I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend £30 (or more!) per month on a dating site when there are equally useful alternatives out there for free.

When the internet started, everything was free. E-commerce was in its infancy and no one that I associated with in 1996 (least of all my Mother) was all that happy handing over their credit card details to a world wide ‘website' on the ‘information super highway' (don't you feel old just reading that term?!). As the noughties approached, the dot com boom sounded and people rushed to their computers, as if shell shocked, to hand over their credit card details to complete strangers. It seems however that many entrepreneurs erroneously invested in online initiatives void of viable business models. In turn, people were not stupid enough to give over their 16 digit numbers quite as readily as was hoped and the dot com bubble burst in 2001.

Since then, investors have gotten more interweb savvy (like Jeremy Clarkson I'm a proponent of this term, but for utterly different reasons than he, and besides, that's a subject for another article...) and entrepreneurs have gone back to business basics. As a result, the monetisation of websites is a huge industry and e-commerce and internet marketing are growing on what are now, generally speaking, stable economic foundations.

The dating sector is now well established, with sites such as match.com heading the market and raking in massive profits. Keywords for paid search ads in the dating sector are likely to cost up to £2 per click (which is very expensive). Certainly these sites have lots of functionality and a rich roster of users. They are the success stories in a lucrative online industry where the things that make the internet a success as a whole (relative anonymity, real time communication, huge data resources and a ‘browsing' culture) also speak perfectly to this most social of sectors.

I've been a part of the internet revolution in dating for the past 5 or so years. Am I still single? Well the answer is yes, but that's probably got more to do with my reluctance to commit than any difficulty in meeting eligible partners. There are a plethora of sites out there, but are the pay sites really worth it? In my experience (and I've tried most), sites claiming to offer ‘free dating' sometimes only do so, so as to entice users in to trying their services for a certain time before actually charging for it. Often these sites end up charging the earth (or in some cases, entire solar systems) for their services.

After trying some of the big commercial names from the front page of Google, I started looking for free dating sites on the web. The three that I've had the most success with in the last year are ‘flirtbox, ‘freedating' and ‘matchpoints'. They were all good, but I have found the forum at freedating.co.uk to be a very rude environment and one I'm happy to avoid. The main criticism I have for ‘flirtbox' is the design and navigation of the site. Call it subjective but I just don't like the complexity of the page. Much cleaner and with all the benefits of the others is my free dating website of choice, ‘matchpoints'. The site is unique in that users earn points by filling out questionnaires and surveys, as well as clicking on banners in order to use the great features within the site, which themselves cost points. I've actually had some of my most fun dates with girls from ‘matchpoints'. I don't use dating sites to find a partner as much as fun evenings out with like minded people. That they often happen to be of the opposing sex and very attractive is just a bonus to me. Ok, so I've had some shockers as well. A certain Lady by the name of Jane (name changed) was kind enough to have dinner with me at a favourite Italian restaurant of mine in the centre of London. Unfortunately (and although she was intelligent, professional and very attractive) she had a terrible case of hiccups throughout the entire evening. We even walked along the embankment, fitting light hearted conversation in between her gustatory tremors. What was at first a very awkward evening turned into a hilarious event, as hiccups lead to laughter and onto more hiccups!

Generally I think it's a good idea to sign up to as many free sites as possible, as the one thing that the subscription sites have over them are more users per site. Then again, if the subscription sites were free I'd join all of them to maximise my chances. I only go on dates that I set up online these days and I can tell you from experience (especially as a man) that it really is a numbers game.

The truth is that there is really only one reason to pay a subscription to a dating site these days. If you're gay, or looking for culturally specific matches, or into a bizarre fetish then I think that choosing a specialist subscription site makes sense, the web being as it is now (although it's certainly still worth using the free sites since it's still a numbers game!). If however, you're even close to the mainstream of sexuality and demographics, please, don't pay for a date ever again.



Free Dating