If you’re on the fence about trying online dating, consider this: A recent survey by Match.com found that 17 percent of the people who got married in the past three years met online, and those couples should send a wedding invite to Amarnath Thombre. He’s Match.com’s vice-president of strategy - and he says that the technology used to find a love match isn’t that different from what Netflix uses to give people movie suggestions

Think of this way, the movies you order predict what your preferences are, and what movies you may enjoy in the future that you may not have thought of, or heard of. Match.com does the same thing. They look at what kind of people you’re contacting on the site and use that information to find similar people. What about the questionnaire you fill out when you join the site? Well, they don’t rely on it as much as you may think.

They know that people tend to exaggerate information on their profiles, like education or height. They may shoot for the moon when they describe the person they’d like – with model looks and a 6-figure salary. So they pay more attention to who you actually contact. For example, a woman may say she wants a rock-climber who hasn’t been married before, but then she’ll e-mail a divorcee. So the algorithm the site uses will dial down the marriage preference and send her more divorcees that like hell

One man we read about signed up stating that he preferred brunettes, but because he kept clicking on the profiles of blondes, Match.com sent him a suggestion of a blonde’s profile with similar interests to his. They were married this year. The bottom line: Match.com changes the love algorithm based on whom you e-mail or check out, because many times what we actually want is different than what we think we want.