This chapter talks about the advantages and disadvantages of online dating, how dating agencies operate and the differences between the various services available. It also points out the ways of using dating services and what you can expect from them. It highlights things to consider when choosing between the different types of agencies.
You'll find out how much detail you can expect to get on your potential partners and whether you should use a paid for service or a free dating agency. This chapter should give you a thorough grounding in what you can expect and some of the terminology involved.
Good question! Online dating has so many advantages in these busy days. Let's face facts - most of us spend too much time at work and not enough time socializing. Climbing the corporate ladder is no longer limited from 9 'til 5 - it creeps more and more into our weekends and evenings - from those impromptu after work drinks to that weekend team building course - and that's forgetting that so many people regularly travel and have to stay away from home. As a result it's highly likely that your social life revolves mainly around your work colleagues and who wants to play the dangerous game of trying to date someone from work? Yikes, that one's like trying to walk across the park without squashing a blade of grass!
Dating online is such a good idea because you get to expand your social scene and you're not limited to trying to find a relationship from a relatively small number of acquaintances. Hey - you've got the whole world to go at. Really! It may seem strange at first but once you've been in contact with a few people you'll find it gets easier. Not all of them will be the ONE for you but you'll get to meet some great people who you'll probably stay in contact with for a long time. You'll also find out a lot about yourself that you never knew and hopefully find that special someone.
Dating using the Internet is also such an obvious thing to do these days. It's quick to register and you can get in touch with people almost instantly. You don't have to be constantly hitting the bars and clubs or other singles hangouts in the hope of meeting someone that you like. It helps to put you back in control rather than just trusting to luck that a chance encounter might develop in to a relationship. You get to choose the sort of person you would like to meet and usually you'll have plenty of people that fit the bill. That's not to say that each and every person presented to you will be capable of becoming your soul mate they won't. What it does allow you to do is to filter out all the people that you really wouldn't want to spend time even reading their profile which allows you to spend time concentrating on the remaining ones.
Internet dating is also one of the safest ways of finding a partner - much safer than wandering into a pub or nightclub and trusting to luck. Of course, common sense still must prevail but you can remain anonymous until you trust someone - the only contact details anyone will have for you is your username - unless or until you choose to tell them more.
There are thousands of people out there right now that met through Internet dating agencies and the numbers are growing all the time. You might find someone that lives right down your street that you would never have met - or you might find someone further a field. Where they are doesn't matter - and it doesn't matter how you meet - just so long as you do! Internet dating can and does work so give it a go - you might just surprise yourself!
Love Positive allows you to search for a match free of charge right from the very beginning, then, if you decide to stay you can register with a Username and Password also for free.
Following your registration with Love Positive you will be able to log in and view the profiles/ads. If you wish to contact or message a prospective partner or friend you will need to pay and register fully, this will show that you are serious about online dating and it also deters fake or hoax people who might be in it for the wind up, if you DO suspect any such violation of Love Positive please bring it to our attention immediately and we will verify if it is a genuine Love Positive member.
You can divide online dating into three basic classifications. The first type is Online Classifieds and is very similar to ads that you might see in newspaper classifieds sections. Normally you have to browse all the ads although some sites do give you some basic filtering options. The second type is an Online Dating Agency where you are able to specify in more detail the type of person you are looking for. The final types of services are Online Matchmaking Agencies like Love Positive. These really are the sites to go to for serious daters who want to meet someone who is compatible for a long-term relationship. What happens with an online matchmaking site is that they ensure that your matches meet all of your requirements but also that you meet all of theirs before showing you the appropriate profiles. Obviously the chances of you finding a compatible partner sooner are that much higher. After all there's little point in being given the profile of someone who meets all your requirements if you aren't remotely appealing to them!
Who Can I Expect To through love positive dating service?
Love Positive will be able to introduce you to people from all walks of life. At the end of the day all you need to register with us is access to a computer and it doesn't even need to be at home. That gives you the potential to communicate with people from all around the world! Most of our members will be hiv positive but the site is also open to people without hiv, we felt that we shouldn't make the assuption that a non hiv person would not want to date someone with hiv and we didn't want to restrict the choices of persons with hiv. The important thing is that all members are aware of each others status and any persons who join our site without hiv will have no issues with dating any member of lovepositive with hiv.
There is no limit to the type of people you can meet through a dating service, the only limits are set by you with the choices that you make!
Most dating services will encourage you to add a photograph, this is understandable as it does tend to encourage a greater degree of interest in you, but at Love positive we do understand that our members may wish to remain anonymous, particularly if friends, family or colleagues are unaware of your hiv status. You must do what makes you feel comfortable!
Online dating can and is successful for many people but most people need to work at it at least a little bit to get the most from it. There's little point in being a wallflower or looking at what everyone else has written about themselves and then copying it - you need to stand out from the crowd. You need to show that you're different and make someone want to know more about you.
The other thing with online dating is that you can't expect to get a response to every message you send. You just won't be everyone's cup of tea - you know you're fabulous, it's just others haven't realized it yet! Seriously, some people will have stopped logging in so you won't get a response from everyone. Some people will have found someone and forgotten to take themselves off the service. Others may only log in occasionally for various reasons. You mustn't get disheartened if a few people don't respond. You should keep messaging your new matches as the days go past. Perhaps, if you're not getting the responses you think you ought to be, you may want to find time to rethink your message style again - more on that later.
What Are The Advantages and Disadvantages Of Dating Sites?
Dating sites have many advantages and, we believe only a few negative points.
One of the biggest advantages is that online dating agencies are very safe. At love Positive we provide a system of anonymous messaging so that the person you are messaging will never know your real e-mail address unless you specifically give it to them.
There are millions of people internet dating worldwide so you should be able to find a good selection of people that you might be interested in getting to know better - a far wider selection than most people's current social circle!
Love Positive also offers very good value for money and offers a flexible system of payment . Newspaper personal ads usually work out far more expensive by the time you've paid premium rate phone charges to pick up your messages. You usually also get to find out much more about someone than in a newspaper personal ad as profiles are longer and contain much more information.
Another major plus point is that online dating moves you outside the requirement for you to have a normal 9 to 5 job for you to have a social life. There's no reason why you can't be a night worker and return home to pick up your messages and send others at anytime of the day or night - the Internet never sleeps! Internet dating is also quick and efficient. You can't possibly have enough hours in the day to meet people, get to know them and then decide if you want to carry on seeing someone. Love Positive can really help to cut down on the amount of time you need to spend in finding your partner. Online matchmakers such as Love Positive who match users both ways, help by filtering out the people that you really wouldn't have anything in common with, leaving you more time to concentrate on those that stand a better chance of being right for you.
There are at least tens of thousands of people online at any one point in time in the world between the entire Internet dating agencies. Most people, like you, are genuinely looking for a new partner - someone to care about and be cared about by. Knowing that there all these people there's no need to be shy about who or what you are - there should be someone out there for you. Using Love Positive dating agency will help you look harder and faster that you could in the real world. Think how many parties you would need to be invited to for you to find as many people as you could find in one day on the internet that you might be interested in!
The disadvantages of using dating sites are pretty minor and just parallel the 'real' world. You may find a few people trying to make out they're something they're not. You will find people that won't suit you - but you'll soon know how to spot those - just as easily as you do in everyday life.
Using Love Positive dating agency has a "knack" to it and it's important for both men and women to understand what they can expect to happen when they subscribe to us. That way you can work out your own strategy for making the most of your subscription.
As we have said before: more men than women register with any Internet dating agency. Men are also more likely to make the initial contact than women. It's not always true but old tradition die-hard! As a result it's not hard to work out that women tend to receive many more messages of initial contact than men. This then means for women that it becomes a full time, but very flattering job, responding to the initial contact messages. Ultimately most women simply don't have the time to respond to each and every message. As a result some men can't possibly receive a response to every message they send.
So the trick is for men to try saying something that stands out from the rest of the messages but don't go over the top. Subscribing to a dating agency doesn't suddenly mean that either men or women don't have to try anymore! Because you're internet dating you have to think carefully about what you are going to write, after all it's the only thing that the other person has about you that can possibly make you stand out from the crowd. So make it good, interesting and give the other person openings for them to come back with questions for you: it's how conversations start!
OK so we've said that most Internet dating services have more men on their books
than women and that women might get deluged with messages and that men might not
be so fortunate. This might sound a bit off-putting but so long as you know how
to play the system and are prepared to put a bit of effort in you can win. After
all you didn't expect to be a perfect match with everyone on the site did
you?
The most important thing when using dating services is to be honest. It does sound very obvious but just as you would wish people to be honest with you in the "real" world so you should be honest in the "virtual" world. You must always bear in mind that the whole point of joining any of the many Internets dating services is to end up meeting people in person. So there really is little point in saying you're a 6-foot tall athletic male if the reality is you're 5'2" and your idea of physical exercise is reaching for the remote control! It might be tempting to "lose" a few birthdays along the way but you'll have to come clean in the end so it really isn't worth it. Surely it's better for someone to be interested in you for who and what you are rather than what you think they would like you to be.
Right - that's the honesty bit out of the way. The next thing is that Love Positive allows you to chose your own username, try to make it as memorable as you can: maybe you can even get some of your personality into it. It should be positive and most definitely should avoid any possible sexual innuendo.
We've mentioned about including a photograph with your profile earlier and most dating services offer this facility. As long as you're comfortable including one then do take advantage of the facility: those profiles with a photograph really do get more people looking at them than those without one.
The final point is to say something about your interests, your personality and what makes you an individual. Try not to repeat exactly what's in your dating service profile but by all means expand upon it and refer your reader back to your profile. It's important to give the person you are messaging an opening to write back to you with. The easier a message is to respond to the more likely they will respond.
Love Positive was set up in 2005 to be the best matchmaker on the internet for people with hiv. We are honest about the service we offer- allowing people to see the profiles of our users before they decide whether to subscribe. It seemed that their were a lot of web sites devoted to dating but very few to meet the needs of people with hiv, we felt that it was time for such a site to be established.
We offer 5 chatrooms, 3 for each sexual persuasion, 1 for general chit chat and 1 where members can offer each other advice and support. We also provide links to hiv related sites which members will find helpful
We talked about the different types of dating site earlier on but it bears repeating that Love Positive is a true online matchmaker. We're not an online classifieds site claiming to match you by using a couple of criteria. We match you both ways with our other users on many criteria to provide you with good quality matches - saving you wasting time and effort on the unsuitable ones.
Our computers do as much of the work as we can get them to - allowing us to pass on a very reasonable subscription cost to you. Love Positive serves internationally so you will find that most of the users are from the UK and other side of the world!
How Much Does Singles Dating Cost And What Do You Get For It Versus Free Sites?
There are a variety of ways that singles dating sites offer subscriptions. Some
offer the rather confusing method such that you purchase "tokens" or "credits" which are exchanged electronically in return for messaging privileges. Some decree that you install a piece of software that makes your modem dial into a different server from your ISP so effectively you pay for the service through your phone bill. That's fine but what if you want to use your office computer after hours or if you have upgraded to a faster connection than a dial-up modem such as xDSL or Cable etc. at home? Other singles dating sites like Love Positive go for a simpler system where you purchase a subscription for a period of time and it costs you the same whether you use the system twenty-four hours a day and seven days per week. Or if you only use it once and this can be used on any computer connected to the Internet as long as you remember your username and password. Current subscription charges and periods for Love Positive can be found on the membership price page.
Love Positive allows you access to the whole site and to use it just as you would if you were a subscriber except that you can't send messages. This means that you can see all of your matches, edit your profile and your requirements as many times as you like, without having to make any financial commitment to us. You only need to subscribe if you wish to get in touch with someone or if you want to read any messages that have been sent to you. We believe this is fair to you the user.
The advantage of subscribing to a paid-for online dating agency is that you know that the other people who message you are serious about meeting someone. It also stops you receiving messages from the, possibly, inebriated Friday night crowd that seem to so often use the totally free dating sites for sending abusive, or what they believe are amusing, messages. Strangely enough a small subscription fee seems to stop this problem from occurring - they don't seem to find it so funny when they have to pay for their pranks!
I'm Looking For Love - Is The lovepositive.co.uk Service For Me?
Looking for love isn't always easy. We do understand this. It was
hard enough because many people have demanding careers that can often take them
away from home for extended periods of time. Other people have to change jobs
quite regularly, which can mean having to move from one part of the country to
another. Some people have been unfortunate enough to suffer the breakdown of a
relationship. None of these things make looking for love any
easier.
Whatever the reason we believe that Love Positive is the dating site for you. As we've said before we do strive to provide the best service that we can and we try to cater for most users needs. We believe that with thousands of people registered with us we ought to be able to give you a good selection of profiles to choose from. We think that you'll find navigating the site intuitive, such that you'll find the functions that you want easily and quickly.
Our profiles can give you a great deal of information about your matches but it does depend to a certain extent on how much our users want to put in their profile. If you really are looking for that one big relationship then the chances are you'll make your profile as detailed as possible - always a point worth bearing in mind when reading someone else's profile.
You should find Love Positive to be very easy and quick to use. So long as you've got a reasonable idea of the sort of person you would like to meet then registering with us should take no more than ten to fifteen minutes. During the registration process we will not only find out about the sort of person you are looking for but we will also ask you about the type of person you are and the things you like to do. This allows us to build a good profile of you that we can immediately present to other users that match up with you. This brings us on to another point - matching. Many online services are simply either listing services, where you would need to go through hundreds and maybe thousands of profiles of people that are unsuitable for your, or only match you one way. Love Positive doesn't do that - we perform two way matching to ensure that the people we present to you not only match your criteria but have also expressed a desire to meet someone like you. By doing this we believe that you stand a much greater chance of getting on with them and a relationship developing.
Love Positive
Love Positive is a dating website primarily for people diagnosed with HIV.
It is a place where you can find love, friendship and advice without the
fear and anxiety that can come from wondering how people will react when you
tell them 'I have HIV'.
Being diagnosed with HIV does not have to mean the end of love and
intimacy. It certainly marks a new chapter in your life, but one that can
be happy and fulfilled. So try being love positive, join us, and find what
you're looking for.
