Online Romantic Relationships: How They Meet and Communicate?

As life becomes increasingly integrated with technology, romantic relationships have been transformed, with online relationships emerging as a contemporary reality. Dating applications and social media now play a decisive role in how individuals meet and interact with potential partners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role and predictive power of communication method, meeting method, gender, and age in determining the likelihood of university students forming online romantic relationships. The study sample consisted of 318 university students, including 253 women and 65 men. The research data were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. Findings indicate that the mode of online communication is the strongest predictor of engaging in an online romantic relationship, followed by the online meeting method and age. The gender variable, however, was found to have no significant effect. While individuals who prefer online communication and meeting methods are more likely to establish an online romantic relationship, this likelihood decreases with increasing age. Keywords: Online romantic relationship, online partner, online communication.