Online dating doesn’t just save time, it’s cheaper too

Meeting someone online leads to courtships that are thousands of dollars cheaper than meeting and wooing somebody the traditional way. According to market strategists at New York City–based ConvergEx Group, the average dating period in a run-up to a marriage for a couple that met in real life hovers around the 42-month mark. If that couple goes on one date a week, at a cost of around $130 per date for meals, movies, drinks and the like, then the total cost of the courtship would amount to roughly $23,660.

New studies say online dating is not only an efficient way of finding your would-be spouse, but also more cost-effective than the old-fashioned methods of seeking out love. Researchers tell us about one-third of new marriages in the U.S. begin with an online meeting. And now, according to market strategists at ConvergEx Group, a New York-based global brokerage company, online data can also save a person thousands of dollars. The ConvergEx folks, using data from statisticbrain.com, note the average courtship time for “off-line,” traditional dating ahead of a marriage runs around 42 months – or two years longer than the 18.5-month, average dating-to-marriage cycle for people who meet online. And using that data, they came up with a formula.