Operation Seduction

By Colin McGregor

Online dating sites are as old as the internet itself. But did you know that singles have been using modern technology to hook up for almost 60 years?

The world’s first computerized dating service was created in London. It was called St. James Computer Dating (it later became Com-Pat). It was launched by businesswoman Joan Ball way back in 1964.

In the autumn of 1965, two young enterprising Harvard students used IBM computers to launch North America’s first love match service. They created a survey consisting of 75 questions for lovesick candidates to fill out.

Their questionnaire was aimed at young students looking for a hookup, not for a marriage. According to the New York Times, questions included: “Do you think there is a God that answers prayers?” and “Is intensive sexual activity before marriage part of the growing process?”

Answers to the questionnaires were then transferred onto punch cards and processed by an IBM 7090 computer. Singles sent their completed surveys through the mail, along with $3. A week or two later they received a list of matches generated by the computer, including phone numbers. In 1966, “Operation Match” counted 90,000 users.

According to cloudwards.net, there are 8,000 dating sites ion the worldwide web today. But that wasn’t always the case.

Access to computers and the internet exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, bringing along more people looking to find a connection. In 1995, the first online dating site in the world was launched in the form of Match.com. Lonely hearts were filled with glee, as now they could meet and flirt with potential partners from the comfort of their own home.

Created in 1996, Réseau Contact was Québec’s pioneer in online dating. Founded during the era of pagers and answering machines, Réseau Contact was still widely used until recently. It was aimed at the over-30 crowd looking for a longer-term relationship. Sadly, in November of 2023, Réseau Contact shut its doors for good after over 25 years of helping people find love. The site was still profitable. Canada’s and Quebec’s new internet privacy protection laws were cited as a reason behind the closure.

When the gay dating site Grindr was launched in 2009, it unleashed what can only be described as a sexual revolution in the LGBTQ+ community.  

The experience of finding a sex partner was as simple as opening an application on your phone. Grindr was offered at the App Store only six months after the launch of the iPhone 3G. Not only was it the first meeting application for gay people, but also the first to use geolocation technology.

According to Pew research, 55% of all LGBTQ+ adults have used a dating site, compared to 28% of all heterosexual adults.  

No surprise, then, that when a little-known start-up called Tinder was created in 2012, a whole new demographic got into the online dating scene.

Just as Grindr had done for the gay community, Tinder opened things up for Gen Y singles. The app has users in 90 countries. By 2021 Tinder had become far and away the most used dating site on Earth, with 67 million annual downloads. And 75% of Tinder users are men.