OTTAWA -- Canadians seem to love being in love, a new survey by Ipsos Reid has found.
Seven in 10 Canadians polled said they are romantically in love right now -- with more women (80 per cent) than men (67 per cent) feeling amorous.
The poll also found that 16 per cent of Canadians had found love online, with the younger demographic having more success -- more than a quarter of respondents aged 18-34 had been successful in seeking a mate via the web. Only seven per cent of those aged 55 and older had started a relationship online, either by way of e-mail or the Internet.
But Markus Frind, founder of the free online dating service plentyoffish.com, says the average age of a member on his site is 37. Plentyoffish is the No. 1 dating website in the country and one of the most widely used social networking sites in the world, with more than 10 million members. He sees more than 700,000 hits each day and says the site is responsible for starting 800,000 relationships each year.
"It's so obvious that people would use online dating over other methods, or at least start to, in a huge way," said Frind. "At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that online dating is very easy and simple to use.
"If you're 35 and single, what are the chances of you meeting someone at a bar or a grocery store who is exactly what you want? Your opportunity to meet them is very limited, whereas online, you have literally thousands of people who are exactly what you are looking for."
Frind says he expects online dating can only become more popular with older singles as they catch on to the technology. Traffic on Plentyoffish doubles annually.
Perhaps the younger generation just has better luck: The 18-34 age bracket had the largest number of respondents saying they had been bit by the love bug, at 75 per cent.
The poll -- which surveyed 1,033 Canadians -- also found most Canadians were satisfied with their lovers, with only one in 10 Canadians saying his or her lover was "not very good" or "not good at all."
Classical music (27 per cent) was determined to be the most romantic genre of music compared to pop, jazz and blues/funk, but just as many respondents (28 per cent) said none of these genres was most romantic.
Ipsos Reid said the poll was reliable within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
-- Canwest News Service
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