What about other dating sites? Yahoo Personals
As we all know, there are loads of dating sites out there in cyberspace. Some big, some small, all, no doubt, with their own benefits and disadvantages. Although Craig's List is certainly my favorite, both for entertainment and for instant(ish) gratification, I have profiles on a variety of other sites, which I leave moderately active, mostly for kicks, but also on the theory that you never know. After all, much like the lottery, if you don't play, you can't win, right?
This morning, I'll be talking a bit about Yahoo! Personals, which I joined on a whim after hearing a friend talk about hers. From the very beginning, I didn't love the setup -- it's not very creative, and it felt quite constraining. I am, after all, not your everyday kind of girl, so having lots of limited categories often doesn't work for me. But I'm good at working around those things, and I did. Of course, I'm also far too cheap, and not motivated enough, to pay for any dating site, so I enjoyed the benefits of full membership for only the first seven days, and then they cut me back to only being able to write pre-formulated emails to people I might be interested in.
That's okay, though, because, so far as I can tell, there's no one interesting there.
The problem here isn't that there's no one interesting, but rather than there are too many other people muddling up the field. And because the searching functions are far too limited, there's no good way to sort through the chaff. And because I tend to look for guys who are a bit out of the mainstream, there's a lot of chaff on Yahoo! because it is, by self-definition, mainstream.
The most entertaining bit about this profile is that it has created a special IM handle that's linked to my primary Yahoo! IM handle, so when I'm logged in, people who see my profile and want to chat with me can drop me a line. This has led to some really great conversations (with my friends after the fact). At some point, I'll be giving some advice about how to strike up an IM conversation with someone you don't know but might like to bang get to know.
For now, though, my verdict on Yahoo! Personals is an unsurprising yawn. Special interest dating sites have a lot more potential.
