David B.

What started out as a relatively positive experience was quickly soured by mods who arbitrarily delete posts and issue "Friendly Reminders", which are essentially a soft ban that requires the person's posts to be approved by a moderator for a specified number of days, without any explanation as to why or what the "violation" was. When you observe the moderator edits to other posts it is clear that they regularly edit and delete posts they personally disagree with. I discussed this issue with several long-time members of the site who confirmed that it is a chronic issue that they have experienced varying levels of frustration with over the years.

I expressed concerns about the site being a place of censorship when Paul, the owner, made an announcement that they were removing one of the reaction options and those concerns were actualized by the site's moderators.

Additionally, there is a fringe group of very jaded women who attack and discredit the advice that some men, like myself and others, gave to other men when it comes to dating. Advising members of my own gender on how to be more confident, build chemistry, and make more meaningful connections with women is bashed and discredited as "Pick Up Artist" advice by this particular group of women. One such woman said that inviting a woman out to dinner for a first date instead of the default "coffee date" was nothing more than a manipulative "technique" to pressure women into dates they felt obligated to go on with the purpose of getting them drunk and taking advantage of them. Unbelievable.

There is also a considerable Groupthink phenomenon running rampant on LS. It is the blind leading the blind on that site, with people giving terrible advice that doesn't work and only perpetuates the same dating woes that lead to them giving the terrible advice in the first place. One such person said that 80% of her first dates - primarily to coffee shops - never lead to a second date, which is why she went on coffee dates in the first place and also why she said she "doesn't bother to build chemistry". It was circular reasoning at its finest, but people liked the advice, agreed with it, and bashed the advice that actually works or that exposed the flaws in that kind of thinking. These are people who have little to no interest in actual personal growth or self-improvement and clearly just want to stay stuck and justify their own flawed ways of doing things that repeatedly lead to failure so that they can continue to set themselves up for more of it.

Taken collectively, this is one of the worst forums of any kind that I've ever participated on and I won't be returning.