Reviews of Lavalife

A lot of these reviews seem to be from men.... would you like to hear about it from a woman's perspective?

I've been on LL for a few months. My experience sounds different from all of yours. Yes, my pic is public. Yes, my profile is real. Yes, I have sometimes made the first move and *gasp* bought and used credits. No, I am not a "professional".

I can get quite a few smiles, e-mails and backstages in a week. If you're wondering why a girl might not respond, it's not necessarily because her profile is fake. Maybe it's because your profile is rife with misspelled words and those annoying "lol" things. Maybe it's because you think that you're "fit" or "muscular" and, well, you're not! Maybe you've put a "rant" in your profile about women who "play games" -- it really doesn't make you look good. Maybe your pic includes a poorly blacked out picture of your ex. Maybe your IM introduction made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe she's not interested in a guy over the age of 40 with grandkids! Maybe your e-mail is an obvious form letter.....

I've met about a dozen guys for coffee, drinks, dinner, whatever -- and I've kept quite a few of them as friends. And yes, sometimes I don't get answered back either -- suck it up and move on to the next one!

Someone explain this to me:

"Another minus is the fact that Lavalife is, well, expensive. You don't buy "time" when you subscribe, you buy credits. For example, $14.99 buys you fifty credits. This sounds great, until you learn that a single email is worth SIX credits. so that's almost two bucks a contact. You do get a discount for buying more credits ($24.99 for 100, $39.99 for 200) but it still amounts to more than a dollar per first time contact. On the plus side, all other email communication between you and that person is free forever."

So once contact is intiated, all subsequent communication is free? I thought each and every email/message was 6 credits.

I just found this site, and I've been entertained by the reviews. Exactly what I have experienced. I'm specifically responding to the post by L Moser (I think I got that right) about his comment towards the end of his post about how most ladies (especially on the adult personals sites) are expecting big private parts out of guys, or no communication. Yes, there are guys with big you-know-what's out there, but, hey, you know what? They've most likely already got girlfriends, girls. I initiated chat with a woman in my area (she lives fifteen minutes away, in fact) who stated she was looking for a relationship, but the first thing she asked was how big I was. I told her, and I'll tell you. Six inches. Now, I know that's not going to qualify me for any porno movies, but I've known guys, nice guys who have been good friends and deserve happiness like we all do, who are smaller than that. I mean, can you imagine a woman's reaction if a man only wanted to date a woman who had big boobs??? Sexist, dirty pig, she would call him. Scum of the earth, right? But women seem to be able to get away with the same kind of insanity just because they are women. I just don't get it. But I have ceased to try to figure people out. But on to my review of lavalife. I have been a paying member for about a year, and I have yet to meet a single (and I'm using the numerical meaning here) woman. Their "local" search gives you ads from people who are anywhere to a hundred miles away (how is that local???) And, at least in my area, there aren't very many choices to pick from. Well, this has been a long post, longer than I'd intended. I'm just looking for a girlfriend, someone with whom I can connect and form a bond, and I would really like to find someone I can be with for the long term, preferrably my whole life. I don't want to get divorced, but it seems in this society that's innevotable. I'm trying the dating sites, but with limited money and being that they're all looking for more and more money, I don't know. But I've had a fun time reading the reviews on here, as some of them have been very funny and made me laugh out loud. Glad to see I'm not alone, but sorry about it too. Thanks.

I went to lavalife last Nov and I deleted my profile a couple of weeks ago. During last three months this had been a nightmare to me because I got hurt. Everything seems so fake. I did get a lot of attention on lavalife although I am not super pretty. I only replied to 5 guys that I thought are decent and serious. Some of them, to me, are so weird. I started a relationship with one of them and we broke up last week. And finally I understand what they want is to have fun or keep on having new sex partners when they have nothing to do, when they feel lonely or when they are bored with someone although they try to hide this point. It's like that he is still looking for other donkeys when he is on this horse.

I don't think people on lavalife are all losers but I do believe there are a lot of different types of people there. Some guys may complain that girls on lavalife are weird too. I believe it. It's all about what your expectation is from lavalife. To me, I am tired of digging out the real person behind each mask.

there are some nice women on ther but alsosome not so nice ones. My friend dated one found out that she'd recently been in a mental hospital and is positive. SHES THE woman on there all the time hours very unstable and unhealthy.Watch out for the ones that are on all the time because they're either unemployed or needy. If there's any hint of desperation in the profile run.

I, too, wish I could assign a negative 5-star rating to this outfit. After reading a sizeable number of the posts here, I concluded that my results ... or lack thereof ... on e-net dating sites are typical of the interaction that men can expect from the ladies. And here was I, naively assuming that my married status and 60+ age were putting the kibosh on my results :D A couple of years ago I tested my profile on Lavalife (they're shysters, incidentally) by creating a second profile with similar similar physical stats and location for a single 40 year old guy. In the six weeks or so that this profile was available, I never got a "single" (excuse the pun ... I couldn't resist :-) reply. It isn't the lack of a picture that's adding to the problem. I have been on AFF off and on (handle: alwaysLQQKIN) using the exact same profile with or without a picture. The few ... VERY few .. promising responses I got were while I had no picture available. And no, I'm not scary or disgusting to look at! Although AFF also claims to screen replies to weed out those with an e-dress in them, in practice I find they don't manage to catch very many, if any, such messages, so it's easy enough to move to a regular e-mail account once you've established enough rapport with your correspondent to feel secure in doing so. That's when I send my picture(s). You'd think that the only interested ladies would be those who, due to their age or attached status, can't attract younger or single guys. However, my most promising results have been from single women in the 39-45 age range. Oh, I did receive one from a 21-year old local girl, with VERY explicit pix, but she was obviously looking for a sugar daddy or was in the "business". Like several fellows here have mentioned, many female "wish lists" include a demand for a big schlong ... I guess these women have never attended statistics classes; otherwise they would know that they're excluding the majority of otherwise eligible guys from their search. Lavalife = waste of time & money.

LavaLife simply STINKS! I gave up on lavalife and went to Yahoo Personals and I've actually me 12 women in 1 month! And no, I don't work for Yahoo. I got nothing on lavalife...thought is was me...I go on Yahoo and bang! It's incredible I have 4 dates just this week alone. You might be thinking I'm full of crap but I'm not. Yahoo Personals works...lavalife sucks!

John

Just finished reading through the existing reviews. I have some thoughts that differ from some people's points of view, and wanted to share my opinion.

I do agree Lavalife has issues like other sites with fake profiles, and their credit system set up the way it is. However with that being said I do think you will find that many of the fake profiles people refer to are simply profiles people put up for giggles, I do not think by Lavalife themselves'. I have known of people that have added profiles just to see how many people they can get to smile and message them. They treat it as a game - which proves to be unfortunate for those of us that actually try to use it as a different means of finding someone with whom you are truly compatible with. The advantages and of course there are disadvantages as well to online dating, is that it gives you an opportunity to match up with people with whom you have many things in common and get a sense for a person without necessarily having to meet them for a few hours to determine as such.

I have met eight women off that site in the last year and a half. Three were relationships that lasted more then a couple months but nothing long term obviously. Some of the advantages to such are that once you make initial contact with someone and can start communicating through msn and then over the phone something similar, you can find out more about someone in a week of talking to them through msn and on the phone then you usually do in about five or six dates. Likewise as a rule if you don’t feel a connection with someone through the phone, chances are you would not in person either. There is a sense of security in being able to ask almost any question much sooner then you would otherwise feel comfortable simply meeting someone for a couple dates, and sometimes gets things out of the way upfront and allows you to decide its not going to work without a lot of invested time and frustration a couple weeks down the road. Also Lavalife and other dating sites in general allow you the opportunity to speak with people in which you may not otherwise meet during your day to day activities. I am in my mid-twenties and work for a living. I find as I get older I find it harder and harder to meet people in which I truly care to have more to do with then just a simple friendship or one night stand.

You do have to keep something like Lavalife in context though, and in turn treat it appropriately. Being an online thing you are always going to have those hot twenty-something’s that are nothing more then over-weight 46 year old trailer trash with four kids and a motorhome with an identity crisis. There are always unknowns but its your responsibility to wade through the crap.

Like someone else mentioned below, due to the male-to-female ratio on that site, from a man’s perspective I feel you are better off to write a genuine profile with a decent picture explaining what you are looking for and let women come to you. That way you are not barking up the wrong tree…so to speak. If they find what you have to say enlightening and truly interested enough to contact you, then you have a good starting point – if you find them equally attractive, obviously.

The one downside to lavalife I have discovered though, is the women that send you a smile, most times if you JUST smile back nothing more will come of things, so you end up needing to take the initiative many times and message them. However with that being said I have experienced numerous occasions where I would/have received smiles from someone in which our profiles were similar in match and in turn I would think personality wise, only to spend the credits to message them with contact information, perhaps a quick conversation starter and never hear back again. And its not like they have fallen off the face of the planet because you can continue to see their online status over the next little while. That is one thing that does disturb me. Seems lots of girls or women go smile happy and just fire off a butt-load. I do have some concerns about Lavalife’s lack of letting some things slide in your profile, as well as their credit system. I have not experienced many other online dating sites because I could care less to devote much time or expense to them, but I would consider Lavalife to be a step above many – aside from that fact that the ratio and lack of being able to more specifically narrow down search criteria.

All in all though I have had decent success, and as mentioned above having the opportunity to use something like lavalife has proved beneficial from a standpoint of meeting genuinely interesting people in which clubs/bars/many social gatherings does not always allow for the same opportunity. Besides I no longer visit bars or clubs, just no longer my idea of a good time – and tell me, honestly – how many true long term relationships do you know of that have come from meeting someone in such a joint? It seems far and few between that you actually meet people anymore with whom you find you have a lot of true interests with until after four or five times of going out you realize its not going anywhere, you could have discovered this before hand. However atleast it does allow for the opportunity to get out and about.

All in all I would say I have had decent success with lavalife. It does have its draw backs, and so long as you do not become obsessed (as I have heard of people doing) and treat it as simply another means of meeting people and keep it in context then what is the difference of spending twenty dollars on fifty credits and meeting maybe four or five people (online of course) or spending 20-40 bucks on a meal, gas and whatever for a date in which after one date you realize there is nothing there with that person anyways?!

Just my thoughts.

When I initially joined up while I was in California, I was able to search in Hawaii. Then it seems that Lavalife changed its interface and for whatever reason I could no longer search in Hawaii. I asked Tech support more than once to correct the limitation and it wasn't solved while I was in California. I quit Lavalife even though I had several dollars of credit left.

It took you guys this long to figure out online dating?....lol You're just as stupid as the people that build these sites..... these so_called-dating_sites are designed for (1) purpose.....and (1) purpose ONLY....That's right!.....you TAKE_YOUR_MONEY!.... 98% OF THE ADS ARE BULLSHIT....the remaining 2% are ads most likely posted byu the fat ugly women working in the "offices".. You know how to meet people?....the best way?....through friends and_or parties....