Dating Sites Reviews Forums

There has been a lot of interest in "free" dating sites by people for the last five years. Before that, it was generally accepted that you had to give your credit card number to a website in order to actually do anything significant. Lavalife, Match, FriendFinder (and their sister site, AdultFriendFinder), and other sites required that you have a paid membership in order to message people. Once you paid up, you were open to find someone. The odds were good back then, because most of the paid users were real, and the fact that they had also paid for their access meant most of the time they were serious about finding someone... and not just making silly profiles to stroke their egos and waste your time.

Then came Myspace. While Myspace was a social network site (perhaps the first successful one in history), the dating potential was there, and many people met through Myspace. Myspace was 100% free, and used banner ads to support it. This huge social networking base grew into what would be a major opportunity for those who wanted to date for free.

When Myspace ban to decline, it had much to do with overcomplicating things and trying to reinvent the wheel. The result was that Facebook was able to swoop in and all but destroy Myspace. Facebook has since been the dominant social networking site, and even Google+ hasn't managed to step up to that level of interest.

So what does the history of social network sites have to do with dating? Well when Myspace became the place NOT to be, it left an unfilled niche for free dating. Facebook didn't have ANY dating potential. In fact, the absence of search criteria is Facebook's way of ensuring to their userbase that it is PURELY social network and not dating. Other sites like Tagged and CherryTap (now called Fubar) popped up to fill that gap. But these were like Myspace in that they were part social network, and not truly dedicated to dating. As a result, the experience wasn't very pleasant for people who just wanted to find someone to date.

Plenty of Fish (POF) came in to change this, along with OKCupid (OKC) and a few others, offering the ability to do just about everything you needed to find someone, talk with them, and ultimately meet. These are the free-ish dating sites, that have additional features to those willing to pay.

There is to date only one 100% free dating site that is focused on dating, and that is DateHookup (DH), although it doesn't get the same traffic and looks and feels a bit weak and outdated.

So as of right now... you have some choices. Go 100% free, and deal with poor look and feel and less users (because of that), go to a free-ish site and use most of the features free, or pay for features on some of the bigger premium sites with the understanding that it's not cheap! (anywhere from 20 to 30 bucks a month).

I have had friends of friends who have met through Facebook and dated. You would think Facebook would be an ideal spot for dating but in reality just seeing your friends friends is not enough people.

I don't really want to broadcast my dating habits to the world either. Facebook tells everyone enough about me so they don't need to know my dating habits as well. Who really wants to announce their failed dates or relationships before they even get off the ground. I am not only Facebook friends with actual friends but family as well and I like to keep that type of stuff private.