1. Online Dating in the Gay and
Lesbian Community
Robert Erichsen
Preston Gales
Sharon Filadelfia

2. Introduction
• What is Online Dating?
• meeting people and forming
relationships online
• Popularity
• 40 million users visited dating sites in
August 2003. That is roughly half of all
singles in the U.S.
• With so many using the internet it is
only natural for people to use it for
dating as the well.

3. Introduction
• Popularity (cont.)
• Trying to find the “ONE”
• Notion of marrying for love is generally new
• Online dating gives you access to millions
of people. Giving users a better chance of
finding the “ONE”
• Anonymity
• still holds somewhat of a stigma
• Users like the fact that it is anonymous
• Ability to find others with similar values,
interests and beliefs

4. Introduction
• Popularity (cont.)
• Older daters
• Out of the natural dating pools
• Divorce
• Single parents are not always able to go out
and meet people
• Higher Education and moving for work
• These people often find themselves in
unfamiliar territory and need an alternative
way to meet people.

5. Research Questions
• What types of people use online
dating websites?
• What differences exist between
online daters?
• What are these online daters looking
for?

6. Methodology
http://www.matchmaker.com/
the researchers started out viewing profiles on a
few different dating websites but in the end
decided to use Matchmaker.com.
Matchmaker is a popular online dating site and
allowed us to search for profiles at no cost.
One question the researchers had to deal with
from the beginning was whether to take a random
sampling or restrict the search to a specific area.
In the end the researchers decided to use profiles
from users in and around the San Diego area.

7. Selection of Users
The researchers began by collecting data on all
groups of users, ages 26-35 and 56-65, but soon
found that to be too large of a sample. As a result
the researchers restricted the study to the
homosexual community.
The researchers thought that this community
would make better use of the online dating service
due to a lack of dating resources elsewhere in our
society.

8. Selection of Users
The researchers sampled 10 profiles of each
community and age group. The researchers
analyzed these profiles to find trends in the data
that could tell us more about online dating in the
homosexual community.

9. Data Analysis
From the initial profile analysis the
researchers came up with the hypothesis
that older users take online dating more
seriously and invested more time than
younger users. To test this theory the
researchers looked at a few characteristics
of the profiles such as:
•Word Count
•“I” Usage
•Extroverted/Introverted personality
•Photo used
•Political and Religious affiliation

10. Data analysis
Word Count and “I” usage were two of the harder
things to obtain only because these had to be
counted. For the Word Count the researchers copied
the text into a MS Word doc and used the word
counting tool to help us with that. The “I” usage had
to be counted by hand.

11. Data Analysis
set 1 = 26-35 Women wdct = # of words used in profile
set 2 = 56-65 Women
set 3 = 26-35 Men "I"s = # times the subject used "I” while
set 4 = 56-65 Men desribing themselves

12. Data Analysis
The researches then calculated the percentage of “I”
Usage by dividing the number of times “I” was used by
the number of total words used in the profile.
set 1 = 26-35 Women
set 2 = 56-65 Women
set 3 = 26-35 Men
set 4 = 56-65 Men

13. Data Analysis
Another difficult piece of information was whether the
user was an introvert or an extrovert. To determine
this the researchers depended on the users
described activities. If they enjoyed social activities
with other people the researchers labeled them
extroverts and if they enjoyed solitary activities they
were labeled introverts.
set 1 = 26-35 Women
set 2 = 56-65 Women
set 3 = 26-35 Men
set 4 = 56-65 Men
Personality:
Intro = Introverted
Extro = Extroverted

14. Data Analysis
Studying the users’ photos was interesting. Our hypothesis was
that if a user was serious about online dating and wanted
something long term, they may put more time into the photo they
choose to post. the researchers thought that if a user had a
formal, full body photo they would be more likely looking for a
serious long term relationship based on the time and effort taken
to get the photo.

15. Data Analysis
set 1 = 26-35 Women
set 2 = 56-65 Women
set 3 = 26-35 Men
set 4 = 56-65 Men
Photos:
c=casual
f=formal
hs=head shot
fb=full body

16. Data Analysis
Most of the users had similar political and religious affiliations, so
all this told us was that the online homosexual community studied
was for the most part liberal, and evenly spread across religions
between alternative, traditional, and non-religious. This data did
not really help us with our theory.
set 1 26-35
Women
set 2 56-65
Women
set 3 26-35
Men
set 4 56-65
Men

17. Findings
The researchers found interesting information in the
Word Count, and “I” usage, and the “I” usage ratio.
•The older users had higher word counts than the
younger groups.
•The younger gay male group had the highest % of
“I” usage.

18. Findings

19. Findings
“I” Count Across All Groups
0.06
0.05
Younger
0.04 Women
0.03 Older Women
0.02
Younger Men
0.01
0 Older Men
I
count
mean

20. Findings
Word Counts Across All Groups
800
700
600 Younger
500 Women
400 Older Women
300
200 Younger Men
100
0 Older Men
Mean
Word
Count

21. Conclusions
• All types of people use online dating sites
• Probably due anonymity and ability to find
people outside the immediate social circle that
have similar beliefs, values, and interests.
• Older people use these sites differently
than younger users.
• Older users invest more time and effort and
share more about themselves in order to seek
meaningful, long term relationships.
• Younger users invest less time and effort and
may be seeking more superficial experiences.
These people also have more choices of where
to go and meet potential dates. (i.e. school,
bars, etc)

22. Conclusion
•This study tells us a little about the gay and lesbian
community in Southern CA but further studies need to
be conducted to get conclusive data.
•Until data begins to be collected on what happens after
these users meet each other, the only things that can be
studied are the people using these online services.
•In order to determine if these services actually work,
data needs to be collected after the users of these
services meet.
•Once we know what happens after the users meet
we can determine the success of these sites and
which types of profiles are compatible.