It’s obvious that when it comes to dating, men do most of the chasing. Typically, men are the ones who initiate conversations on dating sites or declare interest. On one hand, this can make things more convenient for the fairer sex, since they essentially have to do less work. On the other, it can get out of hand, ending up with an inbox that’s congested with all sorts of creepy, unsolicited messages from desperate men.
This problem of ‘inbox flooding’ is more common on free dating sites than on paid ones. This is because the barrier of entry is very low for the former, allowing just about anyone to reach out to you. Some sites allow men to join for free but set a cap on their ability to express interest (most often via ‘likes’) and prevent them from messaging women directly, especially those with paid memberships. Hence, it’s quite clear that in order to have a better experience of dating platforms, you’re going to have to spend money.
The Issue of Safety
Dating sites, especially free ones can be breeding grounds for scammers of all types. ‘Catfishing’ is very prevalent, where a user pretends to be someone they’re not in order to trick you into giving up your credit card details or buy them expensive items.
Then there are scammers who don’t engage in catfishing but are able to earn your trust through a series of lies, with a thick layer of charm spread on top of it all. Just last year, there was an incident in the UK where a 23-year old man by the name of Connor Richardson managed to scam two women he met on a free dating site called ‘Plenty of Fish’.
Apparently, Richardson was able to earn the trust of these women pretty quickly. They ended up trusting him so much that he was allowed unattended access to their apartments and well, you can guess what happened next. He made off with highly valuable belongings, including cash, bank cards and even a few electronics.
There’s a reason why scammers like Connor Richardson tend to target free dating sites. It’s not just that they don’t have to pay anything to join. The oversight and moderation in these free platforms are very lacking. For instance, on some of the most reputable paid sites, users have to have their profile verified before they can join. This automatically helps to weed out the catfish who try to pass off a random, attractive person’s profile picture as their own.
Most dating sites also have moderators that oversee activity in public forums. If they see any form of suspicious behavior from a user they could ban them for life. Hence, with paid memberships and platforms, women have some support for avoiding scammers.
Paid Memberships Are For Serious Users
Anyone who’s willing to pay to use a dating service is most likely committed to finding a genuine relationship. It shows that their actually willing to invest in their life love rather than aimlessly searching around, messaging everyone on free sites. As a result, women have a much better chance of finding serious, commitment-ready men on paid sites rather than free ones. In addition, it’ll also prevent your inbox from being flooded because once you switch to a paid membership on a site, free users will most likely be blocked from messaging you.
What About Women Taking Charge?
The app known as Bumble made huge waves in the dating scene upon launch because of its very unique approach. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it encourages women to make the first move rather than wait for men to strike up a conversation. In fact, the app makes this approach mandatory because it prevents men from initiating contact with any female users.
According to the people at Bumble, their main objective is to attract women who like making the first move and men who don’t mind being asked out. This makes things much safer and convenient for women as they decide who they want to talk with rather than having to deal with creepy messages from men. The app benefits men as well. Men don’t have to face the trauma of having their advances rejected, which is what often happens on regular dating sites. Hence, Bumble considers this a win-win situation.
‘Where women, go men follow” – that’s the main principle behind Bumble’s approach. As a result, the company spends most of its marketing budget on women rather than men.
The bottom line is that online dating can be quite troublesome for women if they don’t plan on using a paid service. The lack of verification processes and continuous oversight on free sites makes them very attractive to dating scammers. Plus there’s also the risk of having your inbox flooded with unwanted messages from random men. Hence, the smart thing to do would be to go for a paid service, which gives you more security, features and most important of all, peace of mind.
