my experience has been mostly positive on lava. in 3 months, 9 dates, although after weeding out the "married looking for trouble" ones and the "oh my god you are not like your picture" ones, 3 real ones. those 3 however were very nice and honest in their expectations. I have had no where near the same success with match.com or yahoo personals which charge by the month regardless of success.

yes I get hits from Thailand and Russia to try to get me to burn credits. yes, 80 miles away being considered local in their search engine, is stupid. the credit system does not make much sense (why 6 credits and not 5 since they are sold in blocks divisible by 5). yes lots of postings are never going to give responses (ego stroke postings). and yes women with public pictures are going to get random hard core unsolicited photos. all valid complaints

my biggest complaint is that the intimate section is very active and the dating section sits for weeks at a time with no activity. I have talked to several who told me they dont expect answers on the dating section anymore, so they go to the intimate encounters section, with no interest or intention of any such encounter. that may be a regional problem.

but overall, i like lava because I control my cost, spend what i want, and I do meet real people.