Meeting a woman is easy these days. In fact, you can do it without changing out of your sweatpants: Fire up a site like eHarmony or OKCupid, browse some profiles, check a few boxes, and bam—there she is.
Except online dating isn’t quite the quick fix it’s cracked up to be. In fact, the parts that make it seem great often are exactly the thing that makes it not work. We looked at the most-touted benefits of online dating and what the research said. It reveals that your dream girl may be much farther than a few clicks away.
1. You get to pick exactly who you want.
We know what you’re thinking: That sounds great! If you’re looking for a 5’10” redhead who loves baseball, beer, and the beach, you know exactly how to find her.
But sadly, we aren’t very skilled at determining what we really want in a romantic partner, says Paul Eastwick, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Eastwick’s 2011 research backs that up: People reported more romantic interest in potential mates whose dating profiles contained traits they deemed important in a partner. But when they met face to face, it turns out their attraction wasn’t influenced by these ideal preferences at all.
There’s no evidence that people’s checklists can predict who they’ll actually end up liking in person, says Eastwick. “You’d be just as good flipping a coin and deciding which person you’re going to want to end up meeting.”
2. You find 587 potential matches.
In mere minutes, you can check out more women on these sites than you’ve met in a year of real-world interactions. So with all those options out there, you can’t go wrong, right?
Not when you experience choice overload. “People might pick things that aren’t as good for them ultimately because they just have so many options to choose from,” says Eastwick. “And sometimes they are less likely to commit to a choice because they can’t decide.”
Think of this famous study out of Stanford University: Back in 2000, researchers found that people were more likely to purchase a jar of jam if they were only shown six different kinds, rather than a more extensive array of 24. What’s more, the participants reported greater satisfaction with their choices when their options were limited.
Now, let’s take that from sugar-stewed fruit to the more applicable dating world. A 2011 U.K study found that speed daters were more likely to avoid making a decision on a partner if they were shown a greater variety of potential mates—those who differed in attributes like age, height, occupation, and education. And when the daters did choose, they were also more likely to select “lower quality” options.
To avoid the confusion of way too many choices, Eastwick recommends implementing a cap on the number of profiles you allow yourself to browse before making a decision.
3. You think you’re set for life.
Dating sites like to brag about their success rates, and even how likely their matches are to lead to marriage. It makes sense: After all, you’ll be dating women who you know share your interests and priorities.
But it’s not that simple. In fact, a new study from Michigan State University found that not only are online relationships less likely to progress to marriage than offline ones, but they’re also more likely to lead to breakups.
Once again, chalk it up to too many choices. All the options available might make you less likely to commit, says study author Aditi Paul, Ph.D.(c).
“And even if you do get to the point of being committed, you can cop out easily, or without too many mental scars, because you know you can reactivate your profile and there will be a bunch of others waiting for you,” she says.
Online relationships seem to be vulnerable to a bump in the road during their early phases, where people are tempted by that allure of something better when trouble comes along. But it’s not all doom and gloom, Paul says. If you get over this hitch, it’s likely that your relationship can stabilize.
4. You get to meet her through a computer screen.
For nervous guys, digital communication can seem like a godsend. But if you wait too long to meet face-to-face, you might ruin your relationship before it even begins.
“You can end up forming impressions of other people that can prove jarring when you ultimately meet them and they don’t conform to your expectations,” Eastwick says.
Your rule of thumb: Cap the e-flirting at 3 weeks before you take things offline. Research has shown positive first-impression effects after that length of time, but negative ones when the online chatting stretched to 6 weeks.
Also, remember that it’s often easier to misrepresent yourself online than it is face-to-face. So what you see might not be what you get: A study from Cornell University found that nearly one third of profile photographs don’t accurately represent how the person currently looks. (You don’t say!)
5. You think the matching formulas are magic.
In reality, those "secret equations" don't have any validity—and we’re not even sure how they might work, since they haven’t been subjected to any sort of scientific study, says Eastwick.
“It’s basically no different from the cure-all elixir that you might have bought from some shady guy with a moustache back in the 1900s,” he says.
The formulas might exclude people who probably wouldn’t make a great romantic partner in general—maybe due to neuroticism or depression. And that could help make you happier with your match.
