J H.

I've been meeting friends online for several years, using two of the best-known free sites, Plenty of Fish and OKCupid. When I moved across the country, I decided to give Match.com a try. A few years ago I set up a profile on Match.com but never used it, because I could not only not send messages without a subscription, I could not even read messages sent to me, etc. Well I decided to give it a real shot this time, and paid a subscription fee.

There are a few things I truly, truly hate about this site. It's like being a kid, with an annoying, unreasonable schoolteacher watching your every move, and I can't stand it. What I mean is stuff like my profile pictures, where everything has to be approved for specific uses. I posted several photos, and only 1 of them is approved to be used as the "primary" picture, whereas the others are specified as "secondary" pictures only. So I look into their criteria, and a criteria for a primary picture includes nothing obstructing the face, while it also focuses on a clear view of the face. So of all the pictures I posted, there is one of me enjoying a steak, where I'm holding a steak on a fork in front of my face. The steak is at an end-on angle, meaning you see almost exactly the edge of the steak, and this covers a minimal part of the border of my face. This is also the picture with the most close-up, clearest view of my face, which is why I wanted to select it as my primary picture. But I can't, because it's not approved. The only picture they DID approve to be a primary picture is one of me with a beanie, scarf, huge jacket, and sunglasses, pretty much covering my whole face except the nose, cheeks, and mouth. Seriously? Plenty Of Fish does similar frustrating restrictions on photos, but this is not a review about POF. OKCupid seems to be the most lenient, which I love about that site; it's the site I use the absolute most.

Another really annoying thing about Match.com is that I've paid a huge amount of money for a subscription (huge amount for what I'm purchasing), and they delete messages older than 30 days old. That's crap! There is a feature on the site that lets you see any history you have with someone, so I looked up a profile what I had messaged over 30 days ago, and even though the message in my email tab (my inbox and outbox, for all intents and purposes) show the message had been deleted there, even the "history" tab on someone's profile now shows that I have NO HISTORY with that person, whereas before the message was deleted it would have listed that I emailed her on such and such date. That is unacceptable to me. If I email someone and they don't show interest, or don't reply, I'm not going to email them or pester them again and again. But the way Match.com deletes the messages, and even in the history tab, I won't know that I'm emailing them again after they already did not have interest in me (yes, I'll remember a couple of them, but I won't remember all of them).

I signed up for a year-long subscription for the cost savings. I spend enough time on OKCupid to suggest I would on Match.com as well, as I have been meeting new friends for years since I used to travel a lot. But I'm really upset that I signed up for the year-long subscription now, and wish I hadn't. I spend more time on OKCupid, which is free, than I do on Match, which I paid a large amount for.