Dating Direct is the UK's largest dating service, established in 1999 (ages ago, in Internet terms). They say, “as a place for singles serious about finding a partner, DatingDirect.com does away with gimmicks such as free trials, nicknames and un-moderated chat rooms.” I don’t know; I think all those things are pretty cool. They continue, “All correspondence between members is carried out using DatingDirect.com's anonymous messaging system ensuring the member's personal details such as their real email address is always kept confidential.” Don’t all dating sites do that? Ah well.
Free members can create a profile with photo, receive notice of matches by email, and do searches on site. You can also create a list of your favorite members, and see who has added you to their favorites list. They’ll scan your photo for free if you don’t have one digitized. You must become a Premier (paid) member in order to send, read, or reply to emails.
“All profiles and photographs submitted to the site are reviewed by the dedicated team at DatingDirect.com to help ensure that only genuine profiles go live on the site.” That is useful. I’ve heard from a lot of very unhappy guys who seem to keep winding up with amateur porn gals instead of legitimate dates.
DatingDirect also throws singles parties, 50-50 male-female, for £10-15 admission, including activities like text flirting (you can send a message to someone to break the ice) and speed dating.
When you sign up, you choose M or F, looking for M or F. You only use your first name—no nicknames or initials. Enter your date of birth, country, and state (if you choose UK, it switches to “county” instead of “state,” which is particularly spiffy) and your nearest city.
Profile questions include your height range, build, family status (single, divorced, married, widowed, separated), eye color, children, religion (what it is, and how often you practice it – nice, but still I’m relegated to “other.”), employment (self-employed, unemployed, student, retired, etc), profession (Hey! “writer” is an option!), sexuality (straight, gay, or bi – but even if you’re bi, you still had to choose which ONE gender you were looking for earlier), income (low, moderate, or high – but isn’t that all relative?), smoker, education, drinker, race, vegetarian or not, appearance (attractiveness level, really), hair color and length, and a list of interests you can select. It’s not a very exciting array of interests, and a rather short list.
Then comes the essay: describe your personality and the person you’re looking for. You get to choose what you’re looking for in terms of relationship type, the person’s race, children, smoker, age range, and religion.
The first thing I saw, upon signing in, was an ad selling DatingDirect’s own CD mix of love songs – tacky!
Review to be continued, once I find some members to interview.
