"Plenty of Fish" Online Dating Site Review

A Review of One of the Best Online Dating Sites

I had a problem, and that problem was this: I was a single girl on a college campus where girls outnumber guys 7 to 3. Not a pretty picture at all. My television is constantly spouting ads for eHarmony, Match.com, and a zillion other such sites, so I decided to try the
online dating scene. However, I'm a poor college kid. I did not want to pay to see if this was something I even liked, so I looked for a free site. My search came back with a ton of results, but as I waded through them, it because increasingly clear that most of these sites were free to join but charged if you wanted to do much of anything. However, among all the "free" sites, I did stumble across one totally free site - Plenty of Fish.

Plenty of Fish is, as I just said, totally free. The owner supports the site by selling ad space on it. It has no employees and is run out of an apartment, yet it is still one of the best sites out there. First of all, it is fairly simple to make your profile. It asks you to fill in some information about your body type, gender, sexual preference and religion and then allows you to list your interests, write your own introduction, and describe what you'd like to do on a first date. You can upload a picture of yourself (or several) if you want, but it doesn't require you to have one.

Once you've made a profile and gotten on the site, you will discover that there are a ton of great resources. You can either search for matches yourself or you can look at the people Plenty of Fish feels you're most compatible with. In fact, you can have a list of who you're supposedly compatible with emailed to you if you want. If you decide to search for your match on your own, the advanced search allows you to narrow down your criteria to a degree that I have not seen on any other dating site, free or otherwise. It even shows you when the person last visited the site. The search will also only show you people who might be interested in you. For example, I, as a heterosexual woman, will never have a homosexual man show up in any of my searches. The site won't allow it.

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I tried it for 2 weeks, and went on 3 dates. One was a weirdo who talked too much about his x drug addict wife, the second was an absolute nut, religious freak who was obsessed w/me the moment he saw me and i had to threaten him w/the police to get him to stop contacting me. The third date was a decent guy,no connection. I took my profile down right away, I think any attractive female just attracts too many guys online to know who is a nut/and who is nice is impossible.

Posted on 06/21/2009 at 10:06:23 PM

when i go to log in, it say, no service? please advise lady@otelco.net

Posted on 06/10/2009 at 1:06:39 PM

I disagree. After being on match for 4 years, I was told about this site by a friend. I told my friend about the site after a few days. In April of 2009. He found a great girl and they are very happy with each other. I would also have to say the guys are so much better looking on POF than Match.com. There is something about paying for a dating site men hate and wont do if they can get away with it or around it. If POF does not work for you, there is something wrong with YOU not the POF site. So why am I still single? Not everyone gets remarried within the first 5 years of being divorced. Its just not my time yet.

Posted on 06/08/2009 at 11:06:53 PM

This review was written by a forum moderator, can't you tell? Save it chump.

Posted on 11/24/2008 at 7:11:47 PM

POF is just a play site. It primarily attracts women that are looking for guys that are typically out of their league. If you're a guy on POF and you are not hitting at least 7 across all metrics, you won't do very well on the site. Even then, if you're that guy, you will still fare better outside of POF. The result of course is there are a lot of guys, that are hitting 7's, just using the site for "dating" only with no intention of establishing a relationship. What happens there is the good guys recognize this quickly and bail on the site. With that and adding in the last luster segmentation tools, POF is at worst a waste of time, at best a site more geared to sexual encounters.

Posted on 11/02/2008 at 10:11:35 AM

The majority of women on free dating sites, POF included, tend to use these sites more like a lottery than anything else. They are just kicking the tires, to see what happens. If you're a guy on these sites, it can be somewhat difficult to meet women of the same type/level, as you would in your normal life (outside of POF). Most guys pick up on this fact, very quickly and simply abandon the site within days/weeks. This leaves only the die hard guys that are generally looking for "something else". However if you're a guy hitting about a 7/10 across most metrics, you should do OK there, in some respects. POF isn't really a dating site, there is no such thing as "social dating". If you're using POF as a dating site in hopes of meeting your match for something long term, it is at best a long shot and certainly less effective than better rated pay sites. BUT, if you're just using it as a social network, albeit a particular bad one, to meet a few people it seems fine. POF isn't so

Posted on 11/01/2008 at 8:11:17 AM

There's a lot of people lying about age/weight/height/etc. Mostly all you have to go on is pictures, which are quite often significantly out of date. I'm sure if you dig thru you can find some reality. However for meeting people, if looking for something substantial, you just can't beat face to face. There is also the shopping / lottery mentality that most women adopt on the site, which are course makes it a little tougher. A lot of men are not comfortable doing the full disclosure thing immediately ... unless there's a fair amount of BS involved. The site seems OK, I guess. I found if pretty hard to meet an equal there ... seems like everyone is looking to trade up. I wouldn't take the site too seriously. If you're a women on there, bear in mind that there are a lot of guys on there just looking for more of a sexual relationship then anything else. When you write your profile, make sure it's enough to convince decent guys you're not getting caught in that trap.

Posted on 10/07/2008 at 12:10:23 PM

I tried it. Didn't think it was worth the time. Without going into detail, the site/environment/protocol is such that, I can't imagine too many men using POF unless their primary motivation is sexual. I think the site is pretty good for women for 1-3 months until they finally realize all the attention their getting are from men primary looking for a sexual outlet. Come on, what men that are interested in meeting someone for a real relationship are going line up to meet women who spent the last 3 months dating those men. It's a bad environment ... women should stay away.

Posted on 09/30/2008 at 2:09:40 PM

Technically speaking POF is a great site and wonderful service. The problem with POF is not the site itself it's the people on it. The men way outnumber the women. And the quality of what is on there is not good. The reality is it is probably just as good as any pay site out there. So give it a try. The forums are run by a bunch of ball busting man haters. The rules are very unevenly applied. If it is about how bad men are it is just great and break all the rules you want. But if is a guy talking about his problems with women usually equals an immediate delete of the thread.

Posted on 08/09/2008 at 12:08:17 PM

Lol these people bashing the site make me laugh. I was on POF and while I came across plenty of duds, it's the same way in real life. And I never posted in the forums -- never saw a reason to -- so I never ran into any of the supposed problems other people did. But the site is what you make of it, and depending on how well you do up your profile and weed out the losers, you can find someone great. I was a total online dating skeptic when I started out, but I met my current boyfriend on there a couple of months ago and he's awesome.

Posted on 07/29/2008 at 6:07:20 PM

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