S U.

Let me begin by clarifying that I am a real person, and I am NOT nor have I ever been an employee of Match.com

Online dating was fun at first. It was really easy to meet people (at least for me. I'm a woman. I hear that men have it different, but bachelors reign in my town anyway so I can't blame Match.com for there being limited female inventory available to men in my area).

Online dating, like regular dating, starts to suck if you do it enough. I met plenty of decent people, but "the one" eluded me. Finally after about 10 months on the site I tweaked my search for the "perfect man" by adding a year to the maximum age. A profile I had never seen before showed up in my results, and Match.com gave us a 97% match rating (my next highest had been 94% and although he was great, he wasn't quite right for me).

Long story short: The perfect man for me lived 3 blocks from me the whole time. We both admit we would have never met without Match.com regardless of our close proximity. We own a home together and marriage has been a given since the beginning.

I hear people complain about fake profiles or not being able to get a date, and I never had that issue. Fake profiles are infrequent and super easy to identify. Just ignore them! Going on dates was never an issue for me. I was meeting a few new people every month and interacting with many who would never score a date because it was obvious they weren't for me.

The downside: It was a lot of work! I had to peruse thousands of profiles, send and respond to hundreds of e mails, and had a set time each day to dedicate to Match.com. Sometimes there would be a lull because I had already checked out all the members in my area, but new people are constantly joining. It got frustrating at times; I figured that since I had lots of choices, that the man of my dreams would be an easy find. It was disheartening at times, for sure.

To save $$$ I would try and cancel after a month whiling citing finances as my reason for quitting. I was always immediately offered 3 months for $30, and I was able to repeat this whenever my 3 months was up.

Overall, you get what you put into it. It takes time and effort to maintain an online dating lifestyle. I will say this though: If you are LOOKING for something specific, try Match.com. Be patient, don't settle... and be patient (yes, again)! I have the man of my dreams because I chose to not settle for someone who would have been "close enough". I cannot emphasize enough how perfect he is, and he was totally worth the effort and crappy dates I had to deal with to find him.

My Match.com story has a happy ending because I worked at it, exercised patience for months, and refused to settle for nothing less than perfection. Chances are high that people submitting bad reviews didn't do those 3 things. Take the time to give it an honest effort before throwing in the towel and writing a bad review. It took me 10 months to even see the profile of the man of my dreams. I can't imagine my life if I had given up on Match.com within the first month or so. Give it a try; but if you give it a try, give it all you got!