Friday 14 June 2013

Which Dating Site?

Last night I took the plunge and joined a new dating site. Time to get back in the game! It's actually really good fun, and I'm enjoying looking through all the profiles and sending messages. No replies yet, but it's early days!

I suppose I'm in a good position to review some dating sites now. Last time around I was using Match Affinity and, obviously, it worked pretty well. However, I found that a lot of people on there were... odd. It sounds quite snobby, but I didn't feel that a lot of the people on that site were quite what I was looking for. I also only had three dates in one year, however I'm willing to admit that it may have been my fault for not being proactive enough. I tended to sit around and wait for people to message me, and when I did message people it was mostly using the generic suggested messages that the site provided. I didn't get a very good hit rate with this technique. However, I did appreciate the HUGE questionnaire you had to fill in, as it gave you a really good idea of what each person was like before you messaged them. Even after I'd started dating my ex, I went back and had a look at his profile a couple of times to check whether there was anything in his responses to the questions that might be a deal-breaker.

This time around I'm using Guardian Soulmates. This has been recommended by a friend who is currently in a successful relationship with someone she met on there. It's more expensive than Match Affinity, but it seems to attract a different sort of person, which suits me. I've heard it described as the Waitrose of dating sites, which I think fits it quite well! It doesn't ask quite so many questions, but people's profiles seem to be much longer and more detailed, so that's good. I've also changed my technique to being more proactive and more personal in my messages, so we'll see how it goes!

Wish me luck!

Thursday 6 June 2013

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. There are two reasons for this.

Reason the first: This is a blog about online dating. Once I'd entered into what could be reasonably called a relationship, I wasn't online dating any more. There weren't any humourous stories about crazies or horrible first dates. There was just a relationship. Nice, but not blog-worthy.

Reason the second: I wasn't comfortable about sharing details about someone else once I knew them well. And intimate details about a relationship aren't necessarily something I want to share with random internet people (lovely as you all are...). So I stopped blogging.

So what's changed, you ask. Why are you back?

I'm back because I am no longer in a relationship. He ended it in the classiest way possible, via text message. Nice, right? It wasn't a total shock, I knew things were getting rocky, and we hadn't seen each other very often, but it still left me in a bit of a mess for a couple of days. Now, though, after a good night's sleep, I can see that he was right to end things. He was NOT right to end things with a text. Do NOT do this, people. It's horrible. But he was right that it wouldn't have ever been a long-term thing. It was fun while it lasted (lots and lots of fun!) but we didn't have enough in common to build a lasting relationship, and as he put it, there was no 'spark'. I'll miss him, probably for a while, because we got on so well, but I'm not pining for him, so it's all good.

And now I can rejoin the fun fun world of online dating! I'm actually quite excited about getting out there again and meeting someone new. I'm going to leave it a few weeks before joining a new dating site, as I think it's important not to get into something on the rebound, and I need to get to a stage where I won't be comparing anyone new to the guy I've just broken up with, but I'll definitely be re-entering the fray before too long.

So stay tuned for my future adventures in the world of online dating!