Saturday, March 31, 2012

Should You Spend Money on Online Dating?




    Chances are if you are in your mid-twenties and aren't married, you have considered online dating.  Pressure from your peers and advertising has made us all think "hey, maybe it isn't so bad".  While the ease of a free website is very tempting, investing money in an online dating website may be a better option.

     Dating online gives people the ease to look at profiles and decide whether they want to initiate a conversation with a potential suitor based on age, professional, and yes, level of attractiveness.  At first when you think about, that may be convenient. You could potentially weed out the possible mismatches based on things like smoking habits, religious or political views. 

     When considering a free website, keep these things in mind:
  • Free signup is easy. But with ease comes some laziness. Because there is no money involved, it may cut down on the quality and quantity of the details that a person may list about themselves.
  • 10% of online dating profiles are credited to scams. Free websites make it easy for anyone, including scam artists and scam websites, to create a fake profile online.
  • Administrators are not tracking and monitoring the safety on free internet dating sites. The monitoring is left up to the members to track.
     When considering investing in a paid membership to a dating website:
  • Signup is not free at most paid membership sites. Having to give up some of your hard earned money every month should increase the quality of the members that sign up.  Singles would be thinking long and hard about whether they were serious about dating to find a long-term relationship.. 
  • Quality of the profile increases when money is involved. Singles may not want to advertise a generic profile filled with long walks on the beach cliches if they are putting money and effort into the profile.
  • The top 3 dating websites, Zoosk, match.com, and eharmony, require a paid for subscription to email other members.  These are the websites that boast the most success.
  • Paid websites have monitoring and safety staff that ensure that scammers are stopped, banned or even reported to authorities in case of harassment, threat or illegal activity. The dating website pays hosting services and security software, this is why they have to charge a minimum for maintaining their site. 
     When it comes down to it, deciding to date online is based on what you are looking for in the outcome.  There is an amount of risk involved in choosing to pay for a site or signup for a free dating site.  There is no guarantee that paying for a membership will find you love.  There is also no guarantee that using a free website will not find you love. From what I hear through friends, family, and my personal experience, paying for an online dating website has the best types of results.

     Use your best judgement, as always, when dating online or offline.

No comments:

Post a Comment