Internet Gay Dating

At least once a week, I get a question from a reader regarding gay dating through the web, and what my opinion is on different gay-friendly dating sites.    

Let me first disclose that I am by no means an expert in the field of gay Internet dating.  My experience in this area does not come from previous study or from a masters degree in the field of sociology, but instead, from trial and error and from lots and lots and LOTS of mistakes.  When I first started dating guys, I was completely in the closet, so my only outlet to meet guys was on the Internet, which had thankfully just gained wide-spread popularity back in those days. 

The Internet is still a viable place to meet gay men, especially if you live in a small town and don't have the benefit of a city with a vibrant night life. 

Here are my opinions on some of the popular dating sites out there - 

1.  www.gay.com - possibly the most widely-used gay site for chatting.  You'll find everything on here from closeted boys to full out transvestite drag queens.  It's somewhat overwhelming when you first login to gay.com, but after a couple of months, you will see that it's the same old folks on here day after day.  This website is most useful if you're in a rural area, as you can login to a chat room for your region.  If I had to grade it, I'd give it a B+ for variety and sheer masses of people, a C for sexual hookup, but only a C+ grade for quality and potential for a relationship.

2.  www.connexion.org - a clean site that is sorta like Face Book.  Not really the best chatting site, and not all that widely-used, but there are good quality guys on here if you're willing to invest the time, especially if you're located in Colorado, NYC, or Los Angeles.  Grading, it gets a D for quantity of users, a Fail for sexual hookups, but a B+ for quality and relationship potential.  I should mention that back when I used this site, I found two boyfriends on here.

3.  www.manhunt.net - sheer dirty hookups.  My friend BOB loves this site, as there are lots of boys, some hot, some not, just looking for dirty, uninhibited man sex.  You'll find everything from bears to twinks to group sex to hotel-room orgies on here.  I'll give it a C for quantity of users, an A for sexual hookups, and a Fail for relationship potential.

4.  Craig's List - this site is a classified ad service with no posting fee.  Back in the days before the Internet, it was my understanding that discreet guys would post ads in newspapers.  That died down significantly in the last few years.  But now, Craig's List has reinvigorated this form of hookup, and boy is the variety out there.  I think that this site surpasses Manhunt in strange fetishes.  It gets a B for quantity of users, an A for sexual hookups, and a D for relationship potential.

5.  www.match.com - Match.com, which is actually based in Dallas, is a dating service that was originally designed for straights.  In the last few years, however, it has branched out and aggressively promoted its services to gay men.  It's a clean, decent site, with potentially good results, especially if you're willing to meet guys in other cities.  It gets a B for quantity, a Fail for sexual hookups, and a B+ for potential relationships.

6.  Big Muscle - a website for guys (not always muscular ones) to show off their bodies or to just get dates or sex.  If you ever read the blog about the game warden I dated, which was a disastrous relationship -- I met him on this site.  C for quantity, C for sexual hookups, and C- for potential relationships.

7.  Myspace.com and Facebook - good, normally clean sites for dating.  It can be frustrating to get to know someone through these sites, as many users allow only friends to see their personal information.  These sites are perhaps most useful to track someone down after you've met them previously in person.  A for quantity, Fail for sexual hookups, and B for potential relationships. 

Now that I've lived in Dallas for a year and a half now, I can tell you that the best way to meet people is face-to-face, and through friends.  However, the Internet is still a powerful force in the dating world, and I can't knock it at all, as I've found love on here in the past.  Happy hunting!

Comments

I joined one called Jaketm.com. Its mostly for UK gays but there are plans to launch it in the USA starting with New York this year. Just thought I would spread the word.

[jay]

Nice list. One thing that should be mentioned about Match and Gay are that they restrict many of their features to paying users while the others are completely free.

Right now I do really like Connexion as the quality of the guys are indeed much higher than I've seen on other sites.