With many of us plugging into smartphones and the ’net hoping to meet that special someone, Gerard Ward gets the lowdown on four of the city’s top dating sites
You don’t want anything too complicated, and you don’t necessarily want to pay for an online dating service. This one’s essentially a Facebook app where people recommend others as suitable dates. Similar to Your pals setting you up with someone via Facebook.
COSTS: You earn credits by getting friends to sign up, so you can then send messages to potential dates. For example, recommending a friend to the site gets you ten credits, enough to send a message to a potential date. Or $36 gets you unlimited posts.
WHAT TO DO: Send messages, attaching photos and emoticons.
INFORMATION GIVEN: Accept the Facebook app to see a basic list of your potential date’s likes – books, fitness, food, movies etc – and how many friends have recommended them. Why use this? Because it’s a Singapore-based company, and there’s less room for abuse.
WHAT TO EXPECT: Hopefully no crazies – and a growing list as more people sign up for the service.
You’re busy. You do lunches, not dates with strangers. You don’t want to explain yourself to a bunch of people seeking similarities. You want a more personalised dating service.
SIMILAR TO: A semiblind date, though instead of your friend egging you on to see for yourself, it’s someone who does matchmaking for a living.
COSTS: From $2,400 a year. This guarantees a minimum of 12 meet-ups, and even inter-city dating.
WHAT TO DO: Turn up to the date. The master Cupids will attend to the finer details of who and where. Don’t be upset that you can’t scour the internet with their profile to study beforehand.
INFORMATION GIVEN: An hour’s interview with a matchmaker, about yourself and what you’re looking for
WHY USE THIS: You have very little free time on your hands, and hate scanning endless profiles claiming to be a perfect 10. ‘Slim’ shouldn’t mean your chances of telling the truth.
WHAT TO EXPECT: Someone like your mother setting you up on a date at one of 13 restaurants and bars around town. The price does sting a little.
You’ve bitten the bullet and sat down to try out electronic dating. It’s still alien to you, but it worked for your friend who’s been married for about four years.
SIMILAR TO: The old ways of MySpace hunting. Expect the standard online dating format – if it ain’t broke…
COSTS: Free, but profiles are limited. One-month membership ($45) grants you unlimited messages. An ELITE Membership (from $69 per month) allows incognito snooping, or be a ‘rockstar’, whereby anyone can see you.
WHAT TO DO: Write your own paragraph to swoon potential dates, then judge everyone else’s.
INFORMATION GIVEN: Basic likes, physical attributes, job information and even salary.
WHY USE THIS: You’ve got a database of 11,000 potentials to stalk or virtually wink at, as well as check out monthly meet-ups where red straws mean ‘available’. Use their smartphone app to browse while travelling to work. Efficient fishing.
WHAT TO EXPECT: The joys (and maybe horrors) of online dating that have kept this format alive and interesting. You may not get what you expected, but at the very least you get gossip-worthy stories to tell friends the next day.
Information has, and always will be, paramount. Why waste a moment of your time with someone who isn’t as decisive or ambitious as you? You’re a results-seeking expert – it says so on your profile page.
SIMILAR TO: Those wanting to process a person’s data, then analyse and coincidentally hold it against them on the first date if they’re wrong.
COSTS: Free; $209.70 for three months, and a guarantee of ten contacts; or $239.40 for six months’ membership.
WHAT TO DO: Fill in all the parameters as to whom you’re seeking, and a refreshed list of candidates will appear every time you check. Feel free to widen your net if no one is taking the bait.
Information given: Answer a multiple-choice quiz and ‘rate from 1 to 5’ questions at fi rst. Be truthful, or else this will bite you in your lying behind.
WHY USE THIS: Send a message or ask someone to introduce themselves to you. Feeling cocky? Send them a personalised quiz, or compare answers from the first quiz. Is he more rational than you? Let’s check the board.
WHAT TO EXPECT: A lot of data to play around with – though you can never be sure just how much is true, considering it’s all entered by the individual.
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