Okay, I'll admit it: I was a bit surprised that online dating users had become so honest about their spring break fling wants.

True asked just over five hundred of their users this month what they were looking for relationship-wise on their spring break this year: friendship, casual dating, a spring break fling, long-term relationship, or marriage. A full thirty percent answered they were looking for a spring break fling, with a close twenty-nine percent opting for casual dating.

"Dating is all about where you are in your life,"

said TRUE's relationship expert and profile coach in a recent press release.

"I think that many people make the assumption that because someone joins a dating site, they're ready to settle down. But we know that many of our members are in a stage of their lives where they simply want to date around and explore relationships with other singles."

Although the sample group was small, the results do share a lot about True's users, of whom eighty-six percent said they'd be open to dating someone long-term they met after having a spring break fling with them.

1. True, with 11% of the market. 55.9% of site users are male, 44.1% female.
2. SinglesNet, with 9.3% of the market. 51.5% of site users are male, 48.5% female.
3. Yahoo! Personals, with 9.13% of the market. 51.4% male, 48.6% female.
4. Match, with 8.22% of the market. 45% are male, 55.0% are female.
5. PlentyOfFish, with5.68% of the online dating market (and the first of two free dating sites on the list), with 54.7% of users male and 45.3% female.
6. eHarmony, with 5.51% of the online dating market. 68.6% of users are female, while only 31.4% are male.
7. BlackPeopleMeet with 2.44% of the web dating market. 56.9% of users are female with the remainder being male.
8. Mate1, with 2.33% of the web dating market and an almost evenly skewed male to female ratio. Like PlentyOfFish, it is also a free web dating site.
9. ManHunt, with 1.90% of the online dating market. Since this is a gay dating site, it is of no surprise that most users are male (90.4%).
10. Adam4Adam, with 1.86% of the online dating market. The site is predominantly gay, with 85.8% of its users male.

In fact, the report provides overall numbers that show,

European online dating sites are attracting new users and will double revenues from 243 million euros in 2006 to 549 million euros in 2011.

One of the authors of the report, Nate Elliot, provided additional insight in a press release:

“Although US dating sites are converting browsers into payers better than ever before, they’ll have to offer additional paid services to existing customers, and tap into new user segments, to reignite significant market growth.”

Compared with the U.S. web dating market, the European web dating market has grown in a predictable way for five years, with users increasing from four to six percent in the last year alone.

After a banner year of revenues exceeding three-hundred million, Match.com decided to expand into these new markets because of increased demand for online dating services in both countries.

For instance, European web dating site growth is expected to hit a 30% increase in 2007, according to Jupiter Research, while iResearch determined that the web dating market in China will double in the coming year, as there are more than 64 million singles in the country today.