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Online dating
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've joined Match.com. I haven't paid any money, so I don't get the full services, but my profile is on there. I thought that with my incredible insecurity it might be easier to find someone. Has anyone ever done this and had success come out of it or would it be a waste of sixty quid?
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But it has been great to get some attention, and also meet some new people.
One of the guys has become a really good friend of mine now.
I think they can be a good idea, especially when Ive heard success stories like above.
Saying that, £60 is a lot of money. The site Im on gives you a choice of membership for different lengths of time, and i've just gone for 1 months membership when I see someone I fancy chatting to, or even a week to obtain contact details.
You hear lots of stories of good things happening with online dating. My friend is doing it right now and she has seemed to catch herself a nice guy right now as well
guess where i met him? match. i was on there for less than a month. don't think i even paid much actually...can't remember. i'd sign up for a month first before committing yourself because you might meet the right person right away like i did. i had loads of guys messaging me but only met the one. clicked straight away.
best move i ever made. i was a little narrow minded at first thinking "eurgh, desperate" etc but both neither me and my boyfriend were/are. my boyfriend had no problems pulling. he was out on dates every week. he's far from insecure, lol. he just wasn't meeting the right girls so got a bit sick of it. we met whilst out on a night out though, we don't actually tell people we met on match, haha.
glenn - my fella is a hottie i'll have you know. im not so bad myself either, haha
you must just be unlucky cuz i saw loads of good looking girls on there when i was on there (i had to check out the competition, lol).
No putting words in my mouth please - I didn't say they were ugly or unattractive!
She might be both?
You don't know until you meet together.
Do you just e-mail each other for a while, then decide to meet? As I said, I'd like to know for certain that I'm not going to get killed on my first date, so I'm thinking that using a webcam would be a good idea
If you do hit it off then obviously you don't need to worry about the axe murdering aspect.
You DO need to filter out who you talk to because there's so many people that you'll probably have nothing in common with. For me when I started deciding what sort of blokes I was looking for I spent less time on something that was doomed from the start.
I've now met five in two years I think and have now started meeting a guy who I finally feel I click with, we have so many things in common and talk wayyyy too much.
Don't be too scared of getting killed! If you're somewhat internet savvy you should be able to tell fakes from the rest, just don't rush into anything. I don't know what girls are like on these sites but I'm very skeptical of anybody who comes on too strong and especially some that think a good first meeting is 'snuggling together over a DVD'... :rolleyes: So I simply don't meet those that raise red flags in my mind.
Also, from a girls perspective, when making a profile show some pride in who you are. No matter what the messages to me say I always check the profiles and if a guy sounds like he has no ambition in life for example I don't bother (been there, done that).
And surprise, surprise an article on online dating etiquette which you could use as a kinda check list.
Whilst there are a lot of people on dating sites that are only after sex, I think you'll find most people who've bothered to pay the money are reasonable truthful about who they are, so as long as you're fairly savvy about everything I don't think you've got too much to worry about.
Generally you can tell if they're telling the truth from their pictures - people who only have 1 picture registered usually ring slight alarm bells with me. I've never talked to anyone on a dating site on a webcam and I think it would slightly disturb me if someone asked to - in my mind there are connotations about webcams and the internet and I refuse to have one.
But yes, just email them for a while and if you think you get on then ask to meet up. With my fella, he picked me up from home (although this is usually a no no really - felt I was safe with him cos of him working at the same place as me), we went for a meal and then to the cinema. I have previously just met people in a pub for a quiet drink though as well.
I like to meet a person fairly quickly. I generally find that whilst you can get on brilliantly by email the spark isn't always there irl. People can hide behind a computer screen and be really chatty and friendly and the opposite in reality.
I'm always put off by guys who write short emails as well - it's fine for an initial email but after that I like someone who can talk around a subject and not just answer questions in a sentence and then ask 1 question and that's it. Just doesn't show any interest.
Profile is important and can be hard to judge. You need to put enough info in it that you seem interesting and full of a zest for life, and yet leave and air of mystery that makes a girl want to know more.
On my profile, I've mentioned my lack of experience, so they know about it from the start. Is this a good idea or would it be better to bring it up when and if I ever get a date?
*nods* Exactly the way my fella played it. It probably would have put me off if he'd mentioned it in his profile because it would have made me think it was a big deal to him and perhaps he was just after someone to give him that experience instead of being genuinely interested in a relationship.
I don't think it matters where your first experience comes from. End of the day once you meet in person it's no different to meeting someone from any other aspect of life, just you know something about them to start with so it makes conversation easier.
Weirdos can be found anywhere and everwyhere so i think as long you are sure about this person ie. have spoken in the phone, exchanged pictures, maybe even seen each other on webcam so you know that theyre pictures are actually them, then why not meet up? As many have said, you'll already know stuff about the person and whether or not you have stuff in common
PS: Being 19 isn't too old, I'm only 18 and I use them. It's just social networking. Just because they're aimed at forming a relationship with someone doesn't make them less like Facebook/MySpace/Faceparty etc.
I've never used any of them, but I'll add my tuppence to a couple of things. The aspect of hooking up with an axe murderer is aa risk in any circumstance where you meet strangers. There's this weird idea that people you meet by chance in person are less likely to be maniacs than those you meet on the internet. I don't think that's true really and meeting someone for a first date after a brief email exchange is no different to meeting someone for a first date after snogging them in a nightclub when you were drunk.
Normal common sense should apply when meeting, such as meeting in a public place, telling someone where you are going etc. Be prepared that it may or may not work out. They may not be what they initially seemed to you. The dating site is really only providing a facility for you to initally get in touch, not actually to play out your relationship on, which should be the same as any other.