Are there any GOOD dating sites?

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Analog_Mark
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16 Jan 2011, 1:15 pm

I'm not sure what other people think on this, but I get the feeling that date sites are too gimmicky. I also get the feeling there a bit of a 'game'. There are genuine people out there in the midst of this seeking a partner - as I can see in this thread - and its interesting because the prospect of contacting a ton of woman, with the notion of more possibility in replies being at the forefront, isn't, for me, very appealing - it just feels wrong, well, for me anyway - and, although I can't put my finger on the exact reason why, something isn't right about them.

I would say, currently, there are no date sites that are good. But nothing is definitive, there’s a few sites recommended, and success stories, within this thread that may prove successful for you.

However, deep down I believe our loss of interaction, our accustomed perspectives and judgements, that psychologically affect us, have impinged on our humanity - we are restricted, like a certificate 15 movie. I wonder what Socrates would write on his okcupid profile. :roll:



Zur-Darkstar
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16 Jan 2011, 3:16 pm

What's good and bad is rather relative. I suspect like anything else in life, you get more out of it if you put more into it, and there's a fair amount of luck involved. I use online dating sites because I don't have the slightest interest in bars/clubs. They're crowded, noisy, and boring to me. I'd rather be honest and just say I'm something of a homebody and when I do go out, I like one on one or small group interactions only. If girls don't like that, that's their loss, because I'd rather be alone than be something I don't want to be.

I've thought of doing other activities like volunteering, but if I do it, I'd want to do it because I wanted to, not because I'm just trying to meet women, for the same reason I don't do bars and clubs. If you're doing something only as a screen to meet women, it's dishonest and that's a poor foundation for a relationship, IMHO. Either way, it's a small amount of interaction and the probability of meeting someone that way is just as low as anything else. I don't do social networking. This is not going to happen. It's something I had to explain to career counselors on multiple occasions. I find it confusing and exhausting and I'm just not going to put forth the gargantuan effort it would require for me to mimic this NT behavior. Once again, if girls don't like that, then there are plenty of other guys out there, this isn't the guy you're looking for, move along.

Low response rates are not a bad thing. They indicate the site is doing what it's supposed to be doing, allowing people to screen who they are interested in and not interested in. If a girl doesn't respond, it's a good thing, because now that's 1 down, billions to go, and I didn't have to spend a ton of energy and time going to some social event, guessing at non verbal cues, and risking messing up a first encounter with some minor quirk. We can increase our odds without being sociable. It's the perfect venue for aspies, IMHO.

I take a different take than most of the people here. The way I look at it. I have a great deal to offer to a potential partner, if they're willing to accept my eccentricities and limitations. They're human beings too and if I don't fit what they want and need in a partner then I really don't want them wasting their time on me. It's statistically almost certain that there are women out there who would love to be with a guy like me, and the challenge is finding them. I believe online dating sites to be the most likely way to find qualities like introversion, shyness, and other qualities I'm looking for. It's also a way to find people with a desire to find a relationship and actually talk to someone and see if they're right for you rather than a Disney magic hope love falls out of the sky and beans me on the head attitude (something that annoys me to no end).

I'm using OKCupid now, but in the past I had most success with Yahoo Personals and Match.com. Eharmony I've only tried briefly, but might again because it seems to take a very pragmatic "no nonsense" approach to relationships.



jackdaust
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31 May 2011, 6:59 pm

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pezar
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31 May 2011, 7:51 pm

POF has some real losers on it. It matched me up with a woman in Marysville (CA) who said she does hard drugs more than 3 times a week. Uh, no thanks. POF has no way of deleting your profile, either. You can HIDE it, but not DELETE it. POF will still send you emails. Until recently, POF mail had your password, UNENCRYPTED, at the top of every email. Any dating site that would do that is run by morons, and sure enough somebody hacked into POF and tried to download their username/password list. Apparently they only got the first 350 names. It was some kid who wanted to be hired as a "security consultant" (too much time reading old hacker texts, nobody gets away with that anymore). He also burrowed into eHarmony. After that, POF randomly changed everybody's password and stopped emailing people their unencrypted passwords 3 times a week. It made me FURIOUS that it took a hack to get them to stop doing what every sysadmin with three brain cells knows NEVER to do. So POF is gone.

I like OKCupid. It has some really great women on there. They DO have really high standards though. If you're fat, no dice. If you admit to ANY disability, forget it. Took me a while to figure that out.

Lavalife, back when they were Webpersonals, was wonderful. They got bought out by a huge corporation that runs phone chat lines, and the website was left to rot. Mostly fake profiles now.

Match.com was wonderful in the early years, when it was run from San Francisco. It has been bought and sold several times since then, and the aim of the current owners seems to be to milk it for cash. You can pay upwards of $50 a month to maintain a profile. With people's credit cards drying up, I think Match.com is a goner within a few years.

What else? eHarmony is useless, it's geared towards getting people married, well what if you don't want marriage? Their questionnaire is a PITA too. So is OKC's, but at least it's optional. Craigslist is FULL of fake ads, mainly Russian mobsters trolling for credit card numbers. Compose a reply with all your heart and wind up with what I call "Chatty Cathy" emails (because of their bizarre trying-to-be-informal tone that's obviously the result of non-Americans channeling the TV show Friends) that direct you to a website that asks for a credit card to view "pictures". The card is then drained. There's more and more Nigerian scams too-they will tell you, after a short interval, that they need money to get out of some African country (or to get a relative out) which you can wire to them. You will of course never see it again. Scamming is Nigeria's second largest source of domestic income, right behind oil! CL, not worth it.



johansen
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31 May 2011, 10:33 pm

some good observations.

The first line of my okc reads: "for the past 22 years i've expended too much energy trying to fit into society, so i quit trying"
I've never received a message since that edit, its been that way for a year or so.

my sister once seriously suggested that i try finding a russian bride.. i didn't think that was funny.

BTW OKCupid has been bought by Match.com



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10 Jun 2011, 12:00 am

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The_Face_of_Boo
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10 Jun 2011, 5:22 am

Why this thread has a lot of 1-post users?



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21 Oct 2011, 10:40 pm

jman wrote:
I respectfully disagree, I have met plenty of women off dating sites locally.


Meeting women is not the problem - hell, i can register anywhere, copy-paste a few letters with shallow texts with a few lies (like most guys seems to be doing) and get a date tomorrow. Finding someone you can live with - THAT is the problem.


alex wrote:
The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
anything but 'aspie affection'

aspie affection is the best aspie dating site, though. I made it. http://aspieaffection.com


Probably is, but it seriously needs to be fixed. I tried browsing around there a few days ago, then suddenly it dumped variables (including the database password) like it did a few months ago.


Science_Guy wrote:
A few days ago a Wrong Planet member posted saying he had sex with a few chicks off of Plenty of Fish. That site must be good.


Or he is lying, or not - in which case it does not automatically mean that girls throw themselves over anyone who joins.

There is lots of chemistry and "game" going on at dating sites, if you are an Aspie - do not expect much from joining up.
As for commercial vs non-commercial: the quality does not improve if you pay for membership.


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LexF
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24 Oct 2011, 10:31 pm

I've tried many many dating sites (and I'm even a forum moderator on one), and it's been a slightly worse than pathetic experience. I've met nine girls. The first one turned out to be an arsonist. I subsequently met a phony bank teller, a newspaper columnist who wanted me to write her column for her, a phony kidnap victim....it gets worse.

The worst part, though, is that the mainstream dating sites are....well, too mainstream. The women only care about booze and babies, and if you're not into that, they will try to CHANGE you.

There are smaller sites, more specialized sites, but the drawback to those is that they have fewer members, and nobody within 897,000 miles of me.



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25 Oct 2011, 10:24 am

I found a smaller "geek" themed site and subscribed. Initially, I did relatively well at getting responses, and even met a few promising girls... Who lived three-thousand miles away. I also met a girl who demanded I talk to her on the phone from the time I got off work until after my normal bedtime every day, told me she loved me before we ever met in person, and threatened suicide when I told her I didn't want to meet her. Other than that, I've gotten a few naked pictures, some dirty text messages, and a couple of random gifts in the mail, but no dates.

As far as the bigger dating sites go, I've found that unless you're a perfect ten in the looks department (or lie a lot), it's nearly impossible to get a response.

Needless to say, I'm a little skeptical of dating sites.


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25 Oct 2011, 10:38 am

Crow_T_Robot wrote:
I found a smaller "geek" themed site and subscribed. Initially, I did relatively well at getting responses, and even met a few promising girls... Who lived three-thousand miles away. I also met a girl who demanded I talk to her on the phone from the time I got off work until after my normal bedtime every day, told me she loved me before we ever met in person, and threatened suicide when I told her I didn't want to meet her. Other than that, I've gotten a few naked pictures, some dirty text messages, and a couple of random gifts in the mail, but no dates.

As far as the bigger dating sites go, I've found that unless you're a perfect ten in the looks department (or lie a lot), it's nearly impossible to get a response.

Needless to say, I'm a little skeptical of dating sites.


I get a fair amount of reponses (for a guy) but the compatibilty factor was horrible! I wouldn't have ever gone on a date with 90% of them if I had met them IRL first - but then again I am an extremely difficult match... :roll:



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25 Oct 2011, 10:48 am

Grisha wrote:
I get a fair amount of reponses (for a guy) but the compatibilty factor was horrible! I wouldn't have ever gone on a date with 90% of them if I had met them IRL first - but then again I am an extremely difficult match... :roll:


That's been my exact experience, too! (as a woman, though) I joke with well-meaning friends and relatives that I've just priced myself right out of the market. :wink:

I quit the sites a while ago, though one keeps sending me e-mails every week. I just delete them without looking at them. I just need to find a place where I can meet eligible 40-something men organically... :roll:

Of course, it would be nice if I had less "girly" hobbies and interests, or if I had more time to pursue adult education classes (my custody schedule doesn't really give me much regular time to do this). Or if I could tolerate being among strangers for longer than 5 minutes...

I'm thinking of starting a thread on "dating in one's 40s". Wonder if anyone would contribute? So many people here on WP are very, very young and I can't really share their perspective anymore.



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25 Oct 2011, 11:12 am

mv wrote:
Grisha wrote:
I get a fair amount of reponses (for a guy) but the compatibilty factor was horrible! I wouldn't have ever gone on a date with 90% of them if I had met them IRL first - but then again I am an extremely difficult match... :roll:


That's been my exact experience, too! (as a woman, though) I joke with well-meaning friends and relatives that I've just priced myself right out of the market. :wink:

I quit the sites a while ago, though one keeps sending me e-mails every week. I just delete them without looking at them. I just need to find a place where I can meet eligible 40-something men organically... :roll:

Of course, it would be nice if I had less "girly" hobbies and interests, or if I had more time to pursue adult education classes (my custody schedule doesn't really give me much regular time to do this). Or if I could tolerate being among strangers for longer than 5 minutes...

I'm thinking of starting a thread on "dating in one's 40s". Wonder if anyone would contribute? So many people here on WP are very, very young and I can't really share their perspective anymore.


Well, I would certainly qualify to participate.

After my Asperger's, my age is probably my biggest limitation: I don't seem to fit in anywhere - I'm too young to be old, and I'm too old to be young.

I feel like a kid when I hang out with people my own age for some reason - severe social immaturity I guess...



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25 Oct 2011, 11:53 am

One of the things that scares me is that I'll be thirty in a few months, and suddenly the twenty-somethings will think I'm "too old". It's kind of like how people won't buy something that's $3.00, but don't have any problem buying the same thing for $2.99.

At least around here, most women my age either have kids, or have a biological clock at five minutes to midnight and want a wedding ring somewhere around the second date. According to online dating sites, there are women who like some of the things I do and whose immediate future plans aren't "ZOMG BABIEZ NAO!!1", but they all live in California or possibly on the moon in some sort of underground bunker.


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LexF
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25 Oct 2011, 12:33 pm

Crow_T_Robot wrote:
One of the things that scares me is that I'll be thirty in a few months, and suddenly the twenty-somethings will think I'm "too old". It's kind of like how people won't buy something that's $3.00, but don't have any problem buying the same thing for $2.99.

At least around here, most women my age either have kids, or have a biological clock at five minutes to midnight and want a wedding ring somewhere around the second date. According to online dating sites, there are women who like some of the things I do and whose immediate future plans aren't "ZOMG BABIEZ NAO! !1", but they all live in California or possibly on the moon in some sort of underground bunker.


I am convinced that there is some sort of secret law requiring all women on dating sites to have children or to want to have children immediately. This puzzles me. On the site where I'm a forum mod, I get lots of e-mails, but 92% are from 48-year-old women with three kids who want to argue with me about the fact I won't date a woman with kids. It's disconcerting.

I have also noticed that it is apparently mandatory for women on dating sites to add "....AND THEY ARE MY WORLD!! !" after any mention of their children.

I am SO glad my spaceship does not stop at that world.



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25 Oct 2011, 12:37 pm

LexF wrote:
Crow_T_Robot wrote:
One of the things that scares me is that I'll be thirty in a few months, and suddenly the twenty-somethings will think I'm "too old". It's kind of like how people won't buy something that's $3.00, but don't have any problem buying the same thing for $2.99.

At least around here, most women my age either have kids, or have a biological clock at five minutes to midnight and want a wedding ring somewhere around the second date. According to online dating sites, there are women who like some of the things I do and whose immediate future plans aren't "ZOMG BABIEZ NAO! !1", but they all live in California or possibly on the moon in some sort of underground bunker.


I am convinced that there is some sort of secret law requiring all women on dating sites to have children or to want to have children immediately. This puzzles me. On the site where I'm a forum mod, I get lots of e-mails, but 92% are from 48-year-old women with three kids who want to argue with me about the fact I won't date a woman with kids. It's
disconcerting.

I have also noticed that it is apparently mandatory for women on dating sites to add "....AND THEY ARE MY WORLD!! !" after any mention of their children.

I am SO glad my spaceship does not stop at that world.


There also seems to be a secret law which requires women to state that they can seamlessly transition from "jeans to heels" for some reason...