The recent cold UK weather has caused a surge in the number of people joining online dating sites. With millions of people unable to get into work because of the bad weather, people have been exploring ways to find a new partner – via the Internet.  There’s only so much daytime TV you can watch when stuck inside so it seems people are turning their attention to finding new partners online.

www.mysinglefriend.com say that the number of visitors to their website has increased by 55% on one day alone and their busiest time of day during the week was 3pm rather than the usual 10pm.

Sarah Beeny, founder of Mysinglefriend.com said "The increase in traffic over the past two days has been very unusual, as typically they are quiet days for us - we are usually busiest at weekends.

"We can only put this down to the bad weather meaning more people are staying at home. We saw a similar picture when we had snow last year, but obviously the weather is a lot worse at present so the increase has been much more marked."

 

Other popular website singles365.com reported visitor numbers grew by 27% over the last few days than the same time last year.

 

Singles365.com’s spokewoman Katie Mowe says "January is our busiest month anyway, as many single people make it their new year's resolution to find a partner,"

 

Recent reports indicate that the dating industry is booming and this big increase in numbers helps enforce the statistics.

According to a study by market research company Forrester Research, the number of Britons paying to use online dating agencies is set to grow from 2.6 million people in 2006 to six million by 2012.