The Dating Experience

Match.com is the largest pay-for-membership online dating service (if you want to contact someone via IM or email). I have been a member for quite a few years and have seen it grow and evolve … hmm … I am not sure what that says about me or the service.

You will have to create a profile to be able to other member profiles. But, if you are not ready to show your profile you can hide it until you feel you are ready. To get best results, I would suggest spending 20 – 30 minutes filling out the questionnaires, coming up with good original text and also uploading a few good photos.

Some of the services that Match.com offers are winks (even for free memberships), IM, various searches including “Reverse Matches” and “Mutual Matches” searches. Like some of the other online dating services out there, Match.com will allow you to see who has checked out your profile – this is how I have made a few connections.

To contact other members you will have to be a paying member and these memberships are around $25 a month. Match.com also has several international websites but to use those you will have to create a separate profile and also pay a separate fee (Canada is lumped in with the USA but Mexico is a separate membership).

Match.com’s size gives it international appeal which means that you not only get a chance to meet a lot of locals – you also are sometimes contacted by members from outside the USA (even without a foreign Match.com membership). I am contacted on a regular basis by members outside of the USA by foreign women interested in meeting American men. Granted, some of these are interested in Americans as a way to make their way to America (surprisingly, quite a few contacts have come from Europe – mostly from Germany).

My experience with Match.com
Unfortunately, some of the contacts from outside the USA have been from scammers. But, if you have been on these sites long enough or have any common sense you should be able to figure out which are scammers. If you don’t have much experience with online dating, watch out for the beautiful orphan models that are supposed to be white Americans but with horrible English or ghetto English that are doing humanitarian work in Africa. These were rampant about a year ago but I think Match.com is now onto them and I am not seeing them as much.

There are many other online dating websites out there but I do think Match.com has the greatest number of hotties. Of course, this also means you will have more competition. Some of the Match.com women I have gone out with tell me that they have received hundreds of emails. You will have to be creative and focused (or have good photos on your profile) to get a response.

I can’t say that I have had any serious relationships via Match.com – I have gone out on a regular basis with a few members, kind of keeping each other company until something better came along but that is about it. I have also had a lot of first dates via Match.com: either they were not what I was expecting when we met in person or we simply had no chemistry. But, for the most part, I have had good experiences.

I can only think of one person I met on Match.com turning out to be a whacko (I even had to call 911 to get her out of my home but that is another story … watch for it).

Would I recommend Match.com? Definitely! Give it a shot. Plus, Match.com has some great features and plenty of members to get your interest. Plus, Match.com gives you a six month guarantee that you will find someone special. So, what do you have to lose?

Background checks are something that I have heard friends do on people they were dating but it is something I still have not done. I am not sure I would do one, really. I guess I have not reached a point where I felt that was necessary.

On the other hand, I know of at least two cases in which a friend (both women) ran a background check on someone they were seeing. I don’t think the guys did anything negative that would make my friends feel the need to do a background check except – it was more for comfort.

First case:
My friend, in her mid-twenties, met a guy through friends. Everything seemed to be going well and they were starting to get very close. But, there was something about him that bothered her. She ran a background check on him and she found something in the report that she did not like. Mainly, it had to do with drinking but it was enough that she did not want to continue the relationship.

Second case:
My friend, in her early forties, met someone online. Honestly, I really don’t remember the guy doing anything to warrant the background check – sometimes I wonder if it was not an excuse to break up with the guy. The truth is, she was worried she was marrying below her social status (yes, this was someone living in the USA). She was also concerned about the guy’s income potential and credit background. When the background check came back, she was impressed to see that the man she was dating had an income that was better than she expected and a favorable credit report. I always thought the guy was a decent man especially considering everything my friend put him through. About a year after they met, they married.

I cite these two examples to point out that background checks are performed by people of all ages, by people that met online and the different reasons for running checks and their results. I am not sure if you are at a greater risk of meeting someone dangerous by going online but it is interesting to see that in my examples, the online suitor was the one with a squeaky clean record.

I am not sure how I would feel if someone I was seeing ran a background check on me. I guess it depends on where we were in the relationship or why they ran the check. If we had been dating for some time and were very close, I guess I would be offended if she ran a check on me – my feelings would be that if we had come this far and were very close, why did she not feel comfortable in asking me about my possible skeletons? Or, did she not have enough trust in me to believe me? I might be offended, too, if she ran the background check to make sure I made enough money. Is she a gold digger?

I want to hear how you feel about: Would you be offended if you found out someone had run background on you? Has someone run a check on you and what were the results? On the other hand, have you run a check on someone and what was the outcome? What were your reasons for initiating the check?