ClueChick: real clues from a real chick

I first joined OkCupid because I had a really boring job and OkCupid had lots of entertaining quizzes to keep me occupied. In order to keep track of my quiz results, I had to create a profile, and once I'd created a profile, I might as well fill it out and put up some pictures, right?

I like OkCupid very much, and here's why:

1) Lots of quizzes. I'm a sucker for quizzes, and I love seeing other people's results. And they're a bit of a distractor from the personal ad-ness of the site, which I like, so it feels less like a meat-market than some.

2) Few multiple choice categories to fill out in your profile. I hate it when I have to check a bunch of boxes in categories that either aren't important to me or with pre-set options that don't suit me.

3) Nonstandard questions to answer as part of your profile: You have the standard self-summary, but then there's also "I'm really good at:" and "The most private thing I'm willing to admit here:"

4) Community/networking possibilities. I like being able to network with my friends and see an extended friend network, and who knows whom.

5) A matching system based on your answers to a long series of "what do you prefer" type questions. The matching compares your answers, what you would desire in a partner, and the other person's answers to come up with a number. Based on how it matches me with friends and exes, I'd say it's pretty good.

In general, I find OkCupid to encourage people to create more complete profiles than many other dating sites, and I don't know if it's because of the type of people it attracts or the format of the site, but they also seem to be more interested in a complete person on the other end, too.

OkCupid is more of an investment of time than something like Craig's List, but since a CL posting may or may not pan out, OkC is a bit like long-term investing and will probably result in some fun down the line but not instantaneously. I'm told by two of my male readers that the scene in OkC is much better for them than CL, so that's certainly another thing to take into consideration.

And, of course, an OkC hookup is what got me into casual sex in the first place, so I've got to give it a tip-of-the-hat for that, as well.