How couples meet, a scientific study

Seven or 8 years ago, I was single again for the first time in a while. I asked myself: how do people meet other people they want to have LTRs with? At the time, I had had 4 LTRs(1) and met 2 at school, one at home, and one thru friends (since then, I met one at a bar). But I wasn't in school any more, so I was counting on my friends, and they can't always deliver. (2)

I decided to cast my net wider for this study: how do the people I know meet the people they want to be with? Presumably, of all sub-sets, I have the most in common with the people I know. I counted 16 happy couples married/together at least 1 year: about 1/3 had met thru each mechanism: school, public places (bars, clubs, walking the dog, whatever), and personal ads.

Last Sunday, it rained. Eric and I spent a marathon day on the couch reading and talking (which he claims is his favorite thing to do). I think something in the issue of the Economist he was reading brought up the subject: how do people meet? He made the argument that meeting thru personals (like we did) was unusual. So, I got out my phone (for the list of names of people I know) and counted how they met their SO.

I'm older now, and I've been to graduate school since my last study. The result came out significantly differently this time, but still included 16 couples. Nine (56%) had met at school, 3 each (19%), friends and personals, and 1 at a bar. I wish I had that list of names from my 1998 study for comparison: who is still together? Does that correlate with how they met?

It's been a couple days now, and I have thought of a few more people I know, who all met in public, bringing that mechanism up to rival friends and personals. But what I started to wonder was, if so many of my friends met their partners at school, how does that correlate with how I met them? For the sake of this measurement, I changed the parameters: people either met their partner or me at school or not, is it the same? I found that 75% of my friends (the original 16) met their partner the same way they met me (at school or not).

Endnotes:
(1) For the sake of the study, a LTR is defined as a relationship lasting one year or longer.
(2) In a way, I guess what I was really asking myself is, if I get all proactive and try to meet met men at bars and/or thru personals ads, am I likely to find what I am looking for? Where should I focus my energy?