Almost everyone's looking for that special someone. But where do you find them?
How about the grocery store? You could always take your grandmother's advice and find a good girl in church. Or how about the night life? Bars are always crawling with singles, right?
"I think it's become a cliché," says Maria Schips, of Cohoes. "You find it in the movies too much."
How about online? It's been a growing trend over the past few years. A recent study shows with nearly 1,500 websites nationwide, about 20 million Americans log onto dating sites each month.
"When I say we met on
eHarmony, they know someone who is online dating," says Megan McBride, of Albany. "It's like everyone knows they're own success story."
McBride is a young, working professional living in Albany. Getting a date wasn't a problem but, finding someone with interests that matched her's was. So she logged onto a dating site and in just a couple of months, met her now fiance.
"It was everything I could've dreamed of and more," McBride says. "He's amazing."
Dr. Cathy Leonard Dressler, a marriage counselor in Albany, says that kind of success has a lot to do with the site's questionnaires. After all, people today are busy. An online profile clues you into information that may have otherwise taken several dates to uncover.
"When you look at the profile you are able to rule out things that would not be acceptable to you, look for the qualities that are very essential to you," Leonard Dressler. "So in a sense you have a better prognosis right from the start."
Of course with all of the good comes some bad. Safety has always been a concern for online daters, but things have come a long way since the trend started. Even New York State has taken action.
The "Internet Dating Safety Act" went into affect in December and requires sites to include safety measures on their page.
Tips include:
- Meet in public
- Always tell a friend
- Stay sober
Also, there are a new slew of businesses cropping up, like Mymatchchecker.com. For a fee, the site runs a background check on a potential date, making sure they don't have a criminal history.
And true to the times, a number of phone applications, like Date Check, are available to do the same thing.
Leonard Dressler says stick to the most well known sites. They're usually the most credible.
"Go with the safe bet. Just like with anything," she says. "Do your homework. I mean this is serious. You're trying to find your soul mate."
And with any luck, you will.
"Yes, I would highly recommend it," McBride says. "I mean what do you have to lose?"
