Meeting online may be the norm in today’s dating scene, but connecting offline initially may lead to better relationship outcomes
By Chris Stokel-Walker
13 August 2025
How couples meet could impact the quality of their relationship
Good Faces/Unsplash
People who meet their partners online seem to experience less relationship satisfaction and a lower intensity of love than those who first connected in person, according to a study covering 50 countries worldwide.
The advent of the internet has changed the way people form relationships. For instance, in the US in the mid-20th century, heterosexual couples most commonly met through friends; this had changed to online by the early 21st century.
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To understand how this impacts the quality of relationships, Marta Kowal at the University of Wrocław in Poland and her colleagues surveyed 6646 people who were mostly in heterosexual relationships across 50 countries from all continents except Antarctica.
They were asked whether they met their partner online and to rate their relationship satisfaction. They were also assessed on the intensity of their love, based on their reported levels of intimacy (such as the feeling that their partner understands them), passion and commitment to their partners (like whether they view their relationship as permanent).
The 16 per cent of participants who met their partner online scored an average of 4.20 out of 5 on a relationship-satisfaction scale, compared with 4.28 among those who first connected offline – a small but statistically significant difference. They also reported lower intimacy, passion and commitment levels.