Love during lockdown: Singles in US reinvent dating

How do you find love when you're stuck at home? The coronavirus pandemic has made that challenging, to say the least. But millions of single Americans are finding ways.

Some have attempted socially distanced outings, others have turned to steamy video chats, while still others have tried international online dating as people adapt the art of seduction to the virus era -- and dating apps are finding ways to adjust.

In normal times, Kate Earle, a 30-year-old teacher in Washington, finds it fairly easy to connect in person with men she finds attractive at first glance on Tinder.

"But because that's not an option, the conversations are going on much longer," she said.

Earle said those conversations also seem to veer more often toward "online sexual interaction," but she added that she has never considered breaking lockdown rules for an in-person date.

"I think everybody is a little bit sexually frustrated, and I am as well," she said.

"And there's definitely been temptation to meet up with somebody... but I think it's not so much that I would actually do it."

- Masks off -

The Great Lockdown has driven single people around the world to online dating apps in record numbers.

Tinder saw an all-time high in usage on March 29, with more than three billion "swipes," and the number of messages exchanged on rival app Bumble increased 26 percent over a two-week period in March in the United States.

The lockdown order came at the worst possible time for Beatrice, who was newly separated from her husband and living in the US capital.

A 30-something Frenchwoman, she registered with several online dating apps in mid-March.

Since then, she has found herself bending some of the confinement rules to improvise outings with her new acquaintances.

"I was a bit nervous," she told AFP. "It's hard walking with a mask on your face when you're meeting someone for the first time. So you end up taking off the mask after five minutes."

After a few disappointing outings during which she observed physical separation rules, she met someone she liked -- "and we ended up not respecting social distancing," she admitted.

- 'The cherry on top' -

In the new normal created by the virus crisis, video dating is fast becoming the norm. While Tinder lacks this option, both Hinge and Bumble offer virtual dating.

Zach Schleien launched his Filter Off app for video speed-dating just before the pandemic struck, and at first only a few thousand users signed up. But that changed quickly.

"It's like a 7,000 percent increase in less than a month," said the 29-year-old New Yorker, who believes online dating is the best way to assess possible romantic interest before meeting in person. "It's been nuts."

So, can a romantic candlelight dinner with a stranger -- on a laptop screen -- really work?

Dating coach Bela Gandhi cited the example of one client, a woman in her 60s, "who has fallen in love with somebody in the last six weeks, and they've only met via Skype."

Gandhi, who founded the Smart Dating Academy website, says video can make it easy to develop "emotional intimacy."

"And then it's just the cherry on top of the sundae once you meet in person."

But Alexandra Solomon, a clinical psychologist on the faculty of Northwestern University outside Chicago, doesn't see it quite that way.

"Thank goodness we have video dating for now," she said, but added: "When we come out of this, I really want people to go back to meeting across the table over a glass of wine or a cup of tea and having that old-fashioned organic experience of each other."

Meanwhile, for those interested in exploring possible matches abroad, Tinder is keeping its Passport feature free until Monday.

After that, "matches will remain, so no one has to say goodbye to anyone new they've met," said a Tinder spokesman.

Agence France-Presse

China: Dating apps turn hot during viral outbreak

BEIJING — Zhang Xiaojing is a 33-year-old accountant for a foreign trade company in Beijing who has been spending time scrolling through her dating apps since the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Bottom line, Zhang is looking to find a boyfriend and get married as soon as possible.


“I used to participate in some offline dating activities during the weekends, but almost all gatherings have been prohibited. Cinemas and bars were shut down to curb the spread of the deadly virus. I have to remain indoors to avoid getting infected.”

Zhang lives alone and feels very bored so she downloaded several online dating apps. They included Momo and Tantan in a bid to make new friends, and to give her some relief from the stress and loneliness.

She noted that Tantan’s way of finding dates, unlike traditional dating websites, is more interesting and simple.

“You just browse the profiles recommended to you based on your location, distance and gender preferences. Swipe right if you like someone, and swipe left to show you are not interested.”


“I chat only with the people that I am matched with, and can also choose to hide my contacts. The app adds other functionalities which people can use for free. For instance, I can play games, upload pictures or texts and share videos on it.”

For Zhang, online romance in the time of the contagion has become more than just finding love. It is also a source of comfort and connection.

Online dating apps have seen a significant increase in usage due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Industry experts said the “cloud matchmaking” method, which includes livestreaming and short videos formats which comply with the habits of users and satisfy the needs of self-presentation, is gaining tractions among singles.

A report released by mobile dating app Tantan said the average time people spent on the app in early and mid February increased over 30 percent compared with the average usage during normal times. The number of users surged 60 percent during the peak hour which often runs from midnight to 1 am.


During the outbreak, those born after the period around 1995 and after 2000 have become the top users of Tantan. They recorded a more than 20 percent increase in messages sent and daily matches. Another notable fact is that the number of older users who came back rose by 25.9 percent compared with the level during normal times.

Founded in 2014, Tantan focuses on one-on-one interactions and targets students and white-collar workers. Women accounted for nearly half of the total users. So far, it has 10.5 million daily active users and 35 million monthly active users.

Data from iResearch Consulting Group showed the revenue of China’s online dating and matchmaking industry will increase from 4 billion yuan ($567 million) in 2017 to 5.3 billion yuan in 2020.

For singles, the pressure to get married usually increases when they return home during the Spring Festival holiday for family reunions. Their parents, grandparents and other relatives badger them about their personal lives to nosily inquire why they have not gotten married.

Zhenai.com, a popular matchmaking application website, said its active users reached 10 million during the Lunar New Year holiday (Jan 24-Feb 2), an increase of 39.3 percent compared with the same period of last year. More than 10,300 people found highly compatible matches on the app.

Wu Linguang, CEO of online matchmaking and dating platform Baihe Jiayuan Network Group Co, said video and livestreaming dating services have been launched to lure customers during the epidemic.

“Generally speaking, the emotional demand of singles reaches a peak on Valentine’s Day and lasts until the end of February,” Wu said.

Statistics from the company showed the time users spend on video dating rose 29.8 percent during the Spring Festival holiday, compared with the data from the festive season last year. The average usage time skyrocketed 93 percent versus the time from the same period a year ago.

Some 50 percent of single men and 33 percent of single women were lonely as they could not go out during the outbreak, it added.

Surfing the internet has become a major way to help ease their anxiety, with 30 percent of singles keen about making friends online. About 30 percent of men and 41 percent of women have switched from attending offline activities to online dating.


“The epidemic has given a big boost to the online dating apps, which are usually in the off season in the first quarter and gradually gain popularity after the Spring Festival,” said Yang Xin, an analyst with Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys.

Yang believes that with rapidly increasing traffic, mobile app companies should think of how to hang onto their customers when the pandemic ends.

-China Daily

Looking for romance online? Beware of ‘love scams’

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Friday warned the public anew against so-called online “love scams.”

According to the bureau, it continues to receive reports about the modus operandi of “love scammers” who target single men and women searching for love online.

The scam begins with the suspects befriending the victims online using social networking sites like Facebook, internet chat rooms or other dating sites. Most of the e-mail senders supposedly come from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

After several weeks or months the perpetrators would send a message that they have sent a box containing expensive gifts like designer bags, jewelries, gadgets like laptops and smartphones via international door-to-door parcel complete with tracking number and invoice for the supposed shipment.

The victims would then receive an email, a phone call, or a text allegedly from an officer or an employee of the BOC informing them that package was held in BOC and that it would be sent to them only after they pay customs duties and taxes to be deposited in a designated bank account or money transfer service.

After remitting the money to a bank, however, the package never arrives and their “significant other” never contacts them again.

In July last year, the BOC reported that at least 44 people in Manila reported that they fell for the scam. But this number did not include those residing in the provinces.

Customs Commissioner John Sevilla, in a statement, said they are continuously receiving reports not only here in Manila but also from their provincial collection districts.

However, he said they seldom receive official complaints.

“Just phone calls from the victims that they have been scammed. But they don’t leave information. Maybe they are not comfortable talking about their predicament due to its sensitive nature,” Sevilla said.

“Please be advised that with [regard] to packages, parcels or even balikbayan boxes, the Bureau of Customs deals with the consolidator, forwarder or courier in charge of your package directly so if ever there is a problem with your packages, the BOC will not call, text or email you but will communicate with your consolidator, forwarder or courier,” he said.

“BOC does not also give assessments and computations of duties and taxes by email or text. These are computed and written on official BOC document that are payable only to the Bureau and not through any bank or money transfer service,” he added as he urged the public to be more vigilant against these scams.

Prior to making any payment, recipients of emails purportedly sent by the bureau were advised to inquire first through its public assistance contact channels (+632) 9173201, or email ocompacd@gmail.com, and Twitter: @CustomsPH.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Swipe right for Ms. Right: The rise of dating apps

NEW YORK — So, a lady walks into a bar…Wait, scratch that. A lady takes out her phone. With a left swipe of her finger she dismisses Alex, 25 and Robert, 48. She swipes right when a photo of James, 24, pops up. It’s a match. James had swiped right too. They chat, and make plans to meet. They’re only three miles apart, after all.

Welcome to the new world of dating. As the near-constant use of smartphones proliferates and as people grow more comfortable with disclosing their location, a new class of mobile dating applications is emerging that spans a range as broad as human desire itself. Millennials, busy with school, jobs and social lives, say the apps save time and let users filter out the undesirables, based on a few photos, words and Facebook connections. Unlike the dating websites of yore, with endless profiles to browse and lengthy messages to compose, newer apps offer a sense of immediacy and simplicity that in many ways harkens back to the good old days of just walking up to a pretty stranger and making small talk.

As with potential mates, there’s an array to choose from.

In the US, online community ChristianMingle will “find God’s match for you.” Mobile application Hinge’s promise hinges on its ability to hook you up with friends of friends. Coffee Meets Bagel, meanwhile, will present you with just one potential mate at noon every day. Dattch, with a Pinterest-like interface, is for women seeking women. For men looking for men, there’s Grindr, Jack’d, Scruff, Boyahoy and many more. Revealer will let you hear a person’s voice and only show photos if you’re both interested.

The darling dating app du jour for Americans is Tinder, helped by its simple interface, a host of celebrity users and a popularity boost from Sochi Olympic athletes who used it to hook up during the Winter Games.

Tinder, like many dating apps, requires people to log in using their Facebook profiles, which users say adds a certain level of trust. Facebook, after all, is built on knowing people’s real identities. Your Tinder photos are your Facebook photos. Users can reject or accept potential mates with a left or right swipe of their finger. If both people swipe right on Tinder, the app flashes “It’s a match!” and the pair can exchange messages.

Because messages can only come from a person you’ve “right-swiped,” unwanted advances are filtered out. The system avoids one of the more vexing problems of older-generation dating websites, where users, especially women, can become inundated with messages from unwelcome suitors. They also offer a generation raised on Google and social media a chance to do background checks on potential mates.

“If you are in a bar and a guy comes to talk to you, you are immediately going to be freaked out and you don’t want to talk to them because they are drunk,” says Melissa Ellard, 23, who uses Hinge and says she wouldn’t have gone on a date in the past six months were it not for the app. “When you are using the app, you get to look at their picture and see background information. You get to decide whether you want to continue it or not. When I meet someone, I want to know everything about them before I go on a date with them.”

While they are still new, dating apps — used for anything from one-night-stands to serious dating, and even finding new friends while traveling — are emerging as the use of older dating websites is moving into the mainstream. A recent Pew study found that some 9 percent of US adults say they’ve used dating sites or mobile dating apps, up from 3 percent in 2008. Of those who are “single and looking,” the number jumps to 38 percent, according to the 2013 survey. The crowd trends slightly younger, with the largest group of users between 25 and 44. Clearly, many people have grown comfortable with online dating just as they have with shopping, banking and booking travel over the Internet.

Cue the cries of “the lost art of courtship” and the “rise of hookup culture” from older generations, who harbor selective memories of the more analog hookup culture of their youth.

“There is a general digital fear,” says Glenn Platt, professor of interactive media studies at Miami University. “People are happy to giggle and watch Barney in ‘How I Met Your Mother” who hooks up with people based on looks. But somehow taking that same behavior and placing it in a digital context has a stigma attached to it. Even though, in that context you are more likely to get a better match, more information, a person’s real name.”

Even Facebook is getting in on the action, from a more platonic angle. Last month, the world’s biggest online social network launched a feature called “nearby friends,” which lets users see which of their Facebook friends are near them at any given moment.

Despite the growing acceptance, the online and app-based dating market is small. Research firm IBIS World estimates that the dating services industry will hit $2.2 billion in revenue this year. Internet conglomerate IAC/InteractiveCorp has the biggest chunk of the market with a 27 percent share. The New York Company owns traditional dating sites such as OKCupid, Match.com and Chemistry.com, as well as Tinder. IAC has a market value of just $5.2 billion, less than a third of Twitter’s.

Jared Fliesler, general partner at the venture capital fund Matrix Partners, believes companies have only just begun to tap into people’s willingness to “pay” to find love, a phenomenon that extends well beyond dating apps. After all, he points out, singles already spend lots of money on texts, calls, drinks, food, gifts and everything else associated with the dating game.

“Despite it being a slightly difficult category in which to rise venture funding, consumers spend more time, money, and mental energy on trying to find love than pretty much anything in life, and the desire to be loved is universal,” says Fliesler. “So there will always be demand.”

Creators of some of the more ambitious apps say they have their sights set beyond romantic matchmaking to what they call “social discovery,” helping people meet business connections, new friends while traveling or moving to a new city. Tinder’s co-founder, Justin Mateen, insists that his creation is not a hookup app and wasn’t created to facilitate one-night stands.

Just don’t tell that to Tinder users.

“I used Tinder before I found out about Hinge and it was creep central, it was just weird,” says Ellard, who lives outside Boston, runs a startup, works in jewelry sales and has a fashion radio segment. “I used it for a few months but instead of looking for someone it was more like a funny joke,” she says.

For some, though, Tinder can be liberating. Platt says the app “equalizes gender power,” and notes that he hears as many of his female students talk about it as male ones.

“Everyone has the same finger and ability to click,” he says. “It’s not like the guy buys the drink.”

Jenny Lewin, 21, a student of Platt’s who’s an intern at San Francisco-based Coffee Meets Bagel, thinks it’s inevitable that as dating apps enter the mainstream, they will become more accepted and people will be more open about using them.

“I think a lot of people say that our generation doesn’t know how to talk to people face to face, that we don’t know how to communicate, which I totally disagree with,” says Lewin. “I would be much more likely to click a ‘heart’ on Tinder or a ‘like’ on Coffee Meets Bagel to say I am interested in a guy than to walk up to him and say I am interested.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Even ugly people can find love on the Internet

You, yes, you: what if I ignored your call? Or we passed each other by in a crowded room? Isn’t it disturbing that Cupid’s arrow could be so hit-or-miss?

And yet these days, two complete strangers could be thousands of miles apart, but with a click of a mouse, light a flame of love. They could be fat, old, disabled and have STD; they could be anyone they want to be—married, single or widowed—and embark on journeys of love.

“There’s a saying old, said that love is blind, still we’re often told, seek and you shall find,” so the song goes. Searching for love (heck, looking for sex)—if it isn’t yet an epidemic, it will soon be.

Sometimes I let myself out of the 19th century and wonder: what’s happened to serendipity, the preambles of courtship?

Remember the thrill of getting ready for dates: the outfit, the movie, the restaurant; the chaste kiss at the end of an evening which was never really long enough for falling in love; so, you, breathless with bewitchment, arrange to meet again.

That was then. Today we’re in a postdating world of infinite opportunities. Maybe it’s all the same. Maybe the past was better, just slower. Maybe today is better, just faster.

Sure, couples from well-matched castes can find happiness in traditionally arranged marriages, complete with eye-watering dowries. In the time-honored fashion of dynastic alliances and endogamy, couples still court and marry within their tribes: an Astor marries a Churchill; a Marcos an Araneta; a Fariñas a Singson.

What if you go off-grid? Today, no longer is there a stigma attached to online dating, a multibillion-dollar industry which has opened up many ways for meeting new people.

More satisfied

In the United Kingdom, one in five relationships now starts online, with more than 10 million Britons registered on dating sites.

A recent University of Chicago research found that more than a third of couples who married in the United States, between 2005 and 2012, met online, and that they were more satisfied and less likely to break up than couples who met in the traditional manner.

Oh, the mass and volume! Match.com (17 million users a month); MatchAffinity; eHarmony; thegaggle; craigslist; DatingDirect, to name a few. Because the Internet is a vast and transgressive market catering to all kinds and kinks, it even has a site for ugly people—theuglybugball.com. “Ugly people,” said the site’s founder, Howard James, “are easier to please; they have lower expectations.”

Surprisingly, people in their 50s and 60s are the fastest-growing demographic in the online dating pool. Retrosexuals—fleeing loveless beds and carcasses of sex-drought, failed or stale marriages—are logging on to reheat relationships with childhood sweethearts, first loves or old flames.

Beware, for as many as there are sites, so, too, are the risks. Many have been duped and fleeced of their money by online fraudsters creating fictitious profiles with photos of attractive men and women. A spark is ignited and a scam usually starts with a request for a small sum of money—to pay off a debt, or for a relative’s medical treatment.

Philip Hunt, 58, went online for love after two failed marriages. He met Rose, a “young and beautiful woman living in Nigeria.” Over eight months, through e-mails and texts, Rose bled Philip dry. He remortgaged his house, took out loans, and when he put himself on the path of an express train that killed him instantly, he had debts of £82,000.

Millionairess Carole Waugh, 49, described herself in her online profile as “posh totty fun,” promising “true girlfriend experience.” Two gambling addicts hooked up with her, stole her identity, sold her home and stripped her of her bank accounts and assets. She was fatally stabbed in the neck, her body stuffed in the boot of a car.

Leaky sieve

You could find yourself in a fever of love with Emma, a hot doctor practicing in Toronto; only it turns out Emma’s an Uzbek tosser with a mustache. And he wants your credit card details.

Websites, always in danger of being hacked into, often fail to protect their customers, with information about them falling into the hands of stalkers, convicted rapists and sex offenders. “The Internet is a leaky sieve, so keep your emotional credit balance low,” warned psychotherapist Phillip Hodson.

Personal ads and lonely hearts columns in newspapers and magazines still hold their charm. “Fifty from the neck up and 14 from the waist down”; “sixty but still rather nifty.” Sometimes you have to view lies as the building blocks of good manners, but people who crow like cocks for all they’re worth usually hide something.

People have forgotten so much about wooing that they’re paying dating coaches to teach them the art of courtship—flirting with intent, chat-up lines, flowers and small gifts, what to say on a date. In Vegas, coaching from Same Night Seduction Bootcamp will set you back £2,000.

But it’s elite matchmakers which are creaming off the dating scene. These are go-to agencies for highly educated, professional men and women who do not have the time or the inclination to indulge in traditional courtships.

For huge fees, high net worth individuals with specifications of their ideal would-be partners brief exclusive dating agencies who search and screen candidates, and enable introductions and dates.

Duncan Cheatle is a successful entrepreneur who has been on several agency-enabled dates. He told The Times: “Why would I not invest eight grand in someone I trust to help me find connections when I’m busy?”

Eight grand? Peanuts! Berkeley International, with offices in key global cities (i.e., where the money’s at), has 3,000 crème de la crème members who think nothing of paying $75,000 for a one-year membership. This is “headhunting” for trophy wives and husbands on a rarefied scale.

Stubbornly single

Have a heart then for China’s “leftover” men—so-called because, in their advancing years, while desperate to get married, they remain stubbornly single. Every Sunday at Beijing’s Temple of Heaven Park, hundreds of parents hawk their sons’ CVs to potential wives who, because of their scarcity, can afford to be picky: does he have an apartment, a car, a permit to reside in Beijing?

The gender imbalance is marked, with an average of 150 men to 100 women. China’s Academy of Social Sciences predicts that, by 2020, there will be some 24 million marriageable men without wives or partners.

This is not a problem for very wealthy Chinese alpha males who outsource their search for brides to exclusive marriage bureaus with their armies of “love hunters.”

Before you sally forth into your amorous adventures, remember that nobody’s perfect, not even you.

Don’t hope for too much, but don’t settle for less

Don’t settle for someone with the personality of a bread mold, the IQ of a pot plant, or the manners of a lowlife bottom-feeder. Private lives can be rumpled and messy, and some of us are damaged goods carrying heavy emotional baggage.

Don’t be an intellectual slouch, but don’t be a howitzer, either. Don’t frighten them away on your first date with talks about having children or the diagnosis of a disease, or launch into boastful sexploits. Desperation is like body odor: it is rank, unpleasant and unsexy.

Agree to split the bill. And take care of your personal safety.

What an utter desert, Charles Darwin said, is life without love. That we can ache and fret in places of our hearts we didn’t know existed.

So, maybe, go, give it a whirl. A low-expectation encounter might just result in fireworks and a ring on your finger.

But, it’s not always simple; if it were, everyone would be doing it. Margie David Collins

Apps to meet your match

A free app for iPhone and Android, Tinder is the 21st century’s take on “cruising.”

It’s a matchmaking service linked to a Facebook account. The app registers your current location, asks who you’d like to meet and then flashes up photos of potential matches near you.

You swipe “Like” and, presto, you could meet more people in one evening than in a week or year of waiting to hook up with someone. Ditto Foursquare.

Facebook’s new Graph Search helps you find your “perfect match” and sets up potential dates. For example, type in “Who are single in Metro Manila and graduated from The Wharton School?” Boom! Margie David Collins

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Americans warm to online dating, survey shows

WASHINGTON – Americans are growing more comfortable with online dating, and many are finding a spouse or partner in cyberspace, a survey showed Monday.

The Pew Research Center found 11 percent of Internet users – or some nine percent of all American adults – said they have personally used an online dating site.

That is a sharp increase from 2008, when just three percent of American adults had used online dating sites, Pew said.

The survey found 66 percent of those who use online sites or apps have gone on a date with someone they met through one of these services.

And 23 percent of online daters have married or begun a long-term relationship with someone they met through a dating site or app, Pew found.

Pew researchers said Americans’ attitudes about online dating have dramatically changed since it first began studying the subject in 2005.

“When we conducted our first study of dating and relationships in the digital era just under a decade ago, the public had little exposure to online dating, and most viewed people who went online to meet potential romantic partners with a healthy dose of skepticism,” said Aaron Smith, main author of the report.

“And although some of that skepticism remains, online dating has become much more culturally accepted in recent years. Americans are now much more likely to count an online dater among their friends and family, and a majority view online dating as a good way to meet potential partners – one that in some ways is superior to traditional ways of meeting people.”

The survey found 59 percent of Internet users agreed with the statement that “online dating is a good way to meet people,” compared with 44 percent in 2005.

And 53 percent of the group agreed that “online dating allows people to find a better match for themselves because they can get to know a lot more people,” up from 47 percent in 2005.

Pew found 21 percent of Internet users claimed that people who use online dating sites are “desperate,” down from 29 percent in 2005.

Around one in three, or 32 percent of online adults, said online dating keeps people from settling down by giving them more options to meet people. This is the first time Pew asked this question.

A number of respondents related negative experiences with online dating: 54 percent of those who used online services said they met at least one person who was “seriously misrepresented” and 28 percent said they felt harassed or uncomfortable by someone using online dating services.

The survey also found online daters going mobile: seven percent of cell phone apps users, or roughly three percent of all American adults, said they have used a dating app on their phone.

The survey highlights the growing role of the Internet in all aspects of Americans’ lives. It found the proportion of Americans who say that they met their current partner online has doubled in the last eight years to six percent of Internet users, up from three percent in 2005 the last decade, 11 percent said that their spouse or partner is someone they met online, the Pew researchers said.

The Pew survey generally supports the findings of a study published in June by University of Chicago researchers, which found more than one-third of US marriages between 2005 and 2012 began with online dating.

That study published in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also found couples who meet online may be slightly happier than couples who meet through other means.

However, some experts took issue with the findings because the survey was commissioned by eHarmony.com, the dating site that attracted one quarter of all online marriages according to the research.

The Pew report was based on a phone survey of 2,252 adults between April 17 and May 19. The margin of error for the full sample is estimated at 2.3 percentage points.

source: technology.inquirer.net