Below is a chart illustrating recent research into online dating trends, conducted by some website called onlineschools.org. Not exactly sure how this research was compiled, but a few of the startling highlights that the data shows include:

• China has the largest number of online daters at 140 million. The US has 40 million users.
• eHarmony is the largest online dating website, with 20 million members.
• 52.4% of online daters are men and the average age of all user is 48.
• The online dating industry is worth over $1 billion a year and is larger than the porn industry.
• One of the 10 users are scammers, and one out of 10 leave within 3 months.
• Men most lie about age.
• Women most lie about weight.
• One out of 3 women who meet men online have sex on the first encounter.
• Of these, 4 out 5 women did not use protection.
• Average length of courtship for marriage for those who met online: 18 months.
• Average length of courtship for marriage for those who met offline: 42 months.
• Women are at their most desirable at age 21.
• Men have twice as many online pursuers as women at age 48.
• One of out 10 sex offenders use online dating to meet people.

So what does this all mean? A cursory analysis seems to show that online dating is truly a hit or miss proposition. With 1 out of 10 users being scammers and 1 out of 10 being pedophiles, or some other kind of sex offender, your odds are 20% of running into some serious trouble right off the bat. Further, with another 1 out of 10 pretty much quitting right away, the percentage of useless profiles are now up to 30%. So now you are down to 70% of profiles in play. The good news is that if you are a man and you do score a date, your chances of having sex are pretty damn good- 33%. And if you are in your late 40s or older, you have twice as many women competing for you as the women have men competing for them, which means you’ll be so busy having sex with miscellaneous strange women that even Tiger Woods would be proud.  However, if you are marriage minded and you do somehow weed through all the scammers, sex offenders and sex addicts, and actually do meet somebody you are compatible with, you stand a reasonably good chance of getting married before your friends who met their partners offline. Not sure why that is but quite possibly because people who are looking for something serious online already know they are ready for marriage. Complete information can be found by checking out this handy graphic below: