“So how’d you two meet?” There’s always a story, but the general ways people meet are usually similar. They met through a friend. They met at church. They met through an app. Using the freshly released How Couples Meet and Stay Together dataset, we can see the most common ways.



Most Common Ways to Meet Percentage of people out of those who were partnered. Met Through Friend Bar/Restaurant Met Through Co-worker Met Through Family School Met Online Party College Customer Church Met Through Neighbor Volunteering Public Blind Date Military Vacation Work Neighbors Singles Service Business Trip 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Met Through Friend Bar/Restaurant Met Through Co-worker Met Through Family School Met Online Party College Customer Church Met Through Neighbor Volunteering Public Blind Date Military Vacation Work Neighbors Singles Service, Not Online Business Trip 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

I’m surprised “met online” isn’t higher, at just under 10 percent. This includes dating sites and apps. I’ll have to look closer at age and the year people met in the next round. (Update: I did it.)

Respondents were asked an open-ended question about how they met and the researchers Michael J. Rosenfeld, Reuben J. Thomas, and Sonia Hausen manually classified each response. So people were allowed to describe more than one way.

For example, maybe a couple met through a friend at a restaurant, in which case two ways of meeting were flagged. Maybe they met at a family party.

Here’s the breakdown.

More Than One Way Many times, there are multiple forces at work that bring a couple together. Through Co-worker Through Neighbor Work Neighbors Through Family Singles Service Through Friend Bar/Restaurant Business Trip Volunteering Met Online Blind Date Customer Vacation College Church Military School Public Party Through Family Through Friend Through Neighbor Through Co-worker Met Online School College Military Church Volunteering Customer Bar/Restaurant Party Public Blind Date Vacation Singles Service Business Trip 1 in 1,000 1 in 500 1 in 100 1 in 50 1 in 10 Work Neighbors 1 in 1000 1 in 500 1 in 100 1 in 50 1 in 10 Through Co-worker Through Neighbor Work Neighbors Through Family Singles Service Through Friend Bar/Restaurant Business Trip Volunteering Met Online Blind Date Customer Vacation College Church Military School Public Party Through Family Through Friend Through Neighbor Through Co-worker Met Online School College Military Church Volunteering Customer Bar/Restaurant Party Public Blind Date Vacation Singles Service Business Trip Work Neighbors

The diagonal represents those who met just one way. For example, the top left grid square represents those who met only through family. That said, when friends and family are involved, it looks like there are often multiple forces at work.

Notes