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Hi Ladies,
I have a question I would like your input on.
For those of you that have used online dating sites.
Which do you feel is the best?
I don't know much about them but from what I've heard I really like the idea of eHarmony's Compatibility Matching System ?
I'm looking into them for someone else [truly! Happily married! :D ] and I'm leaning towards Match.com or eHarmony.
Which do you like and why?
Thanks!
I met the guy that is currently my boyfriend on match.com. We have been together for a year and a half. The webiste is really easy to use. You can search by age, area, gender, etc. You write up a profile and answer a few question. You can answer what you want and not answer what you don't want. For example, I did not answer the question about my income.
Your friend should be able to do a free 3-day trial to see if he or she likes the feel of match.com before decided to join (just make sure they cancel their credit card information.)
If you friend is female and puts her age range between, say, 22 and 30, she will get messages or winks from 45 year old men. I did. And I ignored them.
I did try to fill out the eHarmony profile, but it took forever.
I met my husband on eHarmony. I think different sites appeal to different people but eHarmony was good for us!
My hubby and I were both on Jdate (Jewish dating site), but we never met on it, we met at temple. I've heard of many people that have successful relationships after they met on Jdate though. I liked it b/c I did look at other sites, and the guys seemed like a better quality on Jdate. But I obviously was looking for a Jew....
I met my fiance on OkCupid, which does a pretty good job keeping the weirdos out, lol. My bff also met her hubby on OKC.
@Statutory Grape:I met my bf on Ok Cupid too!! I intially signed up for the quizzes though haha.
I met my husband on Match.com and I know a few other people who've met their SO's on that site. I never used eHarmony, but I really found Match to be a great way to meet people. I could weed many people out by their profiles and by talking to them on the phone ahead of time, but I guess it could work out either way!
I was on OKCupid for awhile, and met one very nice guy on the site. :) And it is free!
Just tell your friend to watch profile pictures. People will put up what they think looks best, and they could look completely different in person (that happened and boy did he look nothing like his photo...in a bad way).My BF looks just like his photo, so that was good. :D
My FI and I met on plentyoffish.com. I met a few other nice people on there too, most of which ended up just working out as friends, but I'm really thankful for the site for allowing me to meet my FI :)
We met on Match. It worked for us and along the way I met some great guys but it didnt work. I guess it was because my soulmate was just a few dates away.
One of my good friends also met her guy on match and are now moved in together talking marriage.
I try to get my single gf's on match but they're hesitant.
I met my husband on Plenty of Fish. It's a free site and it doesn't really match you up with people. You kind of have to pick and chooseon your own (at least thats what I did, there might be a matching part of the site?
Was free and easy and it worked!
Plenty of Fish skeeved me out a little...I had a pretty bad experience, and apparently that's the site all the creepers in my area use! It's nice to know that some people had a good experience with it, though.
I've never personally used any of them, but two of the eight weddings we went to this year were friends who met their SO on match.com. Food for thought!
I met my FI on Yahoo Personals. I'm not sure if they are still up and running. I've heard a lot of people do the eHarmony assesment and it says they have no one to match them with. I was on match.com, though I didn't meet anyone on there. I went on a few dates from Cupid.com.
We met on OKCupid. I like/liked it a lot because it's 100% free (so you don't have issues with some people being paid members and others free members and not being able to communicate), and because it's full of quizzes and interesting posts about the statistics they've found. It makes logging on and updating your profile a lot of fun.
There's a few reasons I was unwilling to use eharmony - the most important being that I was looking to date both men and women - so philosophically I am kind of opposed to eharmony, but it's also pretty impractical if it's screening out people I want to date! I'm also a much more casual dater... I didn't want to go out with people feeling the pressure of being formally matched by an algorithm.
We met on Match.com. I've heard great things about OKCupid from friends currently out there dating. Everyone I know hates EHarmony. I found the setup on that site to be frustrating, the pool of people to choose from to be overly religious/conservative (in my area) and I hated that I couldn't search for someone - the site had to bring them to me. Not a fan.
I met my SO on match.com.... Initially I was very skeptical about the whole online dating thing, but it worked out very well!!! I did go on a few other dates before my bf that weren't so great (not terrible either, though), but my bf and I just hit it off right away! I think that being able to email back and forth before meeting (we did so for about a month) made me feel pretty comfortable with him, even on our first date. Now we joke that we should be on the match commercials cause we couldnt be happier with the results! I also know several other couples that met on match also and are very happy with the result too... even a few marriages!
I did try eharmony for a very short while. I thought that their way of getting to know one another was very awkward. Basically you had to ask and answer 3 questions about yourself before being able to just talk to a match. So even if they sent me someone who was a good match, I had to answer 3 lame questions and wait for him to do the same before actually talking to him. Needless to say, I quit pretty quickly and was very happy to get my money back since it was pretty expensive!
MATCH!! Met my bf on there...no one else...him either. We took our profiles down very quickly and neither of us ever looked back.
I tried EHarmony too..but you can only talk to people via the communication questions and it's a whole process before you can freely email... that didn't jive with me.
Wow! Thanks to all of you for being so open about this! :)
Ya'll have given some insights to these sites that I definitely did not know.
Good food for thought! 
We met on plentyoffish.com We both had only been on the site about 2 weeks when we meet. After that the rest was history.....
I'm biased towards Match.com. My FI and I met off of there. I'm glad that more and more people are meeting off of these sites. It doesn't make our relationship seem so strange! lol I recommend it to singles every chance I get :)
I've heard really good things about Eharmony and personally know a few married couples who met on Jdate (I have a lot of Jewish friends!).
I like to think about it in terms of "If I were still single". And honestly being 29 if I were still single I'd probably sign up for Eharmony or use a professional matchmaking service.
match.com!! My fiancé and I met on that site 5 years ago...and yep! we're getting married! It truly does work! I was also on eharmony, but I didn't like the fact that you couldn't see people until the "matched" you with them. (that was a loooonggg time ago, so they may have changed it).
I'm new to the online dating sites (I use OkCupid and Plenty of Fish) and have an issue I'm really struggling with: How do you ladies deal with the jealousy that crops up when, even if you really like someone and you think they like you, you see that the guy is still logging into his account? We've only had a couple of dates so far, but it really bothers me no end to see that he's online. I'm terrified of falling for someone who is using the site to date around. I can understand the temptation of having so many options just a mere click away, and I don't expect us to be exclusive or anything after only a few dates... but I'm insecure nonetheless. How do you deal with it?
@laniabee: Hmm... that's one of the things I liked about OKCupid - that people were using it more to date around, have fun, and maybe meet someone serious. It was more what I was looking to do, and put a lot less pressure on every date.
I know other people who have ended up married to people off of sites like that, so I think you just need to look at is as if someone asks you out in another setting. Just because they might be asking out other people, meeting other girls through friends, etc doesn't mean that nothing will work out between you or that he's uninterested in a relationship.
He may also be very interested in you, but getting emails and notifications. While I knew I was really into my fiance from date 1 or 2, I would still click the link and log in if I got a notification. If you had a discussion about being exclusive and he was still logging in repeatedly, that'd be a different story, but I think just don't read anything into it.
Also - if you know he's logging in, doesn't that mean you're logging in too? ;)
I liked eHarmony over match.com because of one factor:
1. I could limit my search easily to only show childfree men. I thought Match didn't do quite as good a job limiting the parameters.
However, as far as paid vs. free matchmaking sites (i.e., eharmony vs. plentyoffish), I would go with paid all the way. People who buck up the dough are by far and large going to care more about their communication and dating experience because they've invested in it beforehand.
@Entangled: Thanks so much! I just really needed someone to tell me how silly I'm being. I totally understand that if we didn't meet through the channels of online dating websites (i.e., if we met in real life), he would still be meeting other girls at the same time! It's just that online dating websites are so much more... in your face, if you know what I mean.
And thank you for reminding me that, just like I log in to check my messages when I get notifications, he could be logging in simply to do the same (as opposed to aggressively searching for other dating possibilities. I have an overly active imagination. : D
Sorry if I somewhat hijacked the thread!
Hahah I LOVE how many online couples are here! We, like artbee, were both on JDate but met through friends. I'd been on and off the site for like 5 years before that, but had also tried OKC and a few others. May as well just try a few! :)
@laniabee: That was actually something I *really* struggled with when I was doing online dating. It gets obsessive. Like "hey, I canceled my account, why is he still logging in every day???".
I think when it comes down to it, the nature of dating hasn't really changed, so you have to follow your instincts like you would if you met any other way.. if you need to ask him if he's exclusively dating you, do it. If you're not ready yet or it's premature to have that conversation, then don't worry about what else he's doing. it sucks though!
I think a lot depends on age. My brother (age 23) was trying to decide between match and eharmony, and he realized that eharmony has more people in their late 20s, 30s, 40s and less of a younger crowd.
plenty of fish was ok for friends
ok cupid was great for me and friends for dating and finding friends and activity partners (for running and rock climbing, for me)
eharmony said i was unmatchable
jdate was terrible for me
craigslist was decent but you have to be careful it can be creepy
most of my friends' success stories are from okcupid.
mine though was good old fashioned serendipity. :) yay! (met in person, no mutual friends)
Both my sister and I found our FH's on OkCupid. I highly recommend it - and it's free! :)
i tried both. was not impressed by the quality of guys i met on match. the two i met on eharmony were much better matches. and the 2nd guy i met on eharmony is still my SO after 3.5 yrs.
eligiblegreeks.com
We're both two good looking Greeks that had very high expectations and never thought we'd find someone to put up with us/meet our standards ... but I tell people a 'social networking site for Greeks' ...why am I so weirded out to just say we met online on a dating website??!! It's not a big deal to him at all. Just me *sigh* I think it's because the few people I've told always respond to dramatically: "what?! you had to go online?!" me: "no, I didn't have to. I wanted to!"
I did the whole club thing, meeting friends of friends, etc. and really could not find the right man I was looking for. My best friend got me onto match.com and my fiancee and I met on match.com.
Like many above, I loved that you could e-mail back and forth and get to know the person before meeting them.
I had a lot of great one-time dates that I just felt the connection wasn't there and a few really bad dates. The thing is to go in it being open minded. I also think it has a lot to do with numbers. I think you have to get yourself out there and meet people and all of the dating websites do that. I think opening the door to getting out there and dating will get you to your Mr. Right.
My vote is for match.com. I did a lot of other websites such as e-harmony, zoosk, etc. and didn't like them as much as match.com. With match.com, I liked that you could filter your search.
I'm biased, because my mom met her husband on eHarmony, but that got my vote! :)
I met my SO on Lavalife.com, which might be a Canadian company. Actually, I met four guys in total and they were all pretty decent (well, one was questionable), so I had a good experience. On Lavalife, the guys pay but the girls are free. I thought that was cool.
I know one woman who married her husband after meeting him on Jdate and I know one guy who met and married his wife after meeting her on Lavalife. They just had a baby!
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