Okay. I’ll take a look, but I’m not saying that I’m going to
participate in online dating just yet. I’ve heard the success
stories and the horror stories about online dating, but I do not
have any first hand experience to share with you on the topic.
What I plan to do in this article is take you with me while I
explore the different online dating services available on the
web. Brace yourself and buckle your seatbelt, I’m going to try
something I saw in a cartoon.
Just kidding. That’s
something I like to say to the passengers in my car just before
I start to drive. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m having
dating problems in the first place.
Okay, the first
website I discovered says it’s a “free” online dating service.
Online, red flags always go up for me when someone says that
magic word, “free”. But, let’s take a closer look.
Well,
it sounds good. It says it is, “an internet dating service that
provides a comfortable and intimate environment where you can
safely and conveniently search and find your perfect soul mate,
while having lots of fun. Thousands of dating ads of singles
that are looking for dating romance, intimacy and friendship is
available for you to browse through. Your ideal companion might
be among them. (site name deleted) brings dating to new
frontiers, making impossible, possible!”
I’m having a
little trouble with the comfortable and intimate environment
thing. They haven’t seen the room my computer sits in. Safe and
convenient sounds nice though. But if the website is just a lot
of personal ads, can’t I just get something like that at my
local news stand or in my local newspaper?
I think I’ll
move on and take a look to see if there are online dating
services that provide more than dating advice and personal ads.
Hmm, now I find myself on an online dating website that claims
to be the biggest online dating service on the web. It has a big
picture of Dr. Phil on the front. Almost scared me away, but
I’ll tough it out and stay to see what they offer.
Here
is what they say, “Looking for more in a relationship and a
dating site? With over 10 years of experience in online dating
and relationships, (site name deleted) is the worldwide leader
in online dating and relationships. Where else can you find
millions of singles looking for love, just like you? We don't
offer just online personals, we are personal in our offerings -
to help you find a date, a relationship, a marriage.
Whoa! Marriage? I said I might try online dating. I never said
anything about marriage! And now I have the mental image of
“millions of singles looking for love”. Wow! Millions. Okay, so
they sound big, but what do they actually offer?
Well,
first off, they don’t really tell you much about the services
they provide. Just a lot of information about the millions who
have gotten married through their online dating service. So I
bit the bullet and went to the sign up form to learn more.
Now comes the money question. $29.95 for a month or I can get
discounts for longer memberships. Then there is the Dr. Phil
MindFindBind program that costs more. Now I’m laughing because
since I am checking the online dating service out while typing
this article, I evidently have waited too long to make my
decision because a popup just came up to offer me assistance
with making up my mind.
They do have some free services,
but those are basically, create a profile, look at profiles,
etc. That’s just like the free services on the first online
dating website. You have to pay for the ability to actually
respond to any emails sent to you by other members or block
members or to see which members have taken a peek at your
profile. That all sounds okay, but if you go for the whole Dr.
Phil package you get an online dating tutorial, a video about
online dating, online dating workshops, and online dating
advice. Wow!
Well, as I said, I haven’t decided just
yet, so we are going to check out one more online dating website
together. Okay, this one is free. They have a patent pending on
their matchmaking idea. They calculate your matchability in
percentages.
The online dating method they use goes like
this, “When you answer a question in our improve matches area we
learn: (1) your answer, (2) how you'd like someone else to
answer, and (3) how important the question is to you. We collect
these three values for all users.
Your match percentage
with a given person on (site name deleted), let's call him b, is
based on the values of (1), (2),and (3) for questions you've
both answered. We'll call that set S later in this explanation:”
Wow! I thought that just regular dating was complicated.
I think I’m going to keep checking out more online dating
websites until I find the one that is right for me. So far, the
ones we just toured have been too much like personal ads, too
expensive, too Dr. Phillish for my tastes, or too complicated.
I’m sure though, just like finding the right date, there is an
online dating website out there for me and one for you too!
I encourage you to at least try online dating. But don’t stop at
the first online dating service you find, just like hopefully
you wouldn’t stop at the first singles bar you saw. Check out as
many as you need to in order to find the online dating service
that is right for you.
About the Author:
Christine Hancock runs "The Personals Network!" There are
hundreds of online dating sites out there today, so how do you
know which one to choose? That's why we decided to build Online
Dating, your #1 resource for info on the top Dating Sites on the
web!
http://www.onlinedating.pn