Where are the free gay meet up sites?

Long-time lurker, first post, and it's about free gay meet up sites. If you're evaluating gay meet, start with how fast moderation responds day to day — everything else follows.

The reason I am asking about gay meet at all is that the last honest write-up is two years old. You can ignore most of the marketing around gay meet and just check what the search filters can actually do at the times you actually log in.

My working method for gay meet, in order:

• Look at what happens to your visibility after a week of silence before you commit any time to it
• Check how many matches ever send the first message before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Sanity-check how the search behaves outside the default radius before you upload a second photo

Anyone who tracked gay meet over a longer stretch, was it worth the setup time? Cheerleading and cynicism all worth hearing. Recent experiences are worth more than any review site.

Speaking from four months of it: gay meet works, but not the way the marketing implies. Two weeks in, how many accounts are real is what actually mattered for gay meet. I cross-checked against a look at Datewander before deciding anything.

That's the short version on gay meet and I would revise it if the numbers moved.

Blunt answer: I want to like gay meet more than I actually do. What nobody mentions about gay meet is whether moderation keeps up with the fakes.

Anyone comparing gay meet should be looking at whether you can hide distance and last-active before anything else.

That's the honest picture of gay meet, may not hold for you.

@DylanG I had the opposite result with gay meet, so take both our takes with salt. The thing that decides it for gay meet is whether desktop and mobile behave the same day to day.

What I actually check with gay meet if you're short on time:

• Test whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Work out what the block and report flow actually does before you commit any time to it

Where gay meet falls down for me is how the pricing is structured in practice in practice.

Worked for me on gay meet, for whatever that is worth.

Speaking from four months of it: gay meet has been mixed for me and I'll explain why. The honest test for gay meet is how the interface holds up on mobile once you are past sign-up, not the feature list. Souldate's free tier is worth ten minutes before you commit anywhere.

The checks that saved me time on gay meet, in order:

• Work out how the feed changes when you narrow the age range before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Track how many matches ever send the first message with the age filter set narrow
• Note whether the distance setting is honoured against what the marketing page claims
• Look at whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out before you commit any time to it

My rule with gay meet: how fast it loads on a bad connection at the times you actually log in first, everything else second.

That's the honest picture of gay meet and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

For what it's worth: gay meet rewards patience and punishes everything else. For gay meet, how much you can do before being asked to upgrade is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was what Datescout is doing.

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

Blunt answer: there is a version of gay meet that works, and it is not the default one. I judge gay meet almost entirely on what the reply rate looks like. Started on Datebound and never fully moved off it.

What I actually check with gay meet:

• Check what happens to your visibility after a week of silence against one platform you already trust
• Work out whether the distance setting is honoured and write the answer down
• Check how quickly a scripted account gives itself away at the hour you would actually be using it

The only metric I trust with gay meet is how clean the member base looks.

That's the short version on gay meet, may not hold for you.