Online Dating Is Not Dead: How To Increase Your Chances Of Finding ‘The One’ And Choosing A Good Photo For Your Profile

In a recent article published in Vanity Fair, author Nancy Jo Sales declared online dating to be dead. According to the author, young people are using Tinder just to have sex, while others are settling for less even when they may want more. So, she concluded that online dating is dead.

Is it really dead though? There will always be dating. Using the internet to find dates allows users to increase the size of the dating pool and increase the chance of finding “The One.” So what are the advantages of using the internet to find dates and find that special person?

According to Upworthy, rates of marriage have actually increased since the introduction of the internet. Because of a larger size dating pool, it increases chances of finding dates that lead to long term relationships and marriage. The hookup culture is nothing new. It existed long before the introduction of the internet.

Most singles are using the internet to help them find potential partners so they can settle down. According to a 2013 University of Portland Study, college students are actually having less sex and fewer sex partners than before online dating sites appeared. This dispels the myth that online dating is over and hookups have increased.

One of the biggest ways to sabotage your chance of success in finding the right types of dates on an online dating site is your profile picture. Unfortunately, most of the profile pictures posted on dating sites are wrong, and they lead to frustration in finding the right dates.

According to Hannah Fry, a mathematician at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis in London, as reported in Business Insider, the key to a successful dating profile is to just be yourself.

“The classic example is people who are, perhaps, a little bit overweight deliberately choosing a very cropped photo, or bald men, for example, deliberately choosing pictures where they’re wearing hats. But actually this is the opposite of what you should do if you want to be successful. You should really, instead, play up to whatever it is that makes you different, even if you think that some people will find it unattractive.”

According to the study, which surveyed dating profiles on OK Cupid, women who were rated consistently attractive for the online dating site were less likely to get messaged. Men disagreed on what really made a woman look attractive, and so those flaws women think they have may just work to their advantage.

Have you had success using online dating sites? Have you tried changing your photos to increase the number of dates you get?

[Photo Credit Business Insider]