Have you ever wondered how online dating actually came to be? Believe it or not, its roots date way back to the 16th century, when a newspaper advertised matrimonial services for single men and women looking for love.
From there, it evolved into personal ads, which were found in most newspapers, to telephone dating where people could leave messages for other singles, which then led to dating agencies that brought us the age of video dating.
With the introduction of the internet in the 1990s, online dating was born.
This kind of dating actually began through ISPs who offered their own chat rooms designed to bring singles together via this new virtual world.
The first dedicated internet dating website to launch all the way back in April 1995 was Match.
com.
This pioneering site is today one of the world's biggest and most recognised online dating websites, boasting over 20 million members from around 250 countries.
Throughout the 1990s, internet dating sites began cropping up all over the internet and were thrust into the mainstream with the release of the film You've Got Mail, which featured Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan striking up a relationship online.
The film helped to remove the common stigma attached to online dating, presenting it as a socially acceptable way of finding love in the modern age.
Today, internet dating is one of the most commonly used services over the web, and it's thanks to the internet which makes connecting with people that much easier for us all.