Single City Guy

My dating website reviews have been positive, critical evaluations their services. This review is different. Plenty of Fish is a popular, free, online dating website that’s hard to ignore when reviewing the online options that are available. It’s also the worse dating website I’ve used. Far too often it feels like an extension of the Craigslist personals where you’re playing russian roulette with your matches in search for some hope. Of all the dating websites I’ve tested, I’ve had no success with Plenty of Fish. But, as a testament to chaos theory, I know couples who have met and entered into successful relationships thru the website.

Plenty of Fish does do a few good things. Like many dating websites, there’s a personality test to take after singing up. It’s a 48 question test that helps serve as a basis for matching. Unlike other websites, a 48 questions personality test is a short and quick assessment. After taking the test, an in-depth review of your answers is available under the “Chemistry Test Results” and separated  into 5 categories: Self-Confidence, Family Orientation, Self-Control, Openness, and Easygoingness. There’s also a sections that details how your personality affects your love life. This personality test is impressive, and the best features of the service. However, anything else is basic at best.

At best, Plenty of Fish is a simple dating website. It begins by create a profile, answer generic profile questions, and then search for dates. There are some questions asked that I’m not sure are relevant to dating. For instance, Plenty of Fish asks for the marital status of your parents, leading to other questions about your ranking as a sibling (only child, oldest of four, etc). The question feels more like data mining than a real question that pertains to dating. If being the oldest of 3 children is the real question, than ask that. Don’t ask if my parents are still together, or dead. If I enter a successful relationship by meeting someone from the site, she’s going to meet whomever I call family. If that happens to be my cat, so be it. Even worse, questions like these, which are mandatory, aren’t reflected in their search parameters. For all purposes, they are irrelevant.

Other than irrelevant dating questions, the website does function, but  suffers from poor execution and design. To be blunt, the website is ugly and littered with advertisements. The matches you receive have no real rhyme or reason to them. Many times I’ve been given matches with women who aren’t close to my preferences, by this I mean women well outside my age parameters. I’ve dated 18 and 19 year olds when I was 18 and 19, that ship has sailed!

There’s a few things that’s very clear about Plenty of Fish. It’s supported by advertisements that appear everywhere on the website (the con to being a free), and it serves as a basic dating profile directory. It’s audience is younger and because of that doesn’t have any barriers to communication, which makes perfect sense, and decision I applaud. A younger audience won’t pay for a dating website. In my history, I’ve tried Plenty of Fish at least three times (not including briefly for this review), and I’ve gotten nowhere. I’ve sent messages to women, but unlike other websites, I’ve haven’t received an inkling of a response.  That’s not to say my experience is the standard, I’ve known a few people who have found success with the website; but none of them in NYC.

While I don’t like Plenty of Fish, that’s not to say it’s a poor dating option for everyone, for some it’s the only dating option. There are cases where you may have better luck finding someone on Plenty of Fish, opposed to other dating websites. Some areas don’t have many people dating online. If this is the case, make sure you’ve exhausted all the other dating options first, because this service will turn you off from online dating.