Despite the reports in the national press over the past two years of northern villages devoid of women, frustrated men calling out for single women and even going to the extreme of driving them in on buses, a new online dating and friendship service is having the opposite problem, with their membership made up of 85% women.
Sally Bolton, Founder of Country Couples which was launched in December 2007 for UK countryside singles, says "I keep reading press reports about villages like Alston and Weardale where men greatly outnumber women and spend their evenings pining away and playing pool, so I am at a loss to explain why my new website is attracting so many more women than men."
All of the pre-launch research suggested that online dating and friendship sites attract more than double the males to females, hence the number of sites offering free membership for women. Yet from the launch of the new site they have struggled to attract male members.
Living in a small Cumbrian village and seeing that singles were struggling to find partners gave Sally the idea for starting the online dating and friendship service.
Sally said "Living in a rural area can make it difficult to meet new friends and our site is attracting people who are genuinely looking for a relationship rather than a casual affair. However, most rural men I know are very busy and don't spend much time on computers but it is a great way for rural singles to make new friends and meet someone special. Just an hour in the evening can get you connected with like-minded people."
Gone are the days of meeting your match at the local barn dance and with village social life dwindling it is becoming harder for people living in the countryside to meet other singles. Perhaps in places like Weardale the village pub should install a computer and allow these men to log on during the evening, maybe this would finally end the rural singles crisis.
Online flirting is a fun, easy, anonymous, risk free way of seeking personal recognition and finding partners with a minimum of risk and effort. You can test the relationship by chatting anonymously online and if compatible, individuals can choose to meet in person. After corresponding and exchanging photos, you already feel as though you know the person. The first meeting is thus not really a blind date but rather the first opportunity to meet in person.
Sally concluded "We need rural men, we will help them to produce an attractive profile and take them step by step through how to use the site if they aren't very confident with computers but we need them to get off the pool table and log in so we can find our lovely ladies their dream dates."
Having reviewed the press reports we can see that online dating is rarely, if ever, suggested as a solution for rural men and yet it seems to be the obvious one. For those interested in exploring online dating Country Couples can be found at www.country-couples.co.uk
