  In this paper, we propose a model of the marriage market in which individuals
meet potential partners either directly or through their friends. When
socialization is exogenous, a higher arrival rate of direct meetings also
implies more meetings through friends. When individuals decide how much to
invest in socialization, meetings through friends are first increasing and then
decreasing in the arrival rate of direct offers. Hence, our model can
rationalize the negative correlation between the advent of online dating and
the decrease of marriages through friends observed in the US over the past
decades.
