In just one week I received 279 replies from men in response to my Personal Ad on a 100% Free Dating Site! I posted just one photo of myself - standing on the beach in shorts and a pink T-Shirt. I said I was a financially secure feminine single girl seeking an educated clean-cut single man. I have not been able to keep up with the replies I've received, let alone respond to them (if I had wanted to).

But don't be too impressed by this! Even though I'm a huge fan of online dating (I have had several long-term relationships with men I've met online and I promote some of my favourite Dating Sites in my spare time), the responses I received were shocking and I still don't have a date!

You might be thinking that maybe I'm just being too picky - it's a huge amount of interest in just seven days - surely one of them must be alright? No! Unfortunately not, not at all.

One of the first replies I received was from a strange looking young man, who wrote that he worked part-time packing shelves in a Supermarket and enjoyed wearing Nappies in his spare time! Did I advertise for a Diaper wearing boyfriend? Or anything similarly kinky?

Over the next few days I received tons of responses from guys, as I opened each message, I thought surely there'll be some genuine men in my area looking for love - or at least a nice date. I was wrong. Also, because the Site I was using was free, I'd expected when they contacted me they'd tell me a little about themself, their interests etc, and also ask more about me. But I received over 100 messages with less than five words - such as :

• What u doing babe? (albeit usually an overweight bare-chested tattoo'd body photo attached - not exactly the best view to give a lady a good impression).
• U got msn sexy? (Hmmm, I don't even know his name and he's wanting to set up a webcam date - guys you're not even introducing yourself to me yet!)
• Hi, where u from? (My profile clearly stated which city and country I live in!)

Next there was a five paragraph message from a guy - and three messages after this I see the same message again from someone else - Does he have two profiles on the same site? It was obviously Copy - And - Paste to every girl he liked on the site!

There was one contact which interested me briefly, when I caught a glimpse of his profile photo. I clicked on it to enlarge it - And I'm lucky I knew that the man in the photo was a famous Actor - Johnathan Ryhs Meyers, otherwise this guy would have got a date with me, and I would have been sadly disappointed if I turned up and it wasn't Johnathan!

Needless to say it was a total waste of time using that website - which I'm hesitant to name because I don't want to promote it - but it starts with Plenty and ends with Fish - And I can tell you they sure are out there! But not the kind of fish I'm looking for. I cannot emagine the responses I would get if I was a woman who put up a more 'raunchier' profile - I have the impression that most of the men who contacted me were looking for online (or real) sex, because it was a free way to go about it. One contact even said he'd been doing it for two years. It's creepy!

I don't always pay on the Dating Sites I use, because even the pay Sites let you create a Free Profile - and usually it's free to reply if someone contacts you (or the man pays to write to you and he can send you his email address so you can contact him more freely from there if you're interested).

I've found that Sites where the men need to pay, even if it's just a little to have contact with you, he will put more thought into what he says, he will have thoroughly read your profile and will be more genuine about looking for a relationship - and it weeds out a great deal of the online preditors!

My advice for single ladies is to stick with the big name, reputable Dating Sites, and if one site doesn't work for you - try another site - as there are still a lot of genuine singles looking for love online! For the guys - If you're looking for a relationship put some thought into your profile photo, read the woman's profile and send her an appropriate message, so that she doesn't get the wrong impression. And if you're not looking for a genuine relationship, use an Adult's Only website instead.

StricktlyDating -

Some of the Big Name Dating Sites I recommend are:

• LAVALIFE
• FRIENDFINDER