I was quite relieved to find this site.
My match.com experiences (going into 2 months subscribed) have been mixed but more or less right in line with the 100 or so reviews I've read. Frustration, anticipation, apprehension, excitement, scams, bait-n-switchsters, MDC's efforts at 'deep insights' into my psyche based on which box I toggled of the available options...yep...all there.
Not to re-hash the hash but I have two anecdotes I thought were worth sharing after reading a few pages of reviews.
First, I was fortunate enough to not only get a wink reply, I was able to cultivate 'a beginning'. Circumstances not entirely beyond my control led to me standing her up, old-school style (FWIW, I think that no activity or responses for 2+ weeks is a sign that my karma is catching up with me). I also began to wonder if there was some secret feedback slot where other users could hep other users about their experiences. In any event, I did make contact with her again to apologize for being a heel and might turn that stone again when I recover from MDC and ~this~ Really Weird Encounter...The reviewer that recommended checking at (b)Lowe's or Home Despair for available folks made me grin...Shortly after subscribing and being way way naive about online dating, my profile shared some really specific information that people who live around here would key in on. One of the side-effects of my job is that I appear in the press a lot and am somewhat recognizable...if you know who you're looking for...
So I'm at (b)Lowe's picking out veggies for the garden on Saturday morning...only vaguely resembling the photos posted on my profile as I was dirty, sweaty, etc. Out of the blue, this woman approaches me and starts quoting my profile to me. As if that wasn't weird enough, she then critiqued it, and pointed out that some of the information could be perceived as misleading (the city associated with my ZIP code is in another county). She then went on to chastise me for being a liar...
Needless to say, I got a little freaked out. Fortunately for me, I don't shop at that location much so I just turned tail and left the store.
I think that the observations that hit the closest to home for me were about the women who read Eat, Pray, Love and that perhaps many of the women with subscriptions and profiles are subscribed for their own personal esteem needs, not necessarily to find a 'significant other'.
Thanks everyone for the reviews. Seriously. I don't feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants anymore...I'm more interested in talking to the people who wrote the reviews than the shadowy women profiled on MDC. Now I'm really wary of subscription renewal and cancellation, etc.