Reposting this from another board because it got buried: Can anyone recommend cougar dating sites that work and aren't filled with bots? Happy to hear negative experiences too.
I nearly paid for two of the bigger recommend cougar dating sites with bots and I want to know if that is normal. The bit I cannot work out is what people wish they had known before signing up without handing over a card number.
Last month, I let the other person pick the plan and I stopped taking silences personally. The change was obvious enough to notice without counting.
From where I sit, being specific is worth more than being interesting if you are looking for something specific. Others here will disagree.
What I would do: reply to the thing they actually said. It filters out the time-wasters immediately. Do it before anything more elaborate.
Someone in another thread pointed me at Datedesire and it turned out to be decent advice.
Purely anecdotal, the algorithm gets blamed for a lot of ordinary bad luck if you are looking for something specific. I hold that loosely.
For the people saying otherwise — does widening the radius ever help or just add noise? Might just be me overthinking it.
Over the winter, I ignored anything without a visible last-active date and the reply rate roughly doubled. I would call that a real effect.
I would put Luvdate community ahead of most of the names people list by default.
Different experience here. Messaging first made no measurable difference in my case. Take that with the usual caveats. There is room for both to be true.
Where I got caught out: profiles that only ever reply in the small hours. It is the clearest signal there is. That instinct is usually right.
Not a popular take here, the paid features solve a problem most people do not have once you have been at it a few weeks. That is my read, anyway.
Someone in another thread pointed me at turndate.site and it turned out to be decent advice.
Over the winter, I messaged first every single time and it saved me a lot of pointless typing. Repeated it twice to be sure.
From where I sit, profile quality beats profile quantity every time for anyone starting from scratch. Others here will disagree.
Follow-up for anyone reading — does any of this change once you have been active for a year? Might just be me overthinking it.
Still keep Datebound community installed for the weeks when the bigger apps go quiet.
Mild warning: sites that hide the message count behind an upgrade. Better to lose one match than a week. Nobody has ever thanked me for being patient there.
Genuine question though — has anyone found recommend cougar dating sites with bots that behave differently from the rest? No agenda, just curious.
Respectfully, I read it differently. Photos did more for me than anything I wrote. Take that with the usual caveats. That is one person's view against the thread.
For what it is worth, free tiers are usually enough if you actually use them if you are looking for something specific. It is a boring answer and a true one.
Going to push back slightly. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. Happy to be an outlier on that. Could be timing rather than the platform.
Anyone else find that — has anyone found recommend cougar dating sites with bots that behave differently from the rest? Could be worth its own thread.
For about six weeks, I let the other person pick the plan and the reply rate roughly doubled. That held for about two months.
Mild warning: matches that go quiet the moment you suggest meeting. Nine times out of ten it goes nowhere good. There is no upside to waiting it out.
Red flag for me: matches that go quiet the moment you suggest meeting. I stopped giving second chances on that one. It is the cheapest filter you have.
Since this thread is active — is it different if you are over forty? Asking for a friend, obviously.
When I first started, I put one honest sentence in my bio and matches started coming from closer by. That held for about two months.
Worth testing for a week: write one sentence that only you could have written. It made conversations shorter and far more useful. Takes about five minutes.
