In recently researching our upcoming book, I was looking at how people are meeting these days and came across this surprising research out of the University of Chicago by John Cacioppo and his team (2013).
First up there was the totally unsurprising finding that meeting online is becoming more the go with 35% meeting online. Mind you only 45% of these meets were dating sites with social networks (21%), chat rooms (10%) and online communities (6%) the top three alternatives.
Offline meetings came in the following order, work (22%), through friends (19%), school and growing up together (19%), social gathering (10%), bar/club (9%) and the very humble blind date (3%). (I can only guess the people who organise blind dates ended up losing the friendship over it so they’re not counted in the ‘through friends’ group!)
So, who wins when it comes to both lower divorce and higher marital satisfaction scores when we look at how couples met?
While the differences were not great, they were statistically significant, i.e. there was a clear winner, with a divorce rate of 6% (Vs 8%) for those who met online and higher satisfaction scores.
This difference is real because of the large sample of 19,100 marriages over a 7 year period studied. More importantly, from a research evaluation perspective, they replicated another shorter-term study by Rosenfeld & Thomas (2012) that found the same results.
The most interesting finding for me, however, was the relationship between where they met and subsequent marital satisfaction. To have a better marriage it helps to meet through the education system, growing up together, social gatherings, and places of worship (they did not specify, but one has to ask the question: Devil worship?).
One point: Never ever, organise a blind date for a friend — if this leads to marriage they are not going to thank you! Relatively low levels of marital satisfaction followed from meeting through blind dates, bars/clubs and wait for it … work!
Two factors seem to be at play here. Work gives us a relatively limited pool to fish in, compared to the ocean of the online world (elsewhere we will talk about the very real problems of having too much choice, but that’s another issue).
Secondly, the study found that people who met online tended to be better educated and have higher employment – two well-known factors that predict lower divorce.
The Take Home Message? If a work mate sets you up for a blind date with someone else in your company and suggests you meet in a bar – run!