Zoosk, Texas Dating Planet, eHarmony, Christian Mingle, and OKCupid are all commonly used dating websites. Some are more popular than others but they all offer the same general uses. We’ve all heard about these dating websites and seen the eHarmony success stories on TV, but how do these sites work and how effective are they? With these questions in mind, I decided to do a little experimenting.

 I set myself up two online dating accounts, both under the same fake name. I took on the persona of Elle Edwards, 19-year-old nursing student in Amarillo. The first site I used was Texas Dating Planet. It looked like a verifiable site, but in a week I had no views on my profile or messages. I switched to Zoosk  and had a better response. In the first day I received 21 messages and 16 profile views. The same trend continued with new messages every day.

My questions were somewhat answered. The sites worked based on a compatibility test that all users take. Zoosk offers a new match every day, and the user can either accept or decline it. They also will compare an account to any other account a user wants and gives them a percentage of compatibility. Anybody can view a profile if the personal information falls under the search categories. This is a helpful tool because it gets your account out there where more people will see it.

For me, the effectiveness of the site is still up in the air. I am not single, so I did not feel comfortable accepting any requests or messages. I did receive a lot of publicity though, so I feel like should someone want to get into a relationship through that route they could do it easily.

I was unable to upload a picture because of a glitch in the site, but that made the experience even more thought-provoking because of what the messages in my inbox said. I got a lot of things like, “it’s illegal to be that pretty and still single,” “did it hurt when you fell from Heaven,” and “you’re so beautiful I forgot my pickup line.” These men had never seen me but they felt it was okay to say those things. It made my question some aspects of the online dating world. One of which was if there if these responses were a result of spam that would send a harmful virus to my computer.

Overall, I feel if someone really wanted to go this route they could accomplish a relationship. I don’t know if it would survive but it could work. I would advise precautions such as not putting out too much information and not talking to just anyone. The online dating world can be very dangerous and any users should use caution.