Reviews of Lavalife

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....

Is there a no star rating?

So, I choose the nickname "J8675309", and I write in my headline "if you can figure out my nick, you're from my generation". "J" was for Jenny, and "8675309" was the song (an 80's tune by Tommy Tutone); thinking it would attract people from my generation.

Anyways, I gets this NASTY Email from someone at Lava saying that I am trying to give someone my ICQ number. What dorks. Like, don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt AND ASK if in doubt.

These greedy pricks from Lava are so worried about the possibility of losing a buck, that good old fashioned customer service/care has gone to the wayside.

I hope they go bankrupt.

-S

Lavalife seems to have a lot of control over individuals and they interpret it differently depending on who you are I guess. They allow people to submit "backstage" photos that may be more risque that those normally shown on the profiles. However I have been restricted in publishing some because they indicate it is too "sexually explicit" (this is in their Manline section), however they advertise for their new video service he's hot, he's HARD, he's waiting which to me would seem to indicate they are advocating sexually explicit material. As well, they seem to make unilateral decisions on blocking individuals and if you have purchased credits, any credits remaining are lost and non-refundable. Granted this is in their agreement but again they seem to interpret the agreement as they see fit.

I've used both Lava and the Springstreets network (found on nerve, salon & onion). What I found was that because of the targeted demographic of Springstreet's host sites, it was much much easier to find people who share common interests. On lava, one has to wade through hundreds of profiles (many of which do seem to be fake) to find people with similar interests. Not sure there's a way around that. Maybe they could have designed their profile questionaire to be less generic?

One problem I've found on Lava is that there is no reverse match for age. That is, I can say I'm looking for somone between 30 and 40 years old, but I can't say I'm looking for people who are themselves looking for people between 30 & 40. Problematic because some peolple are looking within a very narrow age range.

Well, after my wrangle with Newmarketgirl, aka, lavalife rep, it seems a torrent of similar-minded men has made itself known here. I think it is almost unanimous, lavalife is rife with fake profiles - most of them created by the service, and all benefitting lavalife in the form of credits spent. I rest my case.

That doesn't mean there aren't real women on the site. I have meet 16 real, attractive women, and talked to at least another 16 on msn messenger. But they were older women, around 40+ most of them, and I'm not bad looking, which explains the limited success I've had. But I never spend a dime on any profile that looks too good to be true. And we all should know by now what kind of ad looks too good to be true. If she is young, beautiful, with a professional photo, forget it. It is bait. Either Lava is baiting you, a porno company is baiting you, or she is baiting you, herself.

I agree with Eric. These paysites are a big scam.

I have been a free member of Singlescrowd. I wrote a profile of myself. Since then, gorgeous ladies all over the world have eagerly sent me messages that I can not read unless I pay for full membership.

I can only see the "profiles" of the girls and their message subject line. They are all beautiful girls, with professional photos of them.

These girls are not real. Not one single one. Their profiles have been planted by the site moderators, and their messages are automatic. How do I know?

Because I put it in my profile that anyone who writes to me should put the specific smilie ;-) in the subject line. I have received more than a hundred messages since then, and not a single one has that smilie in the subject. That means that none of the "girls" have ever read my profile... What are the odds of that happening...?

And sometimes they accidentally put the wrong profile on a girl. A Turkish girl (Turkish name, lived in Ankara) liked watching a certain American TV channel and liked to go to Broncos games... Long way from Turkey to Denver...

What a scam, they make me laugh...