I came across this piece, which includes some amazing stats about the level of Intenret dating in Europe -- good grist for the mill, since I will be opining about that topic at iDate (Nice on 15 July). In particular, the projections about future single status for the enderly are compelling:

Ruth Hill

[from The Observer -- Their eyes met across a crowded room full of speed-daters...]

Now, one in five single adults in Britain happily admits to using some sort of dating service, enabling agencies to boast of memberships larger than the population of some small countries: DatingDirect.com, for example, has a membership of more than 1.5 million.

[...]

There are currently 11 million single adults in Britain, a number that is predicted to increase to 16 million by 2010, and fairly evenly split between genders.

According to a Demos report last week, the number of socially isolated elderly people will rise by a third to 2.2 million by 2021, thanks to the failure of younger people today to find a partner.

[...]

The rise in the popularity of the web-based dating industry in the past year alone is astonishing: there are 44 million links to dating agencies on the web today, compared to 13.1 million in March 2003; 3.95 million personal advertisements, compared to less than one million in 2003; and almost 7.5 million dating services, compared to 2.8 million a year ago.

The piece also digs in on "serial daters" -- people who never really settle into relationships, but just keep on with the services and various activities (like naked speed dating).

[pointer from Judith]