Of course, it may not be fair to use marriage as the measure of a happy outcome. And the service has no figures on how many people returned after being dumped, or how many suffered from divorces or broken engagements. Going to the grocery store or the bookstore at peak hour results in exactly zero meetings. People simply don't know where to go to meet. Storm King, a doctoral student at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif., said online romances create a false intimacy among couples.
People know only the good stuff, and none of the bad.
The missing pieces are filled in based on hope, not on reality. Mr. King has an example from his own life. In 1993, while living in Hilo, Hawaii, he met a woman from Michigan through an online bulletin board. Three weeks later, he paid for her to fly out to meet him. I don't date women who wear mascara.