Britain’s love-lorn turn to the Internet

LONDON: Two thirds of singles in Britain looking for love turned to electronic dating agencies in 2005, media reports said on Thursday.

Online dating has revolutionised the dating game and it has become a “perfect example of technological Darwinism”, said the Times.

A survey by parship.co.uk, the British subsidiary of Europe’s largest dating service with more than 1.5 million members, reported that 3.6 million Britons used online dating services last year. That amounts to 65 per cent of the 5.4 million Britons who were looking for a relationship and used a dating service in 2005.

A spokeswoman for Relate, a leading British relationship-counselling agency, said: “The Internet is the way people are looking these days. The stigma from dating agencies seems to have gone.”

According to the Times, there are more than 100 independent online dating agencies in Britain, chasing a market that is valued at about $20 million and expected to rise to 47 million pounds by 2008.

Parship says that 50 per cent of single people believe they will meet a suitable partner through the Internet, up from 35 per cent six months ago.

Chris Simpson, commercial director of the agency Telecom Express, said greater interactivity on the Internet had lured singletons online.