Dating web-sites?

I was near there a couple of months back... if you consider Dublin "near".

Just a boat trip Dino

when I reply that I'm content with my celibacy, have no libido/sexual desire, do not "take care of it myself"

Next time I’m in Eire,
I’ll try to get there
But as long as I’m here
It’s too far from near.

...if a guy was looking to get married and have a handful of kids that would be a bit of a deal killer there.

I've found that dating sites are a huge waste of time for me. I put a lot of effort into my profiles/intros to give a detailed explanation about who I am, what I'm looking for in a partner, etc. but very few read before sending a message so I'm answering questions that I had already clarified in my profile. Then, once a promising conversation happens, the topic of sex and intimacy comes up, and when I reply that I'm content with my celibacy, have no libido/sexual desire, do not "take care of it myself", then I end up getting ridiculed and "ghosted".

Hey, you could just have a stork drop some off

...if a guy was looking to get married and have a handful of kids that would be a bit of a deal killer there.

Perhaps you haven't read Genesis 11 and 12, where God told Abram to move... twice.

so your advice is to wait for a booming voice from heaven to tell a person to move?

At my age, I’m not looking to carry and give birth to a handful of kids. If he already happened to have kids, I’m fine with a blended family. Sex is just the last of my priorities, especially when I’m single. I think that last part is what scares the men off.

...if a guy was looking to get married and have a handful of kids that would be a bit of a deal killer there.

At my age, I’m not looking to carry and give birth to a handful of kids. If he already happened to have kids, I’m fine with a blended family. Sex is just the last of my priorities, especially when I’m single. I think that last part is what scares the men off.

That might just be what you need.

I was trying to count in my head the number of couples I could recall during my time here (granted, it's been a while.)

Off the top of my head, I could remember about 10 (most had announced it publicly on social media, so it wasn't just rumors.)

How many of those couples are still together today?

Hmm... JesusLives and Tourist. At least, that's all I know of, and I'm sure there were/are many more. Most were just relationships but a few were marriages. Some fell in love with people who didn't really exist in real life, but were made up for the internet.

There was another particular marriage that I remember seeing publicly announced here but they both left the site, so I don't know what happened. I hope everything worked out for them, as they seemed like a good match.

I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone. This site has been an enormous blessing to me for meeting friends, both online and then later in real life, so I have no doubt that couples can find each other here as well.

However, I also think that it's important to be realistic. To only say that marriages are made here but not also have the heartaches and breakups mentioned too would be like promoting prosperity preaching.

As for who these people were, that was in the past, and their stories are theirs alone to tell.

However, the most common reason given for the breakups, when a public reason was given, seemed to be because of long distances that were tough to work around.

Do you believe that God leads His people to be together in marriage or do you think it is something that Christians weigh up and decide about themselves?

The crux of the matter is God's will; not His permissive will, but His directive will. If He is telling the man to move to the woman's location, then the man should go. Otherwise, he shouldn't. The same question goes for her.

yeah i used the Facebook one for a hot minute. It does suck that you can't filter through matches. I had a girl on there who claimed she was Christian DEMANDING abstinence before marriage only to discover that she smokes weed like a chimney every day.

How does someone know when God is telling them to do something?

When pastor or prophet or a church brother/sister comes up to you and say, "God told me to tell you, you must marry this or that person." What do you do with that information?

How do Christians know when God is leading them to marry someone? Do they hear a voice? Does God tell them in a dream? Or do they get the instruction from someone who has the gift of prophecy?

There are some Christians who declared at the start of their marriage that it was God who brought them together. But down the road they get divorced. What went wrong there?

What about people who made decisions in business and other areas of their life, only to see it go horribly wrong. These same people in the beginning said that God was leading them, so what went wrong there?