What do you think of online dating sites?

Has anyone here had experience with Match.com? Or any other dating site that gives you the option of looking for same-sex dates?





I'm a pretty old-fashioned girl who is just about petrified of the online-dating scene. I'm starting to sloowwwly look into it as an option for down the road. I'd like some feedback from people who have actually used such sites.





What site did you use? What did you like about it? What didn't you like? Did you meet some nice people? Would you recommend that site to someone else?





I'm looking for sites that aren't highly sexualized... you know, the ones where everyone's profile is focused on sex, and the pics are of people barely dressed? Yeah I don't want those types of sites. Like I said, I'm old-fashioned. :) Sex is good. Sex is great. Sex is just not my thing on the first date.





Thanks ahead of time for your answers.

What do you think of online dating sites?
On the free sites you'll always find those profiles that center on sex but you can normally weed them out quickly by their head lines. I've had success on yahoo's personals, true(dot)com, planetouts personals and rainbowspace but I don't think rainbowspace exsists anymore. If you want something that's more professional etc then do a search for executive lesbian dating.





I like yahoo the best. I got responces from a more interesting group of women then the other sites. True tended to be the source of much laughter. The overall quality of the women I dated from yahoo personals was far superior to true. I didn't have as much luck at planetout but rainbowspace is where I met my current gf of 7 months. It was like picking a needle from a haystack since the majority of women on rainbowspace seemed to be 16-18 and looking for HOT StUdz.





If you see a profile you like just shell out the cash to be able to comunicate with that person and do so. I recomend speaking with them online/phone for a week to a month before meeting so you can feel her out. You should be able to tell from that wether they would be looking for sex on the first date or not. Most of the women I dated from yahoo weren't looking just for sex and the majority of the time it turned into a relationship.





Hope this helps!
Reply:I met two people from Match.com and another on Yahoo personals - They were both decent sites - but I didn't want to pay for them so I just added a little "secret" code for people to figure out in my profile so they'd just email me when they figured out the address. There weren't a lot of same-sex people on either place but I think that's more associated with where I live then the website itself. Of the three people I met from there - they were all decent nice people - hit it off with two of them but nothing panned out aside from a few times that we hung out.
Reply:I don't trust online dating sights or chat rooms for the simple reason that it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to lie to the other person on them. Stick to doing things the old fashioned way and forget the websites, to me they are nothing but T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!!!
Reply:In the 18th and 19th centuries, many people were introduced to others by mutual friends who travelled. In some well known cases where their letters still exist, long distance romances blossomed by letters alone. They fell in love and chose to marry without _ever_ seeing each other's faces through the courtship and romance.





I don't see any difference between that and online dating. What's wrong with meeting someone by words alone and judging them by their intelligence, by how they talk to you, and not on their face or physical appearance?





Twenty years ago (I'm showing my age now) "want ad" dating was for the desperate, but then, twenty years ago, people had more free time and commuted less. Today, the lack of personal time and the extra distance means less chance to socialize.





Online dating is especially useful in big cities where it's hard to meet people or in countries where arranged marriages and introductions were common. I have lived in several Asian countries where matchmakers (sometimes paid and sometimes not) would introduce "suitable" young people to other potential spouses. Such arrangements used to be common.





If you watched the first season of the TV show "Lost", that is what happened between Sun and the bald Korean man (in the flashback). It's still common today. I lived there for three years and worked with several women who were married through such arrangements. More and more young Koreans are doing it on their own through dating sites, and the older generation approves of it.





For people who live in foreign countries (I and other westerners I know, for example) online dating is a good way to make friends, not just find love and marriage. You can meet other foreigners who live in the country, or you can find the locals who speak your language without having to wade through the bar scene amongst hundreds you can't talk to. I haven't found anyone worth marrying, but I have met people I continue to be friends with.





What matters is how one approaches online dating, because it's exactly the same as meeting people in person. If you're desperate offline, you'll be desperate online. If you're outgoing, friendly and attractive to others offline, you'll be outgoing, friendly and attractive to people online.





If your purpose in online dating is to save time (eg. you have long working hours) and weed out people by traits (eg. I'm an atheist and don't want to meet christians), then it's useful. If your purpose is to hide something else about yourself, it's not going to work.








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Reply:they suck
Reply:I tend to think they are bogus. They will give you the initial stuff you need to get set up, but if you want anything nice you have to upgrade....at cost. I am talking of course about Yahoo personals, and others that just offer you little items such as searching, but you must pay if you want to email. I am not sure how the actual ones you pay for at the beginning work because I am not willing to pay LOL
Reply:true.com has been a pretty good site for me. good luck, honey.
Reply:Gaydar.com.au here in Australia is full of size queens who want to see photos of your pecker before they agree to meet. Very superficial men with doctored, outdated and fake photos on their profile. Fake names, fake descriptions, guys standing you up all the time. Bunch of sleazy liars - gay men of Sydney. Freakin' rude. And the sad thing is lots of guys declaring that they have a 'boyfriend' looking for extra sex on the side...while not always practising safer sex. And people wonder why so many of us died in the '80's!





(There is a lesbian "Gaydar" equivalent which I hear is alot more civilized).