Internet Dating - 1 Week In - Match.com Review

It has been a little over a week now since I joined up to Match.com and I am now finding myself making an "actual" effort to log on and get searching rather than just joining up and expecting a miracle to land in my inbox. It took a while to get to grips with the site, but it is fairly simple to navigate and the layout is clean and fresh. It was a little overwhelming at first as you suddenly seem to accumulate a ridiculous amount of notifications the minute you are subscribed and I was left thinking "What the hell are all these?!" But on closer inspection you can see the notifications are simply profile views, winks and direct messages. Much like Facebook they come up in red to notify you of some activity on your account and then from there you can see what's been happening. 

Like I say, I have only been on for about a week so I haven't really spoke to many people. I have exchanged a few short emails but nothing else. I have recently added the Match.com app onto my iPhone so I am able to check my account on the go and I really love the great "Shuffle" feature which presents you with snapshots of potential suitors and you can click if you are interested in finding out more/getting in contact with them and it will notify them of this which is great for acting as an icebreaker as if they "like" you too you are a "match" and its much easier to start a conversation with someone who is mutually interested.

I am committed to putting in some extra effort and I am going to reach out and be a bit more confident when it comes to sending messages. I am more than happy to respond to them but never seem confident enough to send the first one. So my aim for the next week is to take some time to have a browse and interact with a few people. I am so rusty when it comes to conversing with new people so it is all great practice in the name of finding someone new :)

Catch up soon....

Getting Back In The Game.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I went on an actual "date". In a nutshell I have spent the best part of the last 7 years as a single parent and after finally coming to some sort of conclusion with a past (non existent) relationship I feel comfortable at the prospect of putting myself out there, enjoying life and perhaps meeting somebody new. The relationship was over years ago, but for some reason I stopped myself from moving on. I wasn't happy being single and yet did nothing to rectify the situation and the longer I left it the easier it became to just be satisfied on my own. I started thinking that maybe this was it for me, that "single" would be the box I ticked for the foreseeable future. That thought scared me more than anything. After all, why did I not deserve to meet my soul mate and live "happily ever after"?

I have gone through many changes over the past year or so, the biggest being a physical change and I have so far lost over 5 stone. Its not just my shape that has changed though, my whole outlook on things seems to have shifted. I feel a lot happier in myself and I am a lot more willing to get out there and start living life as apposed to watching everyone else live theirs and doing nothing to make "me" happy.

So with that in mind, I thought I would be bold and brave and join up to a dating site. It's easy enough to talk about making changes and getting out there but actually doing it is a whole different ball game. I know there's lots of bad press surrounding dating sites and the whole "online dating" scene but there are also many success stories and you get nothing from not trying right? So the lovely people over at Match.com have offered me a months free trial to "test the waters" and see how I get on. I have never been good at selling myself and I am looking at the registration page now and It is as blank as my mind! I guess I just have to be honest and get the "real me" into words and on the screen. I am slightly dubious and really nervous about joining a dating site but I am going into it with an open mind.

Could this be the start of something new? Lets see...

Do you have any dating stories? Did you meet your true love online? Of do you have a dating disaster? I would love to hear from you.