Should I Use Multiple Online Dating Services?
Published on May 26, 2011
At times online dating can be difficult or at the very least frustrating. Many of us come to a point where we feel like we’re just not getting enough opportunity with the dating service we are using and begin to wonder about trying multiple dating services at once. Is this a good idea?
Using Multiple Dating Services
My opinion is that you should absolutely use multiple dating services. Also, I think everyone that is paying to use online dating should be using multiple dating service simply because there are great free dating services out there as well. If you’re paying for Match.com, why not use OKCupid as well since it’s free?
Personally, I was paying for both eHarmony an Match.com when I met my wife. During the year that I had actively been dating online prior to meeting her, I frequently used multiple services. A lot of this came down to wanting to follow what I felt was the best approach to online dating, which I describe in my post Dating Multiple People (and Why You Should Be Doing It).
Thoughts on Subscriptions
If you can afford to pay for two dating services, that’s great. I would like to make a suggestion: don’t sign up for too long at any one dating service. For example, if you decided on two dating services you want to try, I would recommend against signing up for both of them for a year.
Instead, I recommend subscribing for 3-months if you’re new to online dating or unsure of how much you will like the service. If you are experienced with online dating and know you like the service I think 6-months can work. That being said, I would never recommend signing up for a full year. It’s jut too long a window of time (and I talk about this in greater detail here).
My approach went like this: I would sign up for a few service but for a short or medium length of time. As one service began to feel “stale”, I would switch to another service once my subscription was up or I would simply go from using two services to one and at a later date might sign up for a second. I feel this approach offers you more variety and opportunity over picking two services and signing up for as long as you can to both of them.
If you take an approach similar to mine, you will need a set of services that you switch between. The services I recommend the most are:
- Match.com
- eHarmony
- OKCupid
There are plenty of other great services but I am most familiar with these and have the most trust in them (were I still dating online today these are the services I would use).
Should My Profiles Be Different?
I was once contacted by a guy who was wondering if he should try to hide the fact that he was on both dating services. He had considered using different photos and writing a totally different profile at each dating site. Honestly, whether I agree with doing this really depends on your approach.
If you want to test a different way of presenting yourself in how you write your profile, I think that’s fine. However, you need to remain honest and really present who you are. Writing a different profile for each dating site shouldn’t be about you trying to figure out what other people want and then trying to become that. It should be about trying to figure out the best way to present who you are.
Also, I don’t think there should be any concern about someone seeing you on both dating sites. You’re looking to find a relationship and you’re looking in more than one place. It’s not a big deal and humans have been doing that since relationships began. Anyway, if they are seeing your profile on both sites, they’re using both of them as well!
Using Different Photos
As far as photos go, I think using different photos on each sites might is a good idea for two reasons:
- As people become more familiar with certain pictures, they stop viewing those profiles. You want people viewing your profile even if on the first dating site they decided they weren’t interested.
- It gives you a good opportunity to see which primary photo gets you the most attention
So, yes, I do think you should be using two online dating services if you want to be. I did so and honestly that might have been part of my success to meeting my wife (although I can’t remember if Match.com was my “first” or “second” service so I can’t say for sure).
Author: Brad
Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.
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