So I've been single since Jesus. My longest relationship in the last three years was four dates. Well, three and a sudden "we shouldn't see each other anymore" meeting. I'm totally confident in my ability to not only approach, but talk to women. Don't let my jesting here make you think otherwise. I call myself ugly, CHUD, and worse all in good fun. If I can't make fun of myself, who CAN I make fun of? Sure, I've heard that I'm not attractive enough to be dated by a LOT of women, and sometimes it's hard not to think that maybe they're right. I digress. Despite my own capabilities at bantering with others, sometimes I can't be bothered with the rigors of asking women out face-to-face, and opt for something more... impersonal.
Enter Online Dating/Dating Apps.
The following are honest, and in no way biased, reviews of all the dating sites and apps I've used, posted in an attempt to help you decide, for yourself, which one might suit you the best.
1. Match.com
Match is actually a decent site. I never used their mobile app, if they even have one, but I was a member about three years ago, in my most desperate times. It's a pay site, and you can definitely get your money's worth if you take the time to appropriately fill out all of the information they ask. They have a decent matching algorithm, and it pretty accurately pinpoints what you're looking for in someone. I have no qualms with this site, and if you're looking for a good place to find dates AND you're willing to fork over the fee, it's probably going to be your best bet. My only beef, if I had to say anything, was that there were a lot of people attempting to use it for free, which IS possible, and that makes it difficult to communicate with them (or it did three years ago. They may have changed things since then). If you're going to join the site, pay the fee to unlock everything. It'll provide you with the best experience. I met one woman here, and she was the one who went on three dates with me before deciding I wasn't the one for her. Which I'm totally not bitter about.
2. OKCupid
Ah, OKCupid. This is a notoriously free site, and probably one of the most populated. Yet I feel like the lady-to-dude ratio is a tad inflated. I noticed that the admins tended to keep women's profiles up long after they've deactivated, whereas a man's profile might disappear the instant they take it down. This is incredibly misleading, and makes your seemingly large amount of options actually probably half of what you initially thought.
I was usually the initiator on that site, because that's "typical" in dating. The dude makes the first move. Unfortunately, most of the women there had full inboxes. I'm not sure if that's due to large amounts of harassment, or genuine dating requests. Regardless, when the inbox was full, OKC would prod you to pay for the ability to send a VIP message to the person, which would go to their inbox regardless of the number of emails in it. But really, if their inbox is full already, they're probably not reading any of the messages. Why would they bother with one more?
My last complaint about the site was their matching percentages. It's all based on a series of inane questions with no "grey area." It's either "you're a paragon of enlightenment" or "you're pus-guzzling douche-nozzle." There's no in-between in most of their questions. I don't know if you can answer all of them, but I answered hundreds. A cheesy way to boost your match percent with another person is to read their answers and answer the same way, though you can only change your answers once a day.
I've spent most of my time on and off this site with little success, simply due to the fact that it's free and that it has a mobile app that's fairly functional.
3. Geek 2 Geek
It's a pay site that is supposed to focus on you meeting your geek love. There weren't enough women in my area for me to bother using any of the pay functions, so I pretty much quit this the same day I started.
4. SoulGeek
Another site like Geek 2 Geek, but it's not a pay site. It's more of a friend finder, but I suppose it can be used for dating. Again, like the previous site, there weren't enough women listed in my area (the closest were in Tulsa, which is almost a 2 hour drive for me in Oklahoma City), and the site itself is just horribly designed. It's difficult to navigate and the notifications of messages or people peeking your profile are too innocuously located. I still have a profile, but I never visit the site. There's no mobile app for this site.
5. PoF (Plenty of Fish)
This site/app appeared to be a cesspool. The only women I could find here were the meth-heads and crack whores. It's also inhabited by a LOT of bots, who try to get you to join their cam sites. I haven't tried this one in about a year, and maybe they've cracked down on the users who join the site, but considering the experience I had, I wouldn't try it.
6. Tinder
Oh, Tinder. This is the worst example of online dating I can think of. First off, I had to actually MAKE a Facebook page (I didn't have one before) just to use it. And then I started swiping. The first thing I thought of when I used it was "Hot or Not." It's basically the most shallow experience I've ever been party to. To see what kind of people I was dealing with, I just spent an hour, or so, swiping "like" to EVERYONE. I didn't say no to a single photo, regardless of if I was attracted to that person or not. Now, the only way you can make contact with someone is for that person to also swipe you right. When that happens, a little thing tells you that you have a match, and you can chat from there on out. There was something with "moments," but I didn't fully explore that.
Of the hundreds of women whose photos I swiped right, only three (out of like 10) were actual people (the others were bots). One hit me up first with just "hi." Nothing makes me cringe more than that. Say something noteworthy to get my attention! Reference something on my well-thought-out profile! Say more than ONE FUCKING WORD. I digress. I gave the girl a chance, but she was almost completely unresponsive to my wiles.
The others just never messaged me back.
So 3 (not counting the bots) out of the hundreds of "women" on Tinder found me desirable enough to swipe right. And only one talked to me in one to three word sentences. Awesome.
I don't recommend this app unless you're feeling shallow.
7. Bumble
This is one I'm currently experimenting with, but having very little success. I think it might be a relatively new app, but it functions similarly to Tinder. You swipe left or right on pictures of people who may, or may not, have brief descriptions of themselves (most don't). There are too few people using this app to give me a solid appraisal. Again, I swiped EVERYONE right, and thus far have only had two matches.
The caveat to this site is that when you match, the woman has to initiate contact within 24 hours, or the match is lost forever. One match already disappeared on me, and the other is there for 23 more hours. I used my "once-a-day extension" thing, which is the only "tool" men get to hopefully not lose matches. Basically, if a woman you've matched with doesn't message you within the first 24 hours, you can force an extension, which overrides the initial time, and I assume makes the women aware that you're interested in them making contact. But I've yet to hear anything from this second one. I'll keep anyone interested abreast of the situation.
In the meantime, until more people hear about this app, I'd stay away, if not only for the fact that it's dreadfully similar to Tinder. Which is awful.
Anyway, I hope you daters out there find these helpful. I'm shutting up now.
