Three Online Dating Success Stories
Online dating sites are responsible for thousands of marriages every day. The US version of eHarmony alone claims 542 every 24 hours, or just under one every two and a half minutes.
Dating sites are a growth industry in Australia, which now has 1.5 million online daters. It’s surely only a matter of time before we start hearing more stories like these:
The shy 20-something
Henry, 21, was a University of Adelaide politics student when he met Jane, also 21, a Chemistry student at the University of Victoria, in 2010.
“I was at uni, a music obsessive who didn’t get out much. I tried online dating because I was too shy to approach girls in bars. It turned out I was mostly too shy to approach girls online, too, but then I saw Jane’s profile. It sounds silly, but the thing that made me get in touch was her profile headline: I’m Happy Just to Dance with You. It’s a tune from A Hard Day’s Night. I never really met anyone my age who appreciated the early Beatles stuff. I used that as an icebreaker – ‘Please respond, or I’ll Cry Instead’ – that was the A-side of the song. Pretty weak, but she seemed to find that funny, or at least not too unfunny, and she replied with a friendly message. We quickly went from emails to three straight hours on the phone, to an eight-hour date walking around the countryside, and a pub in the evening. We’ve been living together since graduating last summer.”
The divorcee
Lana, 36, was a divorcee living in Perth with her two teenage children. She met Ian, a 40-year-old systems analyst living in Edinburgh, in 2009.
“I wasn’t having much luck in the Perth dating scene, so I expanded my search a bit… then a lot! I ended up talking to Ian, who was living in Edinburgh. Yes, the time-zone difference was a problem, but we both changed our sleeping patterns a little and were soon having long, rambling phone chats about our shared passion for antiques. It wasn’t too long before Ian flew over. He seemed a bit funny on the first date, maybe jetlagged or something, but he was in town for a week anyway so we met again the next day. This time things went much better; we went for a pub meal, and ended up staying until it closed. A few months later, Ian decided to move over here and live with me, once the kids decided they liked him, of course! He proposed in December.”
The mature dater
Karen, 58, a teacher from Canberra, met Paul, 55, in 2011
“I’d been dating a bit after the divorce, but not really seen anyone for three years. I had a friend who had met someone online, and they told me to have a go. I didn’t think I had much chance, but wanted to feel like I was making the effort. So I went online, put up a photo and description, then pretty much forgot about it. When I logged back into the site a month later, I had two messages, both from Paul. The first was just a ‘Hi, etc’; the second was something really sweet about how he’d been on the site for six months and I was the first woman who had really stuck in his mind. Did I want to meet, please? I loved that he said please. Like it was really important to him and he didn’t mind seeming a bit over-keen.
“We spent a lovely evening in an Italian restaurant, and went back the night after, same time. We crammed loads more dates into that month, and at the end we still had so much to talk about. We’ve got loads in common. It wasn’t too long after that Paul proposed.
