Survey Shows More Turn to the Internet to Find Lost Loves

Parting with a loved one can be a heartbreaking experience that few would ever want to revisit. However, in recent months, the number of those searching online for their former flames has increased so much it has given birth to what they call the “Ex Files,” the Daily Mail says. Most of them, though, just want to know how their ex is doing and have no intention to pursue a reconciliation.

An older survey has shown that online dating can – and does – in many instances lead to true love. However, of the respondents to the latest poll, few are those who actually search for an ex online in order to rekindle the romance. Although almost half of those who log online have also searched an old flame, only four percent admit to doing so with the clear purpose of a reconciliation. Even more surprising, about seven percent actually do rekindle the romance, even if they were the ones to get the boot.

“One in four is searching for a childhood sweetheart, one in five for an old boyfriend or girlfriend and one in ten for a former partner. Thirty-seven per cent said they sought out an ex simply because they wanted to ‘see what they were doing these days,’ according to the poll of 1,000 adults by search engine Ask Jeeves. Four per cent made the effort to track down an old flame to tell them how happy they are without them – and 3 percent even did so in the hope of finding out that their ex was miserable.” the Daily Mail writes of the recent poll.

Oppositely, 20 percent of respondents admitted they had repeatedly ignored emails from former flames because they no longer saw the purpose of maintaining a contact. Nevertheless, those not looking for a long-lost love on the Internet also do their share in searching for former contacts, be they people they used to work with, school mates or people they met on holiday but never got back to. A comparatively insignificant percentage goes online to look for relatives, the survey also shows.

“But despite the popularity of ancestry websites, only 22 per cent ever go to search engines to seek out long lost relatives, according to the survey. The poll also highlighted a trend for ‘vanity searching,’ with 59 per cent admitting that they have typed in their own name to see what comes up. And men are more likely to do this than women – two thirds confess to looking for themselves online, against just over half of women. Perhaps most bizarrely, 10 per cent said they had searched for a former bully, whether from school or the workplace.” the Mail further says of the survey.