Online Dating Sites
Be Mine Online: What's the Best Dating Site for You?
Don't get lost in the hundreds of dating sites available these days. We review the top sites to help you pick the right one for you.
Let's be honest, there seem to be about a million different dating sites out there. And it's not feasible to pay for them all. How do you find the one that best fits you and your personality? We're here to help.
Our team of reviewers signed up for profiles on some of the top dating sites to give you the inside scoop. We've broken down the sites for you, including which sites are best for women, men, social media junkies, and more!
Best Site for Women: Chemistry.com
Chemistry.com received the Lady's Choice award from our reviewers, who loved the intuitive matching system that concentrates more on personality traits than other dating sites. Of course, that means the questions are numerous and sometimes confusing, like the question asking whether your index finger is longer, shorter or the same length as your ring finger.
But as one of our female reviewers found, those obscure questions help Chemistry narrow down your matches:
"What was really interesting was that when I finished the profile and got my matches back, I swear the quiz picked up on some of my more hidden traits. Some of the guys who I was matched with were into obscure books or movies I like that hardly anyone else does. So maybe there was something to that sensory perception, index finger bit after all."
Pros: An intuitive matching system that caters to people who want a committed relationship.
Cons: There are so many personality questions that creating a profile can be an exercise in patience. But that will lead to better matches, so it's worth it.
Best Site for Men: Match.com
It's true what they say: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. So a dating site that works best for women probably isn't the best for men, which proved true according to our research. While our male reviewers liked Chemistry, they loved Match.com. "Match didn't seem as touchy-feely with its questions, I think it's more interest-based, but that's important to me," observed one of our male reviewers.
He has a point, matching based on interests (like movies, music, etc.) gives you and your match a jumping off point for conversation. And if the matches that Match.com is sending you don't work, you can always use their impressive search function to look for matches based on those same interests.
Pros: Great search tool, intuitive interest-based matching system and an active user base, meaning more match possibilities.
Cons: Their matching questionnaire is not as intensive as some, and with their large user base, you might have to sift through many matches before finding the right one.
For Social Networking Fans: Zoosk
Dating is all about communicating, right? Especially at the beginning of the relationship. So it's nice that Zoosk offers its users so many different tools to help with that initial communication. As one of our male reviewers observed, Zoosk "takes all the best parts of all the dating and social networking sites out there and puts them together." The best part? You can use most of Zoosk's features for free, to a degree.
Not free however, is communicating on Zoosk, limiting the usability of their awesome features, which include a News Feed ala Facebook, a scientific matching service and a downloadable chat program that incorporates all the functions of the regular site.
Pros: A slew of different communication tools for you to play with.
Cons: Not the best selection of users, but that might change as more people sign up.
Best Site for Those Looking for a White Picket Fence: eHarmony
Are you looking for forever? So is eHarmony. Their main selling point is their ability to facilitate long-term relationships between strong matches. In order to accomplish that goal, they ask a lot of questions. We mean a lot of questions. This keeps the user base selective to people who are serious about relationships.
Spirituality is also a major trend in eHarmony's matching system. "I feel like they asked me the same questions on spirituality over and over in different ways," said one of our female reviewers. But our reviewers did appreciate the specificity of the questions asked and how spot-on most of their matches were.
Pros: They have a more systematic matching system that allows for closer matches.
Cons: The survey is really, really long. They also tend to turn people down if they don't fit with their criteria of good matches.
Best Free Site: OkCupid
What's a single person with no cash flow to do? Join OkCupid. Most of the best dating sites don't let you communicate for free, and the sites that do allow free communication are usually not the best. OkCupid however, allows you to communicate and use most of their cool features for free.
Like most major online dating sites, OkCupid offers features such as messaging, chat, search capabilities and more. Their matching questionnaire is the best we've seen, because you can answer as many or as few questions as you want. If you want closer matches, then answer more questions. Plus most of the questions are user-created, which is a cool feature.
Pros: It's free!
Cons: The free parts of the site are limited, so you might end up signing up for the paid service anyway.
None of these sites for you? Not to fear, there are still a slew of dating sites available to you that might fit your needs. Check out our reviews of other dating sites to find one that's right for you.
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