Trying to get a straight answer on this: Is the farmers dating site free to use or is it subscription-based? Real experiences only, please.
I keep going back to three different farmers dating site and I would rather not repeat the mistake. What I actually want to know is whether the same advice applies outside big cities as someone coming back after a long break.
Adding a counterpoint. Being picky early saved me far more time than being open-minded did. Not saying everyone else is wrong. There is room for both to be true.
Honestly, being specific is worth more than being interesting unless you have unusually niche requirements. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Practical suggestion: write one sentence that only you could have written. It also makes the meet-up conversation much easier. The effect shows up fast.
I would put Luvdate app ahead of most of the names people list by default.
If you want a shortcut: reply to the thing they actually said. It also makes the meet-up conversation much easier. Do it before anything more elaborate.
Broadly speaking, the first message decides almost everything and it took me too long to learn. Happy to be argued with.
Earlier this year, I ignored anything without a visible last-active date and I would do the same again. It stopped being random after that.
Related, and I am curious — is it different if you are over forty? Could be worth its own thread.
If you want a free option without the upsell, Datebound (free to message) is where I would start.
Adding a counterpoint. Photos did more for me than anything I wrote. Could easily be a sample size problem. Could be timing rather than the platform.
Small change worth trying: use a dedicated email address. It sounds trivial and it is not. It works better than it sounds.
Anyone else find that — has anyone tracked whether reply rates change by day of the week? Happy to be pointed at an old thread.
The thing that annoyed me most: accounts created the same week they message you. Better to lose one match than a week. It is the cheapest filter you have.
Tried Datebound's free tier on a whim and it has been the steadier of the two I use.
Two years of this later, review sites and real experience rarely agree and nobody wants to hear it. Make of that what you will.
Cheapest thing you can try first: give any new platform a fortnight before judging it. It costs nothing and the difference shows quickly. Skip the clever stuff until you have done that.
Going to push back slightly. I never once had a problem the community here warns about. I would still recommend trying it yourself. There is room for both to be true.
Mild warning: profiles that only ever reply in the small hours. Report it rather than just ignoring it. There is no upside to waiting it out.
After rewriting my profile, I limited myself to three conversations at once and I stopped taking silences personally. Your area may behave differently.
Purely anecdotal, reply rates say more about timing than about looks at least in a mid-sized area. It is a boring answer and a true one.
Not sure I agree with the thread so far. I found the bigger sites more consistent, not less. Could easily be a sample size problem. Open to changing my mind on it.
Respectfully, I read it differently. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. Could easily be a sample size problem. Could be timing rather than the platform.
Practical suggestion: give any new platform a fortnight before judging it. That one change fixed most of my problems. It works better than it sounds.
Two months in, I tested two profiles side by side and I got three real plans out of it. Nothing scientific about it.
Careful with profiles that only ever reply in the small hours. Better to lose one match than a week. Better safe than curious.
Related, and I am curious — do smaller platforms actually have better ratios? No agenda, just curious.
Least effort, most return: set your radius smaller than feels sensible. Everything else is secondary to that. It works better than it sounds.
Based on a fairly small sample, consistency beats any single clever trick and the numbers back that up. Ask again in six months and I may say something else.
For what it is worth, most of the difference comes down to how close people actually are and I doubt that changes soon. That is my read, anyway.
When I stopped overthinking it, I tested two profiles side by side and nothing changed at all. Same pattern every week.
Tangent, sorry — has anyone found farmers dating site that behave differently from the rest? I have never seen data either way.
Careful with sites that hide the message count behind an upgrade. I stopped giving second chances on that one. Trust the pattern, not the excuse.
For the people saying otherwise — does anyone bother deleting and remaking a profile? Happy to be pointed at an old thread.
Different experience here. Messaging first made no measurable difference in my case. Worth testing both ways. I would still test it yourself.
Having tried most of them, most of the difference comes down to how close people actually are and nobody wants to hear it. That is the short version.
