First of all, I would like to thank all the guys who have posted a review of Match on this board. Until now, I honestly thought I was the only guy having trouble.

I have been on Match three times over the last two years, for a combined total of nine months. During the last two 90 day trials, I have kept a logue of all members I contacted (username), along with a checkmark if she wrote back, two checkmarks if I got her phone number, and three checkmarks if we ended up meeting in person.

Here are my results for the the first trial (Dec '07 to Mar '08): Total emails sent: 192 emails, Positive responses: 9 (1 in 21.3 response rate), Rejection letters: 7. Of those 9, only two progressed to dates. One of those lasted about two months, while the other was just a single first date. Both girls were very attractive though.

Results for the second trial (Mar '08 to Jul '08): Total emails sent: 214 emails, Positive responses: 23 (1 in 9.3 response rate), Rejection letters: 15. Of those 23, most didn't make it past the first email, and only 2 resulted in meeting in person (again, both were attractive to me, and looked better than their pics). Positive responses are emails in which she writes back showing interest. These do not include the "thanks, but..." rejection letters that several girls have sent me.

I'm actually not a bad looking guy. I'm 5'7", 137 lbs, 31, jet black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, physically fit, great conversationalist, and people refer to me as "outgoing", charming, and intelligent. My profile has drawn much praise, and every email I have written was original and custom crafted for the particular woman I was writing to (all girls are different, and respond to different approaches). So you can imagine how time consuming and mentally exhausting it is to write over 400 custom emails over the 180 day period!

The funny thing is, girls don't seem to have a problem talking to me and being with me in real life (even tall slender blondes!), which proves that I'm a pretty decent guy in real life. But on Match, most of the girls don't want to be bothered. I decided to try online dating because I figured it would be more "efficient" than hustling girls at parties and public places.

Here are my conclusions: It's not entirely the women's fault. They are outnumbered, a lot of them can't write back because they aren't paid subscribers, and most don't have the time because they are bombarded with emails from guys (including guys who don't come close to meeting their requirements). At least I tried, so I can say I gave it my honest best. If Match was free, I might try again later. But meeting only 4 girls in person, after sending over 400 emails, is a very poor rate of return (1%), especially when compared to real life.

Thanks again to all the guys who posted on this board and shared your stories, and I wish all of you the best of luck in your search.