Sglwhtfemale meets "Can you hear me now?" - only on Date.com
Written: Aug 26 '07 (Updated Sep 03 '07)
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THIS IS AN EXTENSIVE RE-WRITE OF MY EARLIER REVIEW. FEEL FREE TO RE-RATE.
The past year was a little rough. Between divorce and having to start all over again, thoughts of dating didn't even enter my head.
Little by little, as things like work, a new house and the last child leaving the nest, fell into place, I realized that there was something missing from my life. I have friends, but not the type that I can share life's special moments with.
I went on a few dates that well meaning friends had set up, but there was always something that was not quite right. While I made some new friends, I didn't feel that I wanted to pursue any of these relationships further than the first date or two.
I also don't date at work and I don't do the bar scene all that well. So what's a single girl to do?
My children, bless their little hearts, decided to skip the usual Mothers Day gifts and gave me a subscription to Date.com.
If you plug Date.com into your search engine, you will find the promise of an online FREE dating service. The "free" part is a bit misleading. Actually it's a lot misleading. Signing up is free, but being able to actually contact members requires a membership fee. These fees seem to change constantly. Mine was a gift and ran about $30.00 per month, but I still receive newsletters with special offers starting at about $10.00 per month.
Date.com is affiliated with Matchmaker.com. I can use my user name and password to log on to either website and can view profiles on both sites. Some profiles that have pictures posted don't carry over from one to the other. The profile does, but the picture does not. The profiles also don't give me information if that member has signed up with Date.com or Matchmaker.com. Being able to view members on both sites increases your chances for a potential match significantly.
Before I was able to find the man of my dreams (or possibly my nightmares), I had to do a bit of work. The site requires that I fill out an extensive profile before I am able to plug in my search criteria.
Date.com gets a bit personal with some of the information they ask for. I can understand being asked about my physical attributes, my religious and other preferences, but being asked about my income is a bit much. I don't necessarily want to disclose that type of information to people that I have not yet met.
Thankfully the site gives me an "out". I can, if I so chose, mark fields that I am not comfortable answering with the "I tell you later" button.
Date.com also asks me to write a brief essay about the type of person I am, the type of person I am looking for and information I deem relevant. Writing this essay was somewhat more difficult than I had imagined. After reading essays from other members, I realized that I was not alone in having problems talking about myself.
The essay should be brief. I actually came across an almost 1000 word essay from another member. I counted the words, but gave up reading after about half of it.
Besides all this information, Date.com also asks that I supply a conversation starter in the form of a question my potential dates can ask me. I opted out of this one. If a person that is interested in my profile can not come up with a single question to ask, then maybe we don't need to talk to begin with.
Interestingly enough, one of the people I did talk to asked the most amazing and interesting questions. It was partly these questions that kept it interesting enough for me to want to meet this person. Most of the others asked what I do for a living, where I live and the usual pre first date questions.
Attaching a picture is optional, but the site strongly recommends that you do. I did try to attach a picture that was taken by a professional photographer and had some problems getting it onto the site. The site insisted that the pic was copyrighted and could not be published. Funny enough, another picture that was also copyrighted made it onto the site without a problem. The number of pictures I can attach is limited, so is size of the pics.
Filling out the questionaire, writing the essay, my headline and attaching my picture took a little over an hour.
After that I was finally able to plug in my search criteria. This allowed me to narrow my choices by age, distance, race, religious preference, as well as smoking and drinking preferences.
Navigating the site is extremely easy. Once all the search criteria is plugged in, I can simply click on any of the buttons to get in touch with other members, send e-mails or use the IM.
At first I kept my search criteria close to home and marked all the attributes I was looking for in my dream man. That didn't work. Living in a rural area I could not find any results within the 25 mile radius I had marked. So I widened my criteria, took out some of the preferences I had marked and got over 1000 profiles to chose from.
These profiles are presented in a list view. The picture is on the right and a short profile is on the left. If I am interested in the person, I can expand to read the full profile.
If I am still interested after reading the full profile, I can send a brief note to that particular member to let him know I've viewed his profile. If he is a paying member, we can then get in touch through the site internal e-mail or the site internal Instant Messenger.
Chatrooms are also available for members, but I'm not the chatroom lurking type, so I only clicked on it once and quickly got out.
Out of the 100 profiles I viewed, only three members captured my interest enough to send a note of interest. Only two of them replied and we started talking almost immediately.
Within the next 48 hours I checked out more profiles and received 24 e-mails from members that had checked me out. Most of those I did not respond to, because the profiles did not look interesting enough, but a few received a reply. All the e-mails are sent through the Date.com site, so no need to disclose my personal e-mail address.
A week into this I was busy exchanging e-mails and IMs with several members. It was quickly clear that these were not people I wanted to date, but it was interesting to talk to other people about their dating experiences and their experience on this site in particular.
Most of them expressed some type of frustration about being shown tons of profiles, but finding very few potential dates.
I did go on a few dates with interested members, but again realized that I did not want to pursue these relationships any further.
After checking more profiles and also receiving e-mails from members that had checked out mine, I did go on two very special dates. The first was the date from H..LL. This guy did everything you are not supposed to do on a first date. It went so badly that I sneaked out the backdoor after paying for my meal. Thankfully I had not given this person any personal information other than an e-mail account that I had especially set up for dating purposes. And he was very quickly blocked from that one.
At least now I had my own dating horror story to tell.
The second date did not happen until almost a month after the first contact. Distance was partly to blame for that, but also our very hectic work schedules.
Because this date required some traveling I protected myself by sending a picture and all the info I had about my date to a friend. I also, once we met in person, e-mailed a picture of his license plate to that same friend. All this is no real protection, but it made me feel a little safer.
Trust and honesty go a long way here. Most of us have been burned at one time or another and if a conversation or a date don't feel right, or seem too good to be true, then leave. But if it looks like this could be something, then go with the flow and do whatever is comfortable for both people.
I did end my membership with Date.com two month after it started. This had nothing to do with being dissatisfied with the site or the service. My current work schedule does not allow me the time it takes to pursue a relationship and I will probably return to the site once things have settled down later this year.
Date.com gives me the option to hide my profile until I am ready to date again. I chose to completely remove mine and will have to sign up again if I want to use this site for further dating experiences.
PROS: Easy to navigate; internal e-mail and IM; able to change search criteria and profile easily.
CONS: Filling out questionnaire requires a lot of work. Not all people are comfortable writing essays. Not able to search profiles without having to sign up. Membership required to communicate with other members.
Another big "CON" is the newsletter Date.com puts out. For some reason the site sent me newsletters that were geared towards males. The newsletter included information how men could get any woman they wanted. The advice given in the newsletter made me want to throw up. It basically tells men to treat women like doormats in order to get a date with them and to quickly end the relationship before it gets too serious.
I did talk to a few guys about this and they all agreed that the advice was pretty good and that they had found dates with the advice given. But none of them had gotten a second date while behaving the way the newsletter suggests.
A WORD OF CAUTION:
Try not to disclose too much personal info on the site. Set up a separate e-mail account exclusively for your dating contacts.
When meeting your date, have a back-up plan. Let someone know where you will be, with who and check in frequently with your contact person.
During my first date "Mr. Right" asked me what I would have done if he would have been a serial killer. I did not tell him that a friend of mine had his picture, all his contact information and also a pic of his car and license plate that I took in the parking lot with my cellphone. Thankfully he is not a serial killer, but a really sweet guy, so I guess I got lucky.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
germank106
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Location: middle of nowhere, MO
Reviews written: 230
Trusted by: 39 members
About Me:
Always open to a challenge, or a good write-off.
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