Privacy is cool and all, but the site can be a ripoff.

I signed up for a three month membership earlier this year. The site is supposed to show you up to 10 possible matches every day, but I think it showed me 10 total over a three month span. And I bet that only one or two were paid subscribers that could actually respond to my communications.

I’m sure that other folks might have more success, but there are a lot of factors that can limit the number of people on that site:

1) It costs almost twice as much as match.com. Given that non-paying customers can’t even see the profiles of folks who indicate interest in them (except by viewing the page source code), that serves to eliminate a lot of folks. They’ll still show up in your list of potential matches, of course.

2) I come from a smaller area (I estimate a population of 350,000 in my 50 mile search radius). If you’re not from a big city or willing to travel, you won’t get a lot of matches.

3) I’m gay, so fewer possibilities. Probably doesn’t apply to you, but if it does, watch out.

4) The site includes an algorithm that eliminates folks from your potential matches based on your past choices. Hypothetically, it will narrow the list down to folks whose personalities mesh with yours. In reality, it disqualifies the adventurous dreamer who might be perfect for you because you rejected another adventurous dreamer because of red flags unrelated to personality.

Again, straight folks in NYC probably won’t have the same problems I had, your mileage may vary, etc. But be aware–Unlike match.com, you can’t see how many members the site has in your area. If it doesn’t give you a full five-person list when you register, I’d find a different site.

Also, this might be a coincidence, but the timing on when my matches showed up was suspect. When I registered, the site showed me five or six profiles. But after I paid, that dwindled to nothing. Then, when my subscription was about to run out, It started showing me profiles again–forcing me to renew my subscription if I wanted to pursue a relationship with one of them. Pretty skeevy tactics if that was on purpose.

It seems like a good concept, but isn’t it kind of like that “Friends & Family” phone plan deal…? You’d have to get a bunch of friends to all sign up before it would be worth it. It’s cool if you have a large circle of friends, but not sure how well it would work for those whose friends are mostly married and not interested in a membership on a dating site.

After feeble attempts to use popular online dating sites, it became clear my chance of finding meaningful companionship would have to come from somewhere else. Rather than lose hope and give up, I decided to create and launch Sparkbliss. It offers a private and safe approach to online dating that leverages what has always been the best way to meet people – introductions from your circle of friends. In fact “63% of married couples met through a network of friends” according to a recent Temple University study.

http://www.sparkbliss.com