people have paid with credit
cards. So unlike that bar pick-up, we can track them down."
The other question is whether the sites themselves are overselling their
claims. As competition intensifies for the hundreds of millions of pounds at
stake, two of the biggest stand accused of faking romantic interest in
customers to retain them. Yahoo is not commenting on a lawsuit that accuses
its personals service of "fraudulently" posting profiles of
fictitious potential partners to encourage renewals. In a separate case,
Match.com is accused of sending bogus romantic e-mails to members whose
subscriptions were lapsing, and even using employees as "date bait"
to meet them in person. The company strenuously denies the charges.
Mark Thompson, a psychologist whose company, weAttract.com, has designed
personality tests for both sites, believes that some online matchmakers make
unrealistic and inaccurate claims to maximise profits. Match.com claims to
be responsible for 200,000 relationships a year, but offers no detailed
evidence; eHarmony.com promises "compatibility based on the 29
dimensions crucial for relationship success", relying on assertions
that Thompson rejects. "It's amazing what people get away with
promising and not delivering," he says.
But as Richards sees it, the ever-climbing numbers speak for themselves. "Sure,
not everyone lives happily ever after," he says. "But we're seeing
members join, then leave us after 12 to 18 months, and then come back later.
Because if a relationship doesn't work out, they know there are plenty more
fish in the sea."
ROGUES' GALLERY
The men who used cyberspace to lure unsuspecting women into their web of
lies — or even to their death
Karen Carlton, a divorced mother of three from Fife, revealed last November
that she had lived for two years with a former US Marine she had met online,
only to discover that Adrien Sears, supposedly a Gulf-war hero, was actually
from Leicester, and appeared to have modelled his story on the Tom Cruise
character in Top Gun.
Mark Ridgewell, a 44-year-old management consultant from Gloucestershire, was
surprised in his local pub in October 2003 when four women he was allegedly
stringing along turned up to confront him.
Yosuke Naito, a Japanese government worker, admitted murdering a 17-year-old
girl he met through an internet dating site.
Hardy Lloyd, a white supremacist from Pittsburgh, shot dead his 41-year-old
girlfriend he had met online.
Clive Worth, a former miner from Llanelli, Wales, was banned from
DatingDirect.com in November 2004 after claiming to be five years younger
than his 55 years and dating 200 women. He had advertised himself as looking
for "love, romance and a long-term relationship".
"I became very unpopular with a lot of these women because I sent the
same e-mails to dozens of them and some were friends with each other and
spotted it," he admitted.
