Coupleme.com is a general dating site and a member of the Relationship Exchange. It has some nice features and seems pretty easy to use.
The profile is fairly standard. You can choose male or female for yourself, and state whether you’re seeking male or female. Late on, you have the opportunity to say whether you’re bisexual, so I guess here you just have to choose which gender you like more. Not very PC, but okay. You choose what age range you want, and put in your birthdate and zip code. A drop-down menu allows you to specify your appearance, sexual orientation, occupation (a very short list) and religion (a fair number of choices, though no Pagan, just “other”). There’s no option for living with children part-time--you’ve either got them at home or you don’t. A similar drop-down menu allows you to specify your preferences in a partner, and I note that you can’t pick “other” as a religious preference for your partner. That’s annoying.
When you sign up, you’re given an eight-digit mailbox number; when you want to initiate an email, you need to have the person’s mailbox number.
Then you choose whether you want your profile in Dating, Romance, or Intimate--I guess if you want it in more than one section, you need to create a new profile. Another multiple-choice section allows you to choose interests, including physical activities, sports, entertainment, and hobbies/interests.
Searches can be done in Dating, Romance, or Intimate sections, by all or “photos only,” zero to 500 miles away, or by state, or whole country, by newest, or days since last activity 1-7. You can also do a detailed search for all those multiple choice thingies from your profile (but not “other” for religion!).
When I did a search, I noticed that each guy came up with a match percentage, like what you find on OK Cupid--nice! But it’d be better if, like on OK Cupid, they came up in order of highest match.
Another neat feature: if you express interest in at least 3 members, the system will show you others who are “just your type.” I’m not sure how well this works, but it’s a good idea. The “Who’s Online” feature doesn’t let you narrow area down further than the entire U.S.A., which I think is absurd. If they don’t want to get as specific as states, at the very least, they could do regions.
As a Basic member, you’re quite limited in what you can do. You can’t send emails or IMs at all, but you can respond to ones sent you by premium members. The only initiative you can take is “expressing interest,” the equivalent of a flirt or a wink on other sites. Premium members can send unlimited emails and IMs, your profile is sent to more members, the Customer Care people respond to your emails first, and you can use the "Connect By Phone" feature.
I interviewed B.D.L., a 38-year-old hetero male in NV. This is the first dating site he's been on, and he has been a member for about a couple months. He says, "I joined to meet someone who wasn't into the bar scene or likes to get drunk all the time." He has met a few people, but most of them, it turns out, were not who they said they were. "They have all lied about their appearance; they used someone else's pics." The things he liked about the site were "the fact I can talk to someone in the convenience of my own home. It allows two people to get to know each other, and when they feel comfortable they meet and see where it goes." I pointed out that this is a feature common to all dating sites, but he said he had no basis for comparison. He did have a major complaint about the quality of the site's server. It interfered with our use of the IM program, and we had to switch to Yahoo to have an uninterrupted conversation.
If you've used this site and want to tell me about it, email me!
