How Couples Meet and Stay Together: Preliminary Findings from Wave I

Michael J. Rosenfeld, Stanford University

This paper explores ways in which the Internet is changing the market for romantic dating in the US. I utilize a new dataset, How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) survey, Wave I. HCMST is a nationally representative study of American adults. Findings show a substantial difference between couple types in how couples met, with heterosexual couples relying more on social ties through family and friends, and same-sex couples relying more on the Internet. For all couple types, reliance on the Internet to meet romantic partners has been rising sharply in recent years, displacing neighborhood, family, and the workplace as venues for meeting partners.