How do you feel about dating services?

[ticklisharmpits]

I recently joined Great Expectations. I joined a dating service called Together about 2 years ago. The difference is Together is a match making service, and it's like going on blind dates. Together isn't really working that well for me, so that's why I joined Great Expectations. Of course when I had my initial interview at G/E the representative said G/E was the best.

Has anyone here had any experience with any dating services? If so, which dating services? Good experiences or bad?

I admit I want desperately to find my "soulmate". Needless to say, I invested a lot in these dating services financially.

Any thoughts?


Thanks

 

[ticklisharmpits]

I'm a TMF Novice!!

I just saw that by starting this thread, I made my 50th post, and I'm now a TMF Novice!!! 😀

 

[P50]

First off, I am terribly interested in reading about your experiences in dating via any of the services that you have mentioned.

Secondly, I want you to know that I was contacted by at least one dating service and responded to them once. The conversation went something along the lines of pleasant chatter and friendly discourse for two or three minutes. The interviewer (a woman with a great phone voice) asked me my name and age and spoke about women and yackity yackity yak. The woman then asked (what she thought was) a casual question...

"And what is your annual income ?"

 

[Bagelfather]

dating services

There are various incarnations out there of this but I would suggest "speed dating." I would look online by doing a google search and also see if you can find what other people say (on message boards and the like).

What is speed dating (aka pre-dating)?

A service does some basic screening and has an equal number of men and women (unless someone cancels last minute). Each person is assigned a number on his or her name tag. You gather together in a comfortable place (restaurant, bar, etc) and spend about 6 minutes with each person and try to get to know them. During that time you take notes about the person you are meeting with. Take GOOD notes and always write down the persons name and number on your notes sheet, you WILL forget later if you don't do it right after you meet them or when you sit down to talk. You have another sheet where you can notate which person you are interested in to be handed in later.

The event lasts about an hour and a half to two hours. At the end you turn in your sheet of paper (not your notes sheet) to the people running the show. They compare your interests to the other people you talked to. Typically there is interested in dating, interested as a friend or business partner, and not interested. They match up people based on likes and send you an email (usually within 24 to 48 hours) with a list of contacts. You can decide if you want to provide just an email address or an email address and a phone number. Then you are on your own.

Speed dating costs vary from $20 to $40 per session (I would think carefully about paying more than $40). I spent $32 for my first session had one potential match but we never hooked up, dunno why but I think we weren't really that interested in each other. However, I do not feel I wasted my money. I got to meet 14 single women, had good conversations with most of them in an environment where normally I wouldn't have talked to so many. Think of it like this, if you go on a date with someone you probably spend $20 to $30 anyway and meet just one person. I think you'll have fun with it, I recommended it to my friends.

What about "tickling partners? Well there may be an alternate lifestyle one out there, or you could meet someone and see where it goes in that direction, who knows.

The good thing is you are not permitted to exchange information with the person at the table, its all done anonymously after the meeting so there is no pressure.

 

[Knox The Hatter]

Back in the late 80s, I called on one of those dating services. They wanted an amount of money from me up front that came to four digits. I told them to blow it out their asses, and groused on the ride home about exploitation, etc. I complained to my best friend about such dating services, only to find out that that was how he met his then current girlfriend (who he eventually married and divorced).

I met my wife thusly: I put an ad in the Trenton Times. Cost me absolutely nothing; the paper made their money off the deal on the people who accessed. I worded the ad just right to weed out the undesirables. There were three or four responses that first week. After calling the woman who I would eventually marry, I disregarded the others. You could say my wife and I have been joined at the hip since we talked on the phone. Six years ago.
The ad thing was no accident: that was how I got my last girlfriend too, and that relationship lasted almost two years.
It worked for me...and if you're serious, and dilligent, and not desperate or stupid, it can work for you. If you give dating services thousands of dollars, you deserve what's coming to you.

 

[AquaFeline]

I hear good things about eharmony, but this could be my memory playing tricks on me as I can't think of a specific instance.

 

[Knox The Hatter]

That guy who does the commercials for e-harmony looks too much like the guy in church who walks around with the collection plate. Instantly suspicious...

 

[AquaFeline]

I filled out the little questionare for it and I'm getting matches, for free, but I'm not willing to pay to contact people because I don't care that much right now. You don't have to pay until you find someone you really want to talk to.

I found their questionare to be a bit flawed as I read their ideas about me after and I thought maybe it was an idealized self description more than who I really was.

 

[the_Baron]

can you imagine the description for someone who's schizophrenic? must account for all the ranges of emotion and personality.

maybe they get fixed up with twins.

 

[P50]

T-A, I would like to encourage you to risk a much smaller amount of money on yahoo personals. The fees are something like this:

$90 for a year
$45 for a season
$20 for a month

They're here...

http://personals.yahoo.com/

I would also like to encourage you to stay <I>MODERATELY </I> active here in the TMF for an extended period of time.

Remember to visit TickleTheater as well.

I have been registered here for two years. My initial participation was plain and simply too much. My posting rate hit 5-point-something per day for awhile there.

For the first year or so, I made contact with no one. During that year, I also avoided the chatroom almost like I try to avoid hospitals and courtrooms.

When I began to balance out the chatroom and the forum participation, I began to make friends; not "girlfriends" or anything, but just friends. We discussed a lot of non-tickling stuff; especially the guy friends.

In fact, in chatroom PCs, we now regularly discuss non-tickling realated topics more frequently than we discuss tickling topics of any nature. The ratio is probably well past 2-to-1; probably 5-to-1 among established friends.

During the last 6-to-9 months, things started happening, and I was invited to visit and tickle a couple of women. In one case I just didn't feel that it would be the right thing for me to do (I won't go into it here). Anyway, it has happened for me, and I'm no hollywood hunk with the bigbux.

I know that a year-long wait may sound immense (probably because it is) but during that time, I encourage you to make <I>friends </I> here; the non-romantic and non-tickling type of friends. You'll gain a lot from making friends with the real women here ("real", i.e., not the fake females). Those women can provide educational opportunities about men that you can't buy with any amount of money anywhere on earth. (Example: you will find great insight in chatting with other women in private [i.e., secret] about what life is like for a 'Lee).

I have more to write, but don't want to put any more words into this post until I find out if they are being positively received or not; and besides, I want to keep this post below 500 words. Let me know if any of what I've written here helps you (or anyone else) at all.

 

[AquaFeline]

brief interlude

I have been registered here for two years. My initial participation was plain and simply too much. My posting rate hit 5-point-something per day for awhile there.

Aww, whats wrong with being like a kid in a candy store for a while? Besides it's nothing compared to the time I waste reading the useless slashdot comments. More return on the investment here.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[ticklisharmpits]

Thanks for all the input guys! 🙂

 

[dskodj]

I never tried it..but..I wouldnt either, I met enough wackos on my own time LOL. Also, anyone remember the Miami Vice episode where Crockett goes undercover as someone looking for a date on those services cause one chick is killing everyone? Some food for thought😉

 

[AquaFeline]

Seems like a lot of my geek friends back at college had a lot of good luck with online personals. Now it's also for the slightly socially disadvantaged, instead of just the grieviously socially disadvantaged people who go around killing their dates. 😉

 

[Texas_Tickle]

My GF and I broke up a few months back and my mom was trying to get me to sign up on E-Harmony..... the whole "internet dating" sounds cheesy, personally.

 

[ticklisharmpits]

Maybe I should clarify that the dating services I'm referring to are not online dating services, they are the kind where you go view videos and profiles.

 

[AquaFeline]

Well, why not online dating services?

 

[Limeoutsider]

I meet enough potential serial killers in RL to pay someone to help me out

 

[shylittleme]

i've heard some Dating websites work and some don't. you just really have to pick and choice and be very noisy because nobody wants to get scammed. But my thing is this is if your happy trying to find love online because you've had a hard time trying to find that special girlfriend or boyfriend or love in real life then great all the more power to ya everybody needs someone in there life. personally though i've always been worried about meeting people online (let alone meeting a girl through a dating website) because people can lie and stretch the truth so much with people online so easy like and they can also use false pictures of themselfs and play them off as thats really them and thats what they really look like so its hard what to believe anymore. so its all very worrying to me...😕

 

[ticklisharmpits]

I understand where you are coming from Shy, believe me. But like I said, I joined a dating service that is not online. It's viewing profiles, pictures, and videos. An online-only dating service would definitely make me nervous. Because of the very things you said. people can basically be anyone they want to be.

 

[leafstk]

I meet enough potential serial killers in RL to pay someone to help me out

ROFLMAO! Very funny, Lime 😀

 

[shylittleme]

I understand where you are coming from Shy, believe me. But like I said, I joined a dating service that is not online. It's viewing profiles, pictures, and videos. An online-only dating service would definitely make me nervous. Because of the very things you said. people can basically be anyone they want to be.

a dating service thats not online? what type of datng service are you a part of then ticklisharmpits?

oh wait a minute..... you mean thoses 1-800 call me because i wanna talk dirty with YOU! for only 99c per minute the first call is free. its one of thoses services isn't it?

😛

i knew it! you can't fool me

 

[ticklisharmpits]

Very Funny!

Or maybe you weren't trying to be! No Shy, I'm not THAT desperate!🙂 Not a 1-800 #. It's Great Expectations.

 

[P50]

I invite you to ask a male friend who is not a boyfriend to contact the company by phone to see if they ask about his income, and let you eavesdrop on the conversation. (If you are worried about logistics or legality, have him record the conversation; legal in that state last I heard from a real cop.)

T_A, if they even hint about his income, I give you my personal assurance that they are NOT going to attract men such as myself (which may be a good thing).

I dare say, however, that I'm not such a weirdo about telling other people my annual salary, especially annonymous people.

Honestly, how would you like it if they required you to present your body statistics (like fashion models compete for shooting assignments; height weight bust hips thighs, etc.) before you were allowed to see any of the videos of these fortune-500-VPs who compete in body-building contests ?

Of course a woman's general shape and looks ARE important, and so is a man's financial capacity.

But hang on,,,

The act of demanding such specifically quantified data as initial pre-screens will send tons of people running the other way; generally the exact people they are trying to attract.