match.com > Reviews (26)

I am a 27 year old male and I joined Match on a one month subscription with no real expectations, I just thought why not. My experience has led to me wanting to write this review to let others see how it went for me and to give some idea of what to expect. I decided to subscribe for a month, just to get a feel for the site and the kind of girls on it. At best I might find somebody special, at worst maybe make a few new friends. In hindsight I should have put my money to better use. My so-called "mutual matches" all ignored me, then out of frustration I just emailed or winked over 400 girls - basically just to see if I got any replies because I had never been so ignored on a website before. I am fairly flexible in my interests and can realistically get on with most people. At one point I was even wondering if my account was actually working or not. In fact here are my stats:

Emails/Winks sent = 487
Emails sent = 223 (45.8%)
Winks sent = 264 (54.2%)

Unread emails = 34 (83.9% read/16.1% unread)
Profile visitors = 96 (19.7%) - total visits was 309 (average of 3 visits per visitor)

Replies = 4 (0.8%)
Not interested = 29 (6.1%)
Seeing someone = 6 (1.2%)
Winks received = 3 (0.6%)
Busy/Vanished = 6 (1.2%)

Total response = 48 (9.9%)
No response = 439 (90.1%)

Now my emails were all very polite, and tailored to the particular woman's profile. I followed the proper etiquette all the time. The best conversations were actually from the "no thanks" girls. If they took the time to email me to say no, then I always responded just to thank them. The women I talked to were somewhat strange in that at first they were chatty and engaging, and then without warning would just vanish and ignore you. Two claimed that they were currently snowed under in work and would email me when they had more time, never heard from either again. Another one branded me weird for asking about her ex boyfriend (she was constantly talking about him) and then ignored me. The ones I got to talk to just didn't impress me intelligence wise.

One problem that I did find is that the search feature is somewhat flawed. I search within a 60 mile radius of where I live, well it was giving me girls who were up to 100 miles away from me. The mutual and reverse match features are equally flawed as they don't take into account distance. For example I might be looking for somebody 60 miles away but my mutual match who lives 60 miles away might want somebody who is only 10 miles away and vice versa. Left me wondering if this little flaw was just there to push up the number of search results that you get. Another problem is that you have no idea who is a subscriber and who is not. It would have been nice if profiles had a little "current subscriber" notification or icon. If somebody isn't subscriber then they can't reply to you. Considering the cost of the fees I would expect to know who can and can't reply.

Now I had a good profile (with help from a female), had good pictures, and have worked in PR and with celebrities, so in theory I should have had some success (in replies anyway).

Not saying I'm the greatest catch in the world or anything, but I saw many reviews saying you had to be wealthy etc to have any chance of Match. Well my profile was a bit of a waste of time, as hardly any of the girls looked at it. So I can only conclude that most girls go by looks alone. I think what lets Match down is the lack of any instant chat features. With dating you have to talk to each other, simple as that. With my experience I got written off without being given a chance. Perhaps the big problem is that men hugely outnumber the women, so the women can afford to be picky and selective in who they contact.

For men I just wouldn't recommend the site, unless you want to risk being totally ignored or you look like Justin Timberlake or Brad Pitt. The biggest joke of all was that I saw many of the women on other dating sites saying "where are the genuine men?" and things along those lines. Just thought to myself, well I am genuine and you totally ignored me. It might be worth asking why are so many women could be found on free dating sites if Match is so good? I am not saying that every girl is like this, but my experience has left me feeling like most girls are shallow and have lost the art of communication. Most couldn't even be bothered to click on the "not interested button" - despite protesting on their profiles that they were very polite and so on. A lot of girls also seemed to want any men to share THEIR interests and seemed to be pretty stubborn about this, in fact a few rated me as a bad match because I didn't share their number one interest. The Women under 30 seemed to be more looking for travel companions or just somebody to go clubbing with they didn't seem to be after anything serious - that's just the impression I got from reading their profiles. The women over 30 seemed to be more genuine about finding something serious - again the impression I got from reading their profiles.

The only benefit that I got from using Match was to allow a friend of mine to use my experience as part of a social study that she is doing - hence the stats because together we wrote a 20+ page report on my experience. Also just want to say if any girls are reading this the intention of my review is not to bad mouth women, its just based on my own personal experience of using Match.com.

Finally, and most importantly, I urge any potential subscribers to read the costs and small print carefully. During my time on Match the MONTHLY equivalents were more prominently displayed than the actual fees. If you are thinking of buying the optional extras for your account also read the details carefully, because there are initial set up fees for these. It can actually potentially be a very expensive experience. The other thing I didn't like was the fuss to cancel my subscription. I had to go through about 4 pages of "tips" and "hints" that suggested that I had done something wrong - was my profile detailed enough, did I email enough people, was my photo good enough, and things along those lines. I felt that to be unnecessary and it must do wonders for the confidence of anybody who has had an experience like mine. As I went onto the site with no expectations it didn't worry me personally, but it might hit people who have gone onto the site thinking they'll find love.

I gave it two stars mainly because their layout and design is very good. If it wasn't for this redeeming feature it would have been one star.