by Abigail Luftig

Created on: May 13, 2009   Last Updated: May 14, 2009

In these high-tech times, people can find anything online. You can find the perfect shoes, the perfect dress, the perfect shade of lipstick; why not the perfect man? I hesitate to resort to cliches and puns, but the fact of the matter is that we, the first of the computer generations, are less about love at first sight and increasingly more about love at first site. With careers, complicated families and the general stress of life taking up valuable dating time, the stigma of online dating has lessened over recent years, which was helped by a 58% rise in site membership across the Web. But with as many dating sites as there are potential dates, where should we love-lorn gals turn? I, in my serial singleness, have taken it upon myself to answer that question for you in my ongoing review of popular dating websites. Today's victim, I mean, subject? PlentyOfFish.com.

Taking its name from the old adage that there are plenty of fish in the sea, POF claims to be bigger then all other free dating sites combined. With an estimated 11,000,000 users, there looks to be some validity to that claim. In 2008, POF was rated the 82nd most popular dating site in the US, largely due to it's free access. Users fill in their profile by answering fairly standard questions (height, weight, income, education, children, smoking/drinking/drug use, etc) but also allows you to fill in your fish personality, which is determined through an on-site personality test. You then pick your message settings, which allows you to block messages by users you deem to be too old/too young, too far away, too unavailable (there are people on this site who are listed as being married, which begs the question, what are they doing on a dating site?), or looking for different things (the most popular choice being blocking users who have messaged other users looking for intimate encounters).

Once you've found a member you want to contact, you can email them (and attach a virtual gift, paid for with points that accrue with each log-in) or IM them. The best part about IM on POF is that if you get stalled for conversation, you can invite your fellow conversant to play the site's Truth game, which helps to establish compatibility. The downside is that there's no instant link to the person's profile, so you might not have any idea who you're talking to.

Another pitfall of POF is that while they do send you matches every so often, said matches are not presented in an organized manner (thumbnails all on one page, sometimes up to 50 users) and no information is given about the user upfront, so they're essentially encouraging you to decide if you like this person initially based on their profile picture and screen name, which isn't really fair.

As All in all, PlentyOfFish.com is pretty good dating site, provided that the user remembers that the site is free and you do tend to get what you pay for.

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