College-age students: taking the soulmate search on-line

By Miranda Gathercole and Sarah Casimong

Finding a soulmate can be tough.

When the club and bar scenes aren’t cutting it and Mr. Right hasn’t managed to pop up in everyday life, some, including university students, are turning to the internet for dating. In fact, last year the Boston Globe reported the use of online dating among college-age students is rising.

Emmeli Rosenberg Lassesen, 25, had a difficult time finding the right guy. She found that looking at options online allowed her to narrow the field down a good match.

“I’m tall, so I think for me that was one of the things that’s hard to find when [I] meet people, ’cause I like taller guys,” said Rosenberg Lassesen.

“I’m just slightly under six feet. So you know if you go out to the club with your girlfriends and you’ve got your high heels on and you’re 6’3, 6’4, you kind of don’t get approached by many guys.”

For four years she experimented with profiles at different on-line sites, including eHarmony and Lavalife. In the end, she found PlentyofFish to be the best option because of a variety of people and free profiles. (Lavalife and eHarmony offer some tools for free but require subscriptions that have a base rate of around $15 to $20 a month.)

“There really actually isn’t a difference [between free and paid sites],” said Rosenberg Lassesen. “Some people think that there would be a difference, because if someone was paying for the site, they’re more looking for something, but the quality of people between a free site and a paid site was the exact same. There was no difference at all, which I found out after spending the money.”

PlentyofFish.com is a free online dating engine, based in Vancouver, that matches couples based on their written descriptions of goals and aspirations, what makes them unique and their taste in music. The site boasts, “Over 32,000 couples have sent in a testimonial telling us how PlentyofFish helped them find their soulmate.”

Four months ago, Rosenberg Lassesen found success on the site when she met her boyfriend, Adam Gill.

“He messaged me first. I’ve done the online dating thing for a while and I’ve always just had a policy that if a guy likes me he’s gonna message me. I’m kind of old-fashioned,” she said.

“The big thing for me is I wouldn’t add someone on Facebook until I talked to them on MSN for long enough that I felt I had a good gauge of who they were. If you add someone on Facebook, they have your last name so there’s a safety issue with that.

“I actually wouldn’t give out my number very easily to people. I would sort of leave it. I’d actually talk to them for a couple of weeks on MSN and if we were going to meet up I’d [suggest] somewhere public. Even if they offered to pick me up, I’d always say ‘I’ll meet you there.’ It’s common sense that you have to use for safety. If you don’t use your common sense, what do you expect?”

Other popular dating sites include Match.com, lifematescanada.com, and Okcupid.com.