Online love case study: Dating normally it could have taken me years to find someone

Martin and Morwenna Sanders, both 34 and from Devon, met online four years ago

Morwenna “After having spent some time in New Zealand and singing up to free sites with little success, I realised that when I got back to the UK I should try a site with a joining fee. eHarmony was good because you had to pay for it and it took a long time to submit a proper profile. I thought that it would help to filter out people who were just looking for a good time or a hook up.

I don’t think it would have been possible for me to meet the kind of person that I wanted to marry offline, because the type of man I wanted wouldn’t necessarily approach me in a bar. I wanted someone who was gentle, kind and creative. I also knew that I wanted someone that was willing to go through the same process as I was.

It really helped getting to know Martin from the inside out; I had almost convinced myself it was too good to be true. Yes I think that online dating might contribute to our throwaway society, but I think I would have been hard pushed to find the right person without it. I had tried some more old fashioned approaches, like speed dating, but it wasn’t as in depth as something like the eHarmony questionnaire. Mark and I now have a beautiful daughter called Lottie who is five months old.”

Martin “Around the time my previous relationship ended, I wasn’t in a great place, I blamed my partner for the whole thing not working out, but now I realise that I had control over the relationship too, and accept responsibility for things going wrong. When I decided I was ready to meet someone new, I went straight to eHarmony, as a software programmer, the algorithms at work on the eHarmony site interested me; I was keen to see how I would be paired up by the site, and who with.

I didn’t want to meet anyone in ‘the real world’, as I had a limited pool of people to network with, I was very shy, and had met some previous partners through friends but found it difficult and not very rewarding. I didn’t want to go through that again. Online dating is good because you can get to know people in reverse, you first learn what someone’s opinions on marriage and children are, what they sound like, the kind of things they want to talk about, then at the very end of the road you see them and decide if you find them attractive.

I could have gone through the process offline, but a lot of trial and error would have been needed. Dating normally it could have taken me years to find someone who worked for me; the internet makes the whole process faster and much more efficient. It’s almost like shopping really.”