As a working, studying, single mother Mel Nicholson was so time poor she had no idea if she would ever find love.
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So it came as a huge surprise to her when the man of her dreams, Paul, walked into her life.
Although, walked might not be the best description - perhaps downloaded, or emailed might be a better one.
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"We've now had two children together, we've renovated and bought houses together, we've been through a cancer treatment together - we've had a really full life. But we are so close and it's just the best relationship," Mrs Nicholson said.
It has now been just over 10 years since the Nicholson's tied the knot and, still fully in love and with a cancer diagnosis in their wake, they decided to renew their vows.
Now living in Longford, Mrs Nicholson said she never could have foreseen her success with online dating.
"I didn't believe in soul mates until I met Paul. Something just clicked with Paul and I thought, 'I actually get what that means now'," she said.
I'd been on the site three or four years before and there were a few d*** heads. I'll admit, there are a few people that just want to send you doodle pictures. So I'd shut that down and I wasn't really looking for anybody but one day I opened up my profile and within about an hour Paul messaged me.
- Mel Nicholson
Online dating: 'til internet do us part?
The Nicholson's love story is one of serendipitous twists and turns that seem to be becoming more and more common, particularly as online dating continues to boom.
While dating apps like Tinder typically keep their cards close to their chest, in 2017 they came out with statistics that 15 per cent of Australians use the app.
Online dating has continued to grow and by 2019 the relatively fresh form of meeting people had already become the most popular way to do so.
Zack Dwyer, a sociologist from the University of Tasmania, has researched the world of online dating for the past five years.
His study from 2016 focused on the dating habits of people in their 30's and 40's and showed online dating had become the most efficient, secure and easy way for divorcees or committed singles to meet potential partners.
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While his study has aged, he said his findings were just the tip of the iceberg, and more recent research had shown dating apps had broken through stigma and assumptions to become the new-norm for dating.
Figures out of the US, which Mr Dwyer said are transposable to Australia, showed about 40 per cent of heterosexual couples meet through online dating while the figure ballooned to 60 per cent for same sex couples.
Mr Dwyer said, given the insular nature of the dating pools in the North and North-West of Tasmania, his studies had shown residents appreciated the ability the apps gave to change parameters and widen the dating pool.
And for the most part Mr Dwyer said users of dating apps were looking for long-term relationships with escaping loneliness a key reason.
Looking for love in all the tight spaces
In the 2016 Australian census, across the over 100,000 people in the electoral division of Bass, 51.4 per cent of the population said they identified as female and 48.6 per cent identified as male. The numbers were near identical in Braddon.
These percentages are above the national average, meaning there are more people who identify as female looking for love across the North and North-West.
According to UTAS's latest Institute for Social Change report on Tasmanian demography, the North and North-West have the lowest sex ratios - males to females - in the state.
In the whole of Launceston there are 94.8 men for every 100 women, but Prospect Vale (87), Newstead (87.4) and Norwood (88.4) do not even reach the 90 mark.
Burnie (94.1) and Devonport (91) fare worse still, and Meander Valley is only slightly better at 94.5.
But that is not news to Northern Tasmanian based matchmaker Hannah Cardiff.
Ms Cardiff launched Blush Matchmaking last year and of the 300 people in the her matchmaking database the significant majority are women.
In fact, Ms Cardiff was basically screaming out for more males to match the demand within her service from women.
Men are not keen to do anything except online date. I pretty much had to beg the guys to come to the last event and they all had the best time, but it's just getting them out of their comfort zone.
- Hannah Cardiff, matchmaker
"It seems to be everywhere but particularly in Tassie there's a bit of the unknown [which is a barrier]."
While online dating was part of the service she provided, a maintained appetite for in-person dating and meeting people was one of the demands from her database.
"Different things work for different people. Some people are just not open at all to doing online dating, so if they're not open to that then at least there can be another option here in Tassie," she said.
That other option, from Ms Cardiff's end, are singles events.
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Like Mr Dwyer, Ms Cardiff noted an importance of highlighting dating changes and trends for divorcees and those jumping back in the dating pool for the first time in a long time.
"The more single people I was talking to the more I realised how daunting and out of depth you can be once you've been in a long-term relationship," she said.
As part of Blush Matchmaking Ms Cardiff holds dating coaching and explores meeting techniques to help her clientele, but as far as the North and North-West dating scene goes she said it was a tricky one to navigate.
There's plenty of eligible people out there but it's just accessing them. A certain type of person does online dating, but there are still people that don't.
- Hannah Cardiff, matchmaker
- The Australian e-Safety Commissioner's tips for safety when online dating.
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