Reviews...

Whitney:

Match: I find this site to be chock full of sincerely lovely people who are searching for something meaningful-- "searching" being the operative term-- but that's kind of the point. Branding- wise, the site itself is not particularly edgy, but its forthright approach is unassuming and lets you do your thing, even if your "thing" has slightly constrained innocently flirty/raunchy polarizations. I can't deny the presence of an undergirding puritanical essence, but it feels safe and seems to draw a medly of decent love-hunters.

Nerve: Naughty, sexy, feisty, demanding: A major difference from Match is that Nerve extends "play", meaning "willing to engage in (relatively) casual sweet action" as one choice for your ideal e-mate. An explicit openness to variety in sexual/relationship preferences makes being on Nerve feel like you're in on something pretty hott, something nervy, if you will. I have not been disappointed with what this site has yielded so far, though I think the navigation could be simpler.

Yahoo! Personals: Like Match, it doesn't have any especially dominating overtones with respect to the kind of crowd it wants to attract. Pretty mainstream, pretty neutral. My primary gripe involves the inanity of their choices for automatic messages: Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure sending someone a pre-written note that says "Wowie wow wow wow wow!" spells a whole lotta silence coming from the other end. I know what they're going for, and I don't use those silly excuses for communication, but still.

okCupid: I like this site a lot-- it's populated with nerdy cutie-panteses, and you get to take all sorts of member-created tests which make for some fun sideline metacognition. It purports to be able to psychologically nail you down with their onslaught of never-ending questions, resulting in "scientifically" accurate matching percentages. To wit: I went out a few times with a guy from this site who had emailed a challenge to me: Apparently okCupid had deemed us incompatible (this is science talking, mind you), and he wanted us to prove them wrong. This guy was pretty cute, and a fun date, but it turns out the OC was right. It took us a little while (and a fun while at that) to figure it out though.

Friendster: Let me say first, that I love Friendster. But in the dating context, I find it lacking. That's because matching potential mates is not its primary purpose, so the survey questions are less geared towards daters. This means that when you go on a date with a Friendster, it's a lot harder to discuss the fact that you may (or may not...) be engaging in online dating. To me, this has been a fun and important ice-breaker when meeting new people. Furthermore, you're cruising the friendster scene with married people and parents, not to mention people's household pets! (My turtle has a profile.) Anyway, I could just be biased since the only two stinky dates I've had were from this site.

Other sites I have less experience with/am less committed to. I like consumating.com, but I find lavalife frustrating. I gave up on JDate after a few weeks, and am still exploring MySpace. This dating experiment is yielding some wonderful epiphanies, lessons, and smooching sessions. More on that triumvirate soon...