*** The OFFICIAL Weekend Singles Thread *** August 17-19 2007

This weekend's topic is online dating sites. We've all seen the ads for e-Harmony on TV and for Match.com at various places around the internet. Yahoo has a personals section. AOL has a personals section. Craig's List has a personals section (if your immune system is strong enough). The local ISPs in most major cities often have personals ads somewhere on their websites. Many specialty websites have arisen for special interest personals. ConservativeMatch.com and RepublicanPeopleMeet come to mind. The question is "Are any of these places any good?"

The major topic of this weekend's thread is a review of these sites. Do you have any experience with any of them? Did you like them? Would you recommend them? In general, how do you feel about online dating? Do you see online dating as being any different from the old personals magazines that we used to see in supermarkets? Would you consider having a long-term relationship with someone whom you met this way?

Again, this topic could be touchy to some people, and we ask that everyone be adult and be considerate.

We'd also like to thank Spirit of Allegiance for thinking of this one. His original idea was to spend a weekend each month looking at each site in depth, and if the topic is popular enough, we may return to a deeper exploration of some of these sites at a later time.

We also have a couple of bonus questions this week, and we'd like everyone to take a shot at one or two of them. They are:

While I didn't think of this whole question, I have some experience with a few of these sites and have plenty to say.

e-Harmony - I had delayed joining e-Harmony for some time because of the cost and because I didn't like the thought of someone else picking my matches. I've often found that the women others would pick for me are not women who appeal to me. I finally reached a point where I had to find place to look for someone or give up on the idea of finding someone. I took e-Harmony's free personality profile and awaited the results. Instead of being told that I could meet six women for $50, I was told that they couldn't help me. They soften the blow by saying that about 20% of the people who take the survey end up being outside their parameters. I guess being among 20% of the population doesn't make me a complete freak, but the news was discouraging. As I read through the profile, I think they did a pretty good job describing me. I later read their profile for the kind of woman that I'd need, and I thought that description was pretty good as well. I guess the women that I need either don't exist or don't try to join e-Harmony.

Yahoo Personals - I was a member of Yahoo personals for over a year. During that time, I sent over 200 e-mails to women for whom I felt at least a little interest. Of those 200+ e-mails:

I went on three first dates but no second dates;
I met about five women with whom I exchanged maybe half a dozen e-mails as friends but never got any further.
I received replies from another half dozen or so who had obviously submitted dummy profiles in order to advertise for a porno site. As soon as a guy responded to one of them, they responded with the same form letter saying that they were no longer using Yahoo much but recommended meeting them at this other site.
I received rude e-mails from two or three women who criticized the preferences that I expressed on my profile.
I received a perplexed e-mail from a woman who couldn't understand why I had sent her a reply. My profile said that I was looking for someone younger, and she was ten years older than I was. I checked her profile again and told her that the profile showed her being much younger. She ended up having to fight with Yahoo a bit to get her profile fixed.
I received two or three polite e-mails from women who weren't interested but were polite enough to say that they appreciated my interest.
The other 170 to 180 simply didn't bother to respond at all. I was always disturbed that so many women just ignored my e-mail. I thought that not bothering to acknowledge someone's interest in any way was rude.

Over time, I became somewhat more tolerant of these non-responses. Eventually, Yahoo kicked me off their personals, their e-mail, and my old Geocities website for a TOS violation that they were never willing to explain. However, they never removed my profile. If any women responded to me after that time, I would not have been able to respond. Maybe a few of these women were in a similar situation, but I still think most of them were just being rude.

Conservativematch.com - As I said in a previous post, I've been following conservativematch.com for a long time. I've never joined because they've had very few women who lived close enough to me to be worth paying to meet.

RepublicanPeopleMeet.com - This site irritates me a great deal. When I set up my first profile, I intentionally left the income question blank. When I visited the site again, they wouldn't let me do anything until I answered the question. At that time, they didn't offer a "prefer not to answer" option. I found that practice to be an invasion of privacy. In addition, they will not allow me to view either the "flirts" or "messages" that have been sent to me unless I send them money. I understand that letting people read messages without paying means that someone could receive an e-mail from a paying member and establish regular e-mail or phone contact without paying, but the site is still receiving money from the person who joined in order to send the message. On the other hand, I don't want to pay to see my messages only to learn that the person sending the message didn't interest me at all. I've recently changed my profile there to express this frustration and warn any women that I won't be responding to their e-mails. I keep a profile there only so that I can check to see whether the site has expanded to a reasonable number of women in my area. So far, they have not.

Bill

1. What kind of car do you drive? What kind of car would you like to drive?

I drive a lovely charcoal-grey SUV. I would prefer driving one of those teeny little circus clown cars so that I could fit all of my friends in at one time yet also get great gas mileage.

2. What kind of car would your ideal partner drive?

My ideal partner would drive anything he wanted and not be worried about what I or anyone else thinks about what kind of car he drives. Also, he would get to borrow my circus clown car sometimes so that he could drive all of his friends around and yet also get great gas mileage.

3. Your ideal partner just won $5000. How does she/he spend it?

He would get his own little clown car so that he wouldn't have to borrow mine all the time.

e-Harmony - I had delayed joining e-Harmony for some time because of the cost and because I didn't like the thought of someone else picking my matches. I've often found that the women others would pick for me are not women who appeal to me. I finally reached a point where I had to find place to look for someone or give up on the idea of finding someone. I took e-Harmony's free personality profile and awaited the results. Instead of being told that I could meet six women for $50, I was told that they couldn't help me. They soften the blow by saying that about 20% of the people who take the survey end up being outside their parameters. I guess being among 20% of the population doesn't make me a complete freak, but the news was discouraging. As I read through the profile, I think they did a pretty good job describing me. I later read their profile for the kind of woman that I'd need, and I thought that description was pretty good as well. I guess the women that I need either don't exist or don't try to join e-Harmony.

I wouldn't take that test too seriously. I took the same one and they got a significant number of things wrong about me.

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