When I started reviewing my experience with dating services, I started with eHarmony. It wasn't nearly as pricy as some, but still pricy enough. Great Expectations was hugely expensive. Today, though, I'll relate my experience with Craig's List personals.
CLPs are basically an online lonely hearts column like you used to find in newspapers. Most of what I found were short write ups with the person selling themselves briefly with a short description of what they were looking for. Most people in the metroplex area did not put pictures with their adds. These I skipped out of hand.
I looked for several months at what was out there, and eventually I found one that titillated my curiosity to the point where I responded. It took a couple of days to get a response, and the response seemed genuine. Except that I was asked to sign up for a dating site that I knew nothing about.
Again, my desperation level was high, so I signed up for the site and looked for the username/ID of the person who had responded to me. Surprise, surprise! it wasn't there. The "person" who responded to me didn't exist. I tried emailing the person through the email address on their email to me, but nothing doing. I don't remember if it bounced or not.
Luckily, I wasn't out any money this time. It cost me nothing to respond to Craig's List, and I didn't pay the dating site. But the dating site I signed up to is a complete mess. It's the typical make-a-profile and pay-us-if-you-want-to-play type of proposition. This website, unlike eHarmony, is completely transparent in its practices.
There is no attempt by computer or other means to match two people. If the age is within range, you get matched. I've been matched with people up to 12 years on either side of my age: from 18 to 40. Most have bad pictures, bad grammar or some combination of the two. There are no specifics in the profiles people leave, and it engenders no desire on my part to fork out any money for their "service." How the website stays in business is a mystery to me.
Returning to Craig's List, it's a victim of its own methodology. It costs nothing to post to CL, and likewise nothing to post to CLP. As such there are a lot of con artists and shysters trolling for suckers. This time I only got suckered in halfway, but it still shines a big spotlight on my desperation and willingness to try anything wacky or unwise to fill that void in my life.
I can definitely say that I'm pretty much done with online dating. I guess the people that claim it really works are either extraordinarily lucky or out-and-out liars. Either way it's an area I steer clear of.
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