Apple of Their Eye

[sassa]

Apple of Their Eye -

Online Survey Finds Women Want to Date Teachers - Commentary By Dianne Lynch

Special to ABCNEWS.com Feb. 13 —

Forget tall, dark, and handsome. This Valentine's Day, American women are trading up — to cozy, comfortable and committed. In a poll of more than 5,000 single American women, conducted this month by Match.com, women rejected the rich CEO, the powerful politician, and the Wall Street stockbroker as their ideal dream date — and picked the teacher instead. The teacher? As in, the guy with the middling income and the chalk under his fingernails? Values Over $ Value That's the one, says Trish McDermott, the Vice President of Romance (no kidding) at Match.com., named in December by Jupiter Research as the largest dating service on the Internet. "When you consider what we've been through as a community in the past year," McDermott says, "it makes sense that women are reexamining their priorities." A teacher is a guy with strong values, says McDermott. He's available to his family, and he works hard without all the late nights and business travel typical of other professions. "Teachers make great dads, they have summers off to spend with the kids, and they tend to be somewhat selfless," she says. "They're in a fairly low-paying profession because they have a commitment to shaping the world and giving something back. "Those are the qualities women are looking for in their relationships," she says. "When you think about it like that, it makes a lot of sense." Settling Down In other words, we're getting real about the kinds of people we're willing to settle down with. And we're more eager than ever to get on with the settling. More than half of the singles who responded to the Match.com survey said a romantic relationship is more important to them today than it was a year ago. In fact, 59 percent of women and 55 percent of men said they're looking for a long-term commitment, or marriage — up from 40 percent of women and 37 percent of men who said so last year. "We definitely see people waking up and having a new sense that a romantic relationship is a priority," says McDermott. "The clock is ticking, and they realize that if they want romance, they have to take an active role in making that happen." In the old, pre-Internet days, people depended upon their friends and families to hook them up with their soulmates. And once they were married, they stayed married. In 2002, we change jobs and locations, we marry later and divorce more often, we work harder and put in longer hours (and if we're smart, we don't date our co-workers). Our social networks aren't what they used to be, and meeting Mr. or Ms. Right doesn't happen quite so naturally. Instead, for at least 2.5 million lonely hearts, it's happening digitally. Digital Dating Personal sites remain one of the most popular Web destinations, according to December 2001 data collected by Jupiter Communications, a media research firm. The lovelorn who go mate shopping online tend to be male (59 percent vs. 41 percent women), adult (25 to 44), and middle-income (less than $60,000). More than half — 56 percent — have kids. The men flock to a handful of sites including outpersonals.com, matchmaker.com, friendfinder.com, matchmaker sites, and oneandonly, says Jupiter analyst Max Kalehoff. Unfortunately, it appears the women don't. "Potentially adding to the frustration of being a single male surfer is the fact that none of those sites are among those with the highest concentration of single or divorced/widowed/separated females," Kalehoff says. Top sites in December included Matchmaker sites, with 3.02 million unique hits; Yahoo! Personals, with 3.7 million unique visitors, and match.com, with 3.8 million unique hits — a number online sites say has jumped in the past month. It's mating season on the Internet.

The Odds: 6,205,142,671 to One

Forty percent of Americans think we each have one — just one — soul mate out there somewhere, according to another Match.com national survey. Given the 6,205,142,671 (and counting) people in the world, the odds of actually locating that Only One don't seem too great. But McDermott says that's another reason to take your search to the Internet. "When you're looking for a needle in a haystack, that haystack is now the whole world," she enthuses. "There are no geographic boundaries to your search for love." If geography's not an issue, neither is price; at less than $25 a month, meeting singles online is a sight cheaper than doing it in real life. And because the Internet never closes, digital dating is as convenient as it is efficient. Truth is, the only real challenge may be tracking down a teacher. That, and convincing him he's the dream date of the digital age. A teacher and a journalist, Dianne Lynch is the author of Virtual Ethics

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/WiredWomen/wiredwomen020213.html

[dgmodel]

Originally posted by sassa

Apple of Their Eye -

Online Survey Finds Women Want to Date Teachers - Commentary By Dianne Lynch

Special to ABCNEWS.com Feb. 13 —

Forget tall, dark, and handsome. Women rejected theWall Street stockbroker as their ideal dream date

looks like im shit out of luck again... (What do they say about Equity Traders who wish to be economics teachers??? i might still have a chance with some sucker uh i mean some woman...)