In 2006, an online lifetime ago, a Pew research study found that 7 million American adults had gone on dates with someone they met through an e-dating site; 52percentt of the e-daters reported mostly positive experiences, while a significant 29percentt reported mostly negatives.
But as Americans believe e-dating has gone thoroughly mainstream (only 14percentt of men and 12percentt of women disagree), it follows that attitudes about whom e-dating forums are for have shifted widely.
At the very start of the e-dating process, mystery may have some benefits.
These days, e-dating relationships, like all deals, are coming in for more cold-eyed consumer assessments.
I believe we're going to start seeing more shades of e-dating advice on everything from its courtesies to its heartbreaking (and public) infidelities.
It's the SoMe behemoth Facebook, though, that ranks first in our survey, above any e-dating site, as the place to find romance.
Trust in this number means e-dating sites will keep gleaning new members, as hearing your best pal's success story might lead you to lay down your cynicism.
But even as cyber-matchmakers here grow e-dating conferences and invent netiquette for the ethics of finding romance or dissuading cyberstalkers, this engine of moving parts raises a lot of questions.
It would be a kind of olfactory blind-dating service.
In Singapore the government even set up an online-dating service, lovebyte.org.sg, to boost marriage rates among graduates.
It costs, on average, £30 a month to belong to an online-dating service, and free sites like plentyoffish.com and Smooch are springing up.
