A lot of people are hoping 2013 is the year they find love -- or at least a lot of dates.
Grant Langston, vice president of customer experience at eHarmony, tells Mashable an increase in sign-ups happens every year on Christmas Day, bumps up on New Year's Day and goes until Valentine's Day. December through February is high-season for dating websites.
"All this increased activity makes the pool [of prospective daters] bigger," he said.
Match.com reports that 64% of singles' 2013 New Year's resolutions are about finding love this year. And since 1 out of 5 relationships start online, dating websites make a good place to look for love.
On Jan. 2, 2012, Match.com experienced a 55% boost in registration. No figures were available for this year, but it's safe to assume more people than usual are considering giving online dating a try.
"This is a time when hope and optimism are strong within the singles community and the draw to try Match.com is at an all-time high," Amarnath Thombre, SVP of strategy and analytics for Match.com, said in a press release.
But it's not just New Year's resolutions pushing people to focus more on their love lives. Biological anthropologist and chief scientific advisor to Match.com, Dr. Helen Fisher, explains: "Christmas is a time of celebration, a time of reflection, and a time of rebirth. Long before our forebears celebrated Christmas or Hanukkah, they celebrated the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21), the shortest day of the year -- and the rebirth of the sun. So midwinter has long been a time of reappraisal, a time to reflect on what we have and what we lack. And as the holidays come to an end, we naturally resolve to fill what's missing in our lives -- particularly love, the most powerful of our human needs and joys."
Do you plan to sign-up for an online dating website this year? Which one? Tell us in the comments.