Tony Sheridan, PhD student and teaching assistant (25)
If online dating isn't going your way, you could consider going on a reality television show. That worked, sort of, for 25-year-old Cavan man - and Bachelor of the Year 2012 nominee - Tony Sheridan. After a two-and-a-half-year relationship ended, Sheridan set up a profile on the dating site plentyoffish.com. Nobody viewed it.
But when he appeared on 'Come Dine with Me Ireland' he got more than 400 friend requests on Facebook. "This one girl popped up on chat after the first night of the show. I looked at her profile, and she was a very attractive girl. After five minutes of chat she said she could come over to mine if I didn't mind her staying the night. I blocked her," he says. "I'm not a one-night-stand kind of guy. I'm actually a bit of a prude."
Sheridan is now cautious about chatting to strangers online. "I had watched the documentary 'Catfish', about people lying about themselves online. One girl popped up on chat a few times after the show ended . . . I got talking to her. She had a very attractive profile," he says.
"On Facebook one night I divulged some information to her that I probably shouldn't have. Soon after, she added a friend of mine and poked him. My friend found five profiles on Facebook and Bebo with the same pictures" of the woman.
Despite this, he is well disposed to dating through social media. "I don't think I've had a relationship over the past seven years that hasn't stemmed at least a little from social media. Meeting people on Facebook and Twitter is becoming normal."
Sheridan agreed with a friend that, if they were still single at 28, they would marry each other. They've since raised that to 38. His Plenty of Fish account still has no views.