Internet Dating Discussion

charlie792

I just saw this thread and wanted to add my two cents....

After me and my long term ex broke up I decided to sign up to Match - originally just as a free member but almost immediately had messages waiting, curiosity got the better of me so I decided to pay for a month. To be honest I wasn't looking for anything too serious but just wanted the opportunity to meet different people. I did have a look through the site and contacted a few people but most people contacted me, I had a few chats with a couple of guys - Two in particular but they were both a fair bit older than me and I was a bit unsure of actually meeting up with them, they both gave me thier email addresses pretty soon and we talked via that instead but thats as far as it ever went. Another guy's profile came up and he seemed perfect, almost the same age and similar interests, I took the plunge and messaged him. Ive never been as excited when I saw he'd replied. He spent about a month emailing via Match and both our months subscriptions were up so we exchanged email addresses and phone numbers. We decided to meet after that in a coffee shop and we spent litterally 4 hours talking - how we didn't get kicked out Ive no idea haha. We started seeing each other now and again (we lived 30 miles apart) but kept in almost constant contact via email. Pretty soon we realised we were perfect for each other and within 3 months Id moved to the same town as him. The following year we were still together and I ended up moving into a house litterally down the road from him and last august we moved and got a place together. We've been together 3 years this year.
Don't get me wrong we've had our ups and downs but what relationship doesn't. I can honestly say if it wasn't for Match we would have never of met each other. It doesn't work for everyone but it worked for me and Ive never been happier.

salski

Just popping in - At 18 I was looking for a Long term relationship and going out to clubs was just not doing it for me. I joined a dating website and met a few fellas offline. (I told my friends where and who I was meeting and always in a public place) and for some reason on the next meet up - decided to tell my parents?! I dont know why I did this...but I ended up meeting my husband to be that night - 5 years on and we were married in May and due a baby in 5 weeks.
The reason I like internet dating is in theory you are all online for the same reason - to meet someone as opposed to a club where it could all be a cheeky snog and thats that.
My mum met her fella online and has been with him for 2 years, and my dad met his fianc!e online, they have been together for 3 years and are due to be married in May.
Sal x

mr_sharma

sscrabble wrote: »

I have been looking at reviews of paid sites, and most seem to be almost a scam - mainly because they show hundreds of people - but most are non-subscribers or dead accounts, so even if you do subscribe and email them you never get a reply --130 reviews here which is a substantial amount of people , and most are scathing of Match/Dating Direct

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews91184.html

The highest scorer at 2.4/5 is pof , despite all its faults !

Actually the highest-rated one is mysinglefriend.com with 162 reviews and an average of 3.5 out of 5

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews112002.html

I've been on the site for a few months and haven't had much success but I would recommend it as it's fun and you don't have the scam tactics of match.com (AFAIK there's a way of cancelling automatic renewal online and they're quite transparent about this).

Personally I think mysinglefriend.com is perhaps a little too middle-class for my own personal taste. One of the ways friends can describe their single friends is by use of a series of ten keywords. One of these is "super fun loving", perhaps indicative of a lexicon some people aren't familar with.

Or maybe I'm just a bit common :-)

mizfiesta

Trouble with mysinglefriend.com is you have to ask one of your friends to put you on the site. Now I don't know about you guys, but most of my friends are just too busy, and if I was to ask them to advertise me on a dating website they'd look at me strangely. I would see that look in their eye that married people have when dealing with their single friends - a strange mixture of pity and... um well I dunno, pity. And anyway who wants their friends to know that it's come to the point where dating websites are the next thing on your agenda as you can't meet anyone in 'real life'! No thanks. I like to keep my private life just that, private.

Do you think most people just create their own profile....and should I just go ahead and do that?

mr_sharma

Can you not get your family to put you on there? I see what you mean about it being a bit embarrassing but I think it's now become a lot more accepted to be on sites like match.com and mysinglefriend.com, perhaps you can bring it up in conversation light-heartedly? It's definitely worth giving it a go.

I thought the same but it's said to be one of the better ones (and despite my lack of success - it is - though they should change the pink masthead - yuk!) I think it's the fact that a friend writes about you that attracts more fairly normal people.

My own personal experience -

plentyofffish.com - waste of time, I've had a few weirdos, plenty of ignored e-mails, lack of moderation makes it a free for all which means anything goes really. I know it's worked for some people but it didn't work for me. It's a bit like going into a rough pub, it might sound appealing that the drinks are cheap, but you'll soon be wanting to move on.

match.com - if I could insert the £ or $ sign into the namesake I would've, wait, how does ma£ch.com read? Alright, maybe not but you get the idea. Joined this site on/off for a few years, had several dates, lots of e-mails, 2 girlfriends, but unfortunately it's changed into a money-making machine that wants to charge for every additional feature and make it very difficult to cancel future payments. Very, very disappointing. I had to be quite firm with the lady when canceling and basically didn't take no for an answer (she wouldn't process my cancellation). I'd personally give it a miss until they reintroduce online cancellation of future payments.

mysinglefriend.com - perhaps indicative of the fickle nature of the internet and how you shouldn't take internet dating to heart. I started off with a set of photos on my profile that got several e-mails, a few people selecting me as their favourites, one date, and one nutter who bombareded with text messages. I changed my photos since Christmas and....nada. Nothing. Zip. Several polite "no thanks" e-mails but nothing since.

Overall - I would recommend mysinglefriend.com. Actually I'd recommend going out to a bar or club or maybe a social event or party and seeing if you can meet someone that way. There's an internet site that's picking up good business for informal get-togethers (citysocialising.com). It's a little hit and miss but you can meet good people (guys and girls) and maybe find a potential partner that way?

I'm trying speed-dating for the first time this week, I'll let you know how I get on!

mizfiesta

Good luck with the speed dating Mr Sharma. I live in the back of beyond so there isn't really anything like that round my way. I couldn't ask my family to put me online either as I would be too embarrassed. Maybe I should go on a 'find a member of the public who's willing to set up a profile for you on mysinglefriend.com!'.
Would it really be unacceptable to put yourself up? I'm normally a very honest person but this can only be a tiny wee lie?

I received a special discount code thingy from Eharmony offering something along the lines of 3 months membership for just over £7 per month. I tried to subscribe using my Paypal (Eharmony accepts Paypal) account for payment but Eharmony wouldn't process it. I reckon it's so I'll use my debit/credit card details as it's much harder to cancel any automatic subscriptions that way. Have you tried Eharmony and what's your views?

Februarycat

mizfiesta wrote: »

Trouble with mysinglefriend.com is you have to ask one of your friends to put you on the site. Now I don't know about you guys, but most of my friends are just too busy, and if I was to ask them to advertise me on a dating website they'd look at me strangely. I would see that look in their eye that married people have when dealing with their single friends - a strange mixture of pity and... um well I dunno, pity. And anyway who wants their friends to know that it's come to the point where dating websites are the next thing on your agenda as you can't meet anyone in 'real life'! No thanks. I like to keep my private life just that, private.

Do you think most people just create their own profile....and should I just go ahead and do that?

I agree with you, I could not ask any of my friends to write a profile for me, most are married and never been on a dating site before, and like you I would rather write my own.

indiasdad

mizfiesta, if you do go ahead and join Eharmony I'd be interested to find out what your thoughts are as that's one of the sites I was looking at joining in the near future. I've read both good and bad things about it, some people saying it's next to useless and other people saying it's the best site out there. That seems to be the trend with most of the online dating sites though, there doesn't seem to be any one standout site that you can say for definate is worthwhile joining.
I live in a city and there seems to be a load of speed dating events going on pretty much all the time. I'm not sure if it would be my thing though as I'm not all that outgoing when I meet new people for the first time and I get the impression that you need to be like that with speed dating as essentially you need to stand out from everyone else that's there. Maybe I've got the wrong idea about that though?

mizfiesta

Indiasdad, I joined Eharmony a few days ago so I'll try and remember to update this thread to let you know how it goes. I received a special offer whereby it was only costing me around £24 for a three month subsription so I thought, right, why not.

I've been sent a lot of matches over the past few days but I've decided how I'm going to play it. I have put my profile up and I'm going to let any guys that are interested contact me - I'm not going to look at matches sent to me or try and contact anyone. Any interest I do get I'll read their profile and take it from there. I read somewhere that guys prefer to be in the driving seat and make the first move. Also I cannot be bothered reading through a bunch of profiles. Cuts through all the time wasted browsing. The matches that are sent to me will also receive my profile and they are bound to be reading them. If anyone likes my profile enough they'll make contact. I'm just planning on forgetting I've even subscribed to a dating site and if anyone gets in touch, so be it. Lazy way of doing it?

mr_sharma

Apologies for not updating the thread. Not tried eharmony, will be interesting to know how you get on?

Tried speed dating earlier in the week, was fantastic. I really, really recommend at least giving it a go. Had ten "dates", 4 matches, 3 of which were mutual. Felt a little weird to begin with certainly but it's nice to get a vibe of someone by speaking to them, rather than just looking at a picture and a profile.