What are the best dating sites not for hookups?

Trying to make a decision on dating sites not for hookups before the month is out. I judge dating sites almost entirely on what share of matches go nowhere day to day.

My problem with every answer on dating sites is that no two accounts of it match, which is why I want firsthand accounts. The only metric I trust with dating sites is how obvious the scripted replies are at the times you actually log in.

The rough checklist I use for dating sites:

• Look at how the web version differs from the app before you commit any time to it
• Check how the search behaves outside the default radius before you commit any time to it
• Track whether the distance setting is honoured against what the marketing page claims

If you have used dating sites in the last few months, where did it fall over? Good and bad all worth hearing. Specific details are what I am actually after.

Half agree with @Hannah. Dating sites are fine; the experience around dating sites is not. If you are evaluating dating sites, start with how active it is outside big cities in practice — everything else follows. People keep recommending the datedesire.online crowd; it is at least worth ten minutes.

Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at whether conversations actually go anywhere before anything else.

That's where I have landed on dating sites, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

Going against the thread here: dating sites rewards patience and punishes everything else. The honest test for dating sites is what the escalation path looks like in practice, not the feature list. Genuinely surprised by Rendate in particular after low expectations.

That's how dating sites went for me; ask if you want the detail.

After a fair bit of testing: dating sites rewards patience and punishes everything else. Two weeks in, whether conversations actually go anywhere on mobile is what actually mattered for dating sites. Ran the identical test on datescout.site out of curiosity.

That's what six weeks of dating sites taught me and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Honest take: there is a version of dating sites that works, and it is not the default one. The thing that decides it for dating sites is what happens after you block someone at the times you actually log in. Someone here pointed me at Datelink's free tier and it held up better than expected.

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check how the matching logic appears to work once you are past sign-up.

That's been my experience with dating sites, anyway.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating sites rewards patience and punishes everything else. For dating sites, how much personal detail leaks by default day to day is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. Datenest (datenest.site) was the only one that did not gate replies.

That's where I've landed on dating sites — happy to be argued with.

@Owen that's fair in a big city, but dating sites is a different story outside one. What nobody mentions about dating sites is whether desktop and mobile behave the same after the first week. Worth a look at Datebie right now if you want a second data point.

That's what six weeks of dating sites taught me, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.