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When you’re done with meeting people in pubs and clubs, your friends’ friends are all either taken or un-datable, there’s no one decent at work and you’ve pretty much given up, there are really only two options left – internet dating, and more recently speed dating.

Internet Dating

For…

• You can read all about the person first
• You can see their photos first
• You can start slowly with email or instant messaging
• There is a plentiful supply of potential partners

Against…

• People can (and do!) lie in their profiles
• People only put their best photos online, sometimes quite old!
• Some people like to spend a month emailing before they’ll agree to meet up (if ever)
• There may be something wrong with everyone on there…

Speed Dating

For…

• You get to speak to the person face to face
• You get an idea of what they’re like very quickly
• It’s only ten minutes or so, so you don’t have to come up with too much chit chat
• They can’t hide behind misleading photos!

Against…

• There’s generally a much smaller pool of girls
• You have to move on when the bell rings, regardless
• There may be something wrong with everyone there…

I’ve done both internet dating and speed dating, and really they’re both very different. Internet dating is more of a lazy method, in that you can sit back and pick through hundreds of profiles, only emailing the ones you’re interested in. With speed dating, you have to sit down and speak to each and every girl there, you can’t just pick and choose who to talk with!

I can’t recall how many girls I’ve been out with via internet dating, but I do know that I’ve been out with three girls from speed dating. One of the speed dating girls was rubbish and resulted in only one date, the second one was okay and we had dinner a few times but nothing more, and the last one was really great! We went out a few times and she once stayed at my place overnight, but then she got back with her ex-boyfriend. Bummer…

I’d have to say that girls from speed dating are generally more serious about finding someone than girls from internet dating. I guess it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about internet dating being the more lazy of the two options.

From a cost point of view, internet dating is definitely better value. For the price you pay to meet eight to ten girls at speed dating you will get around the same amount of paid contacts on an internet dating site (depending on which one you use). But… With speed dating you don’t choose the girls, with internet dating you do! With speed dating your money is gone after a few hours, with internet dating your money may last you weeks or months depending on how many girls/guys you contact.

I couldn’t say which one is better or which one is more likely to be successful, I’d say give both a try! What I can say is that lately I’ve been sticking with internet dating, but I don’t know if that means internet dating is better or I’m just lazy!

Does online dating really work? What a question! I did a Google search for this term and found plenty of results, but most of them are just full of advertising and don’t actually give any answers. Shame that so much of the internet has gone that way, but I digress…

I’m going to use this blog to tell you all about my personal dating site adventures, and I hope that it will end some day with me posting a photo of my wedding day and telling you all to sod off! But seriously, I hope that my experiences will be of some value to someone out there.

So a bit about me then… I’m still under thirty (only just) and in case you were wondering, no there is absolutely nothing wrong with me! I look after myself, I’m fit, I look okay (better than most anyway!) and I have a well paying job. I have a good life, I have no children, never been married, no baggage and I think I’m a pretty good catch! This isn’t a sales pitch, I just thought you should know who you’re dealing with, and what chances of finding love online I should have.

I have pretty high standards too, probably too high for me to be able to justify! Definitely too high for me to justify actually… It certainly reduces the pool of potential dates, but there are plenty of smart and beautiful girls out there, so why not aim high? Maybe if I’m still not hitched by the time I’m forty I’ll have to reassess my ‘standards’!

I registered on popular dating site RSVP quite a few years ago, and in between ‘real’ girlfriends I’ve used it to meet other girls. I’ve lost count of the number of girls I’ve been out with from the site, but only a handful have been good enough to graduate to a second date. I’ve only slept with one of them, but there has been plenty of other ‘action’ with some of them. Don’t take that the wrong way, I don’t use these sites for one night stands, I’m genuinely looking for something real, but I’ll take whatever else is on offer in between. I’m a young man, I have needs you know!

That’s enough for post one. Over the coming weeks I’ll start writing about some of these dates. Maybe some profile tips would be good, plus whatever other entertaining things I happen to come across. I may even write about non-dating site dates, but we’ll see…