Technically speaking, online dating amplifies your selection of potential love interests to people you would never have stumbled upon IRL. It’s the obvious next step after you’ve exhausted the qualified singles in your local dating pool, and the pandemic has made online dating an even more ubiquitous way to meet people than it already was. Since social distancing has essentially made hookups with strangers a non-issue, weeding out people who aren’t taking dating seriously is easier than ever.

Still, trusting the process of falling in love behind a screen doesn’t always come naturally -especially if you’ve experienced one too many people who « aren’t looking for anything serious » on Tinder. But it’s not hopeless – we promise. This 2017 study concluded that 39% of heterosexual couples and 60% of same-sex couples meet online, and another 2017 study found that people who meet online are more likely to be compatible and have a higher chance of a healthy marriage (if they decide to get hitched). Online dating ic, but it does suggest that people who sign up for sites with reputations for serious relationships (such as match (opens in a new tab) or eharmony (opens in a new tab) ) are down to put effort into a profile because they’re more ready to commit.

What’s the difference between match and eharmony?

If this is the crossroads you’re at, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to first check out two of the biggest names in the business. If you’re trying to decide between eharmony, the site that claims to make a love connection every 14 minutes, and match (opens in a new tab) , the site that’s been around the longest, there are a few points to consider for each. Both are great for serious relationships, and thanks to an obvious focus on keeping up with the times, both sites appeal to a significantly wider age range and have modernized designs that are much less corny than they used to be.

Dating to settle down has simultaneously been made easier and more difficult in the wake of COVID-19: Easier because it forces you to take things slow and alleviates the pressure of meeting up, and harder because you have no clue when you’ll get to determine whether they’re absolutely abhorrent in person.

Both match and eharmony accommodated to their lovesick user bases by adding new video dating features. Aiming to keep first dates alive even when your favorite shitty bar is only doing takeout, Vibe Check and Video Date facilitate video calls between matches without requiring switching to a third party like Zoom – or prematurely subjecting yourself to out-of-the-blue FaceTimes by handing out a phone number.

Other than that, there’s a lot that’s different about these two dating sites. We’re here to help you figure out which one will work for you.

Where eharmony (opens in a new tab) wins

When you think of eharmony, you probably think of marriage. And so does everyone else – that’s the point. This becomes clear during a hefty five-part compatibility quiz. But the weighty questionnaire is what the mydirtyhobby coupon people want: In 2017, eharmony took the already-downsized questionnaire from 450 to 150 to a meager 50 questions, and users freaked out. They’ve since reverted to a longer questionnaire, staying on track with their original business model as the serious dating site. However, it’s noticeably less corny than it was a few years ago. (You can probably thank the solid group of singles under 30 on the site for that.) Its biggest age groups are those 30 to 44 and 55 to 64 and has an almost even split of men and women.