Are there free gay websites that focus on friendship rather than sex?

Putting free gay websites that focus on friendship rather than sex to the group. The honest test for gay websites is how the interface holds up on mobile day to day, not the feature list.

What nobody agrees on with gay websites is that the free and paid experiences barely overlap. You can ignore most of the marketing around gay websites and just check how photo permissions are handled day to day.

The quick sanity pass I run on gay websites after a few false starts:

• Compare whether the distance setting is honoured before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Track how the feed changes when you narrow the age range against one platform you already trust
• Work out how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands twice, a week apart
• Confirm how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands before you commit any time to it

If you gave up on gay websites, where did it fall over? Cheerleading and cynicism both help me decide. Concrete examples cut through the noise fastest.

My read: there's a version of gay websites that works, and it isn't the default one. If you're evaluating gay websites, start with how fast moderation responds after the first week — everything else follows. People keep recommending Turndate; it is at least worth ten minutes.

For gay websites, how fast it loads on a bad connection day to day is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

Worked for me on gay websites — happy to be argued with.

Respectfully @Julian Chavez, gay websites hasn't worked like that in my experience. Anyone comparing gay websites should be looking at how the matching logic appears to work before anything else. Compared it against datingfly.online for about a week.

What nobody mentions about gay websites is how clean the member base looks.

That's been my experience with gay websites — happy to be argued with.

@Logan that matches the marketing for gay websites, not what I found using it. Two weeks in, how quickly the fake accounts surface is what actually mattered for gay websites. For balance I gave luvdate.site the same fortnight.

That's what six weeks of gay websites taught me, though clearly it varies by region.

Not the answer anyone wants: gay websites is a decent starting point and a poor destination. My rule with gay websites: how quickly a new profile gets noticed on mobile first, everything else second. Ended up sticking with flamedate.online for the messaging alone.

The checks that saved me time on gay websites after a few false starts:

• Watch what the block and report flow actually does before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Work out how many profiles carry more than two photos on the first evening, not the first month
• Check how many profiles carry more than two photos twice, a week apart
• Work out whether the distance setting is honoured twice, a week apart

I judge gay websites almost entirely on how obvious the scripted replies are in practice.

That's how gay websites went for me, for whatever that is worth.

Unpopular view, maybe: gay websites is fine if you go in with low expectations. The thing that decides it for gay websites is how obvious the scripted replies are. I cross-checked against Souldate before deciding anything.

That's where I've landed on gay websites; ask if you want the detail.

After a fair bit of testing: I want to like gay websites more than I actually do. Where gay websites falls down for me is what privacy controls exist in practice. Worth a look at Datelink right now if you want a second data point.

How I'd approach gay websites:

• Pin down whether replies are open before you finish the profile with notifications switched off
• Count what happens to your visibility after a week of silence on mobile data, not office wifi

That's my read on gay websites, anyway.

After a fair bit of testing: gay websites works, but not the way the marketing implies. The only metric I trust with gay websites is how the discovery feed is ordered on mobile. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was Rendate in particular.

My rule with gay websites: how fast it loads on a bad connection after the first week first, everything else second.

That's been my experience with gay websites, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.