In the past, dating was entirely physical. A man had to come up with a plot on where he will go and what he will say until he gets a girl. Men 
used to attend church regularly, with the hope of one day stumbling on love. Some chose to go to nightclubs and they still found love in those places. Educational institutions were breeding grounds for love. They were the places where most relationships started.
Nowadays, if you want to find love, you simply go online. This does not mean that good old offline dating is dead. However, it is becoming less relevant. There are still those who prefer the old way of doing things.
The Compatibility Factor
This is an important issue when it comes to dating. You need to find someone who is compatible with you. A lifelong partner should be a person who has the same interests as you. Some internet dating sites match people based on more than 20 scientifically proven aspects of compatibility. With real life dating, there is no guarantee that you will find someone who is compatible with you because there is no algorithm that carries out a compatibility test.
The Scenarios
The scenarios of real life dating and online dating are different.
1. In most cases of offline dating, you first meet someone in a real place. This can be a neighborhood, a place of work, school or at a party among other places.
2. Real life dating scenario can also involve first meeting someone through a phone call.
3. With online dating, you first meet someone in a virtual platform. Initially, all the interactions will be on the internet dating platform then after you know the person well, the two of you can arrange for a physical meeting.
The Technology Difference
The major difference between real life and internet dating is the technology aspect. Online dating harnesses the latest technologies while real life dating involves little or no technology.
• State of the art algorithms that facilitate real-time matching support the online dating infrastructure.
• For online dating to happen, there are servers, networks, and web technologies. These are not involved in offline dating.
Ease of Dating
Getting to meet the right person in real life is not easy. In the real world, how do you even know that someone is looking for love or not? In an online dating site, you can easily tell if someone is looking for love by checking out the individual’s profile. You can check the likes of a person, use the matching technologies of the site to determine whether there is any compatibility between the two of you, and avoid an initial meeting if the two of you are not compatible. With offline dating, you can easily meet a person who is not compatible with you.
It is easy to date online. That is why the popularity of online dating is increasing. All that you have to do is to sign up and fill your profile. With online dating, you can even date in your pajamas. However, to date, someone in real life, involves much time consuming physical meetings.
Geographical Restriction
Online dating breaks the geographical barrier. You can be in China and date someone in the US, online. That is not the case with offline dating because you have to meet the other person physically.
Third Party Involvement
Online dating involves a third party: the website owner. Your data is stored on the servers of the website owner. There can be interceptions of communications. You need to find an online dating platform that is highly reputable in regards to handling data and has a good privacy policy.
With offline dating, there is no third party unless there is a person who is hooking up the two of you.
Success Stories
The success stories of internet dating are more than the success stories of offline dating. This is because of the use of advanced matching algorithms in online dating.
THE BOTTOM-LINE
Online and offline dating are entirely different approaches of dating. However, they complement each other. When you start with online dating, you will need to end up with real life dating. It will reach a time when you will physically have to meet a lover.
The internet does not entirely remove the physical aspect from dating. However, it does away with the unnecessary aspects of real life dating and introduces a scientifically proven and tested approach that will make you meet the person that is right for you.