Reputation: The Applebee's of dating sites -- huge and mediocre, but serviceable.
Reality: In the first five minutes, I found three profiles that misspelled the word "easygoing." And I hope never to read about another guy looking for a woman who's as happy in a little black dress as she is in her sweats. Match requires wading through a lot of 33-year-old, white IT managers who live in Gaithersburg and like to work hard and play hard, but it's large enough to offer variety -- including the bright, edgy non-cheeseball you're looking for.
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_____Previous Columns_____
•
Equip Your PC With Free Software (The Washington Post, Jan 23, 2005)
•
Find the Perfect Personal Trainer (The Washington Post, Jan 9, 2005)
•
Navigate the Digital Music Scene (The Washington Post, Jan 2, 2005)
•
Detox After the Holidays (The Washington Post, Dec 26, 2004)
•
Pump Up Your Salary (The Washington Post, Dec 19, 2004)
•
More Columns
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What I Learned: Take the time to find (or create) a good photo of yourself. I lazily posted one in which I was wearing an old T-shirt and hooded sweatshirt and, due to scanning distortions, resembled a witch whose face was melting off. I got very few hits.
Best/Worst Line: "I'm kinda tall with broad shoulders, which has helped me hide the weight I've put on since college."
Grade: B-
SPRING STREET NETWORKS
(The personals engine for such sites as "literate smut" Nerve.com, thinky Salon.com, hip-hoppy Vibe.com, lesbian Girlfriends.com, etc.)
Cost: Free to search, but initiating contact with someone costs one "credit," such as an e-stamp, and credits are 25 for $24.95. (You can send a collect-call "wink" -- but you have to be a cheapskate and not care who knows it.)
Who's On: Spring Street claims 2.9 million members. About 59 percent are men, 13 percent are black, and 12 percent are looking for same-sex relationships.
Reputation: Sexier and more literate than other sites.
Reality: Spring Street's fill-in-the-blank questions -- a format that exists on most sites -- invite the most entertaining answers. Its tone is self-consciously ironic and occasionally precious. But it actually is sexy and literate: This is where to come for someone who's into Faulkner and handcuffs.
What I Learned: I went out with a 32-year-old who works for a nonprofit. Over e-mail, he was funny and self-deprecating, and in person, he was cute and easy to talk to. We stayed at the bar for three hours; he paid. Afterward, he never contacted me, nor I him. Was it me? Was it him? Was it Thanksgiving? General inertia and ambivalence? Whatever it is -- that great "I don't know" of dating -- I suspect it's even more pronounced online. Even after the first date, even after you know what his "favorite on-screen sex" is and which song puts him "in the mood," you're still basically strangers.
Best/Worst Line: "If you don't date me, the terrorists have already won."
Grade: A-
PART TWO: Set up by eHarmony, jazzed by JDate and hickey-covered by Yahoo Personals.
