Geek 2 Geek:
Very easy to use. Posting a profile is free and I really appreciate the fact that 1) I was allowed to pick my area of geekiness (they have everything from science to Harry Potter to politics) and 2) of the questions I've filled out in the profile, I was allowed to pick the top three traits that are the most important to me, ranked by order. When the site matched profile the potential matches are listed in three different sub-pages, where there's a page where the profiles are ranked by my top three most desired traits, another by the potential match's top three desired traits, and last page ranked by some algorithm that combines the top desired traits of both our sides. The real names and all contact information are hidden, so the only way to contact potential matches initially is by sending "winks" to indicate interest or sending messages through the website's messaging system. We are also allowed to rate a person's profile (with stars, like a restaurant) and list a profile among our "favorites" (which made me feel vaguely like a bookmark, of the web-browser variety). The downside is that, for a free account, I was allowed to post a profile, send and receive winks, and only receive messages but not send any. The subscription fee that allows me to send messages is...well I don't know what the "average" fee is, but it's a lot more than OkCupid (which I will talk about later). I got sent two emails with new potential matches the past week. I don't know whether there's a two-per-week schedule or I just get sent emails whenever they do match up someone.
I am pondering whether or not subscription is worth it. The profile reviewers (I'm guessing they're reviewing to make sure we don't post anything obscene, and that we are in fact human, but that's just a hypothesis) worked pretty fast. My profile was up within twenty-four hours. I was flagged just as fast, too (dunno when it happened, I just logged into my email account and the first contact email came right after the profile-approval email). I did flag someone back, but unless the person can figure out that I'm on a free account and send me a message with non-G2G dependent contact information, this is where it'll stop.
Sweet On Geeks :
...is like Facebook, for geeks. (Well...it's less polished, too.) The intro page has the cutest robot-looking-for-mate ad that I've ever seen. Everything is free, profile, status update (yes, just like Facebook), blogging, forum, messaging, you name it. It has more essay questions than multiple-choice type questions (well it's my first time around, so I did have my moment where I felt vaguely like I'm taking an exam -- I am going to get evaluated one way or another, anyhow) so that it took a LONG time to get the profile set up. I know I didn't have to put my life story up there, but Lucy was right: the profiles that have no photos and little to no answers to any of the questions are creepy. Me? I'm thinking that creepy is not the way to go here. Geeky? Of course. Weird? Sure. Not creepy. The profile-approval process is also pretty immediate and the entire set-up relatively painless.
There are two main problems that I will deduct points for. One is that there's no matching going on. It really is like Facebook in that, if you want to find someone, you have to troll through lists of profile after tackling the search machine. Very time consuming, especially since the search machine only has the basic criteria of zip-code, gender, age, and whether the person's interested in friendship/dating/flirting. I didn't try the keyword search, because the use of keywords is an art --you almost have to have a sixth sense of what the right combination of words should be to find what you want. I'm pretty sure that keyword rules for finding the right person isn't the same as the keyword rules for Google. Or else Google would've launched its own dating site already. (Or maybe it did and I'm just not aware of it -- it's Google, after all. One day it will take over the Internets.)
The second main problem is the reason of why I'm deleting my profile: even when I did give the search machine a shot, the majority of the profiles are of the creepy, photo-less sort. Of the few that have photos, the ones that I've seen are ones that haven't been active in a while. The forums are mostly empty also, with few posts scattered throughout time. In general the site has the pleasant atmosphere of a ghost town. Now, it may be that if you earn enough points you'd get to "unlock" another level, where all the posh people hang out. However, there's no clear explanation for a point system or how the site works, exactly, so I'm not going to bother with it anymore.
IQcuties:
I gave it a shot for the heck of it. To join you need to take an IQ test, which is graded in batches. I have not heard back yet, which means either that it hasn't been graded yet, I failed, or that my email inbox ate it and it's now in the in-between no-man's-land area of data, where all the lost emails go to die. I'll wait another week and then write it off, so as of now, I have nothing to report. (It's a six-question long test, so my guess is that I failed.)
OkCupid:
The site that everyone but me apparently knew about already. Except it turns out that I seemed to know it too. Or at least my email did. Let me explain:
After the initial check, when I went to try to set up an account, the site told me I already had one. This confused me, as that I am pretty sure I've never visited the site before. I think I would remember if I visited a dating site, but I started considering possible spontaneous onset of amnesia (worrisome and improbable, but I suppose not impossible). Since it claims that my email is registered already, I clicked on the button to sent lost password. I did receive a password-reset link in my email, so it really was my email in their database, but when I logged in, the username (which the site told me is locked and cannot be changed) immediately told me that no way was I the one who registered with this website. Whomever had set up the profile initially had left everything else blank, which I suppose I ought to be grateful for. It was pretty freaky though, and I deleted that profile, partly for security reasons and partly because I was wtf-ing over the username, which I can't change.
I think I might try to create a real account there sometime this weekend though, and see how it goes.
In conclusion, the only place so far where I managed to get something working is Geek 2 Geek, where I garnered a lot of attention from military geeks. And geeks that work for the military. (Differentiation being soldiers vs civilian contractors.) Given that the matches are taking geography into account and that I am surrounded by the navy, the air force, and the marine corps, this isn't too surprising. However, it's quite strange that my initial encounters are with people whose profile photos include themselves in their uniforms and have phrases in their profile along the lines of "will be deployed soon", "waiting for date of deployment", "looking for someone with patience as may be deployed". So, even if I subscribe? I think I'll stick with the civilians. I have nothing against them personally, but I think I should establish some sort of standard for what a normal (well, as normal as anything involving me can be) relationship is like before I venture into the vast and uncharted waters of long-distance relationship.
Last comment: this post should effectively answer any question people may have about what my "type" is. No, really, it should.
