Thinking of trying online dating site…good idea?

Give it a go is what I'd say, and take all the advice about places to meet etc that you are given. Am sorry, but in this day and age after all the stories about people being daft enough to send anyone money, it really beats me why anyone still does it.
After my divorce at 41, I met the love of my life at a Singles group i joined and we had a few very happy years together but in our separate homes. Sadly we broke up and i was devastated but a friend had just met her (now) husband on a dating site and i signed up to the same one. Think it was match.com but i don't even know if it still exists.
I only wanted to meet reasonably local men as was unable to embark on a long distance relationship. I met 2 guys who i had longish, 2/3 year relationships with but also dated one or 2 others briefly.
I felt I'd rather meet men in person sooner rather than later as anyone can type anything but hearing and meeting in person gives you more of a feel for someone.
A wee l;augh. One such guy sounded great but when we met, for coffee in a town centre to be sensible, he looked unkempt and brought his divorce papers to show me, then told me some story about his ex and teaspoons! After our meeting I told him (nicely) I wouldn't want to meet him again but he was very persistent with messages till I threatened to go to police. He stopped immediately.
I'm now married to my last online date. We dated for 3 years first.
As for posting photos, I didn't do it as i worked in a huge office of hundreds of employees and did not want to be recognized, but in my profile said i was happy to share photos later. So I wouldn't put too much stead on someone who doesn't post a Photo.
Give it a go, and good luck.

I met my husband in 1995, via a national dating group (pre-on line you joined a club). I met a few men, most of whom were older than myself. Some were genuinely nice men just not for me. Some were so off the wall that I saw them as caricatures, and then one, ten years older than myself, who made me laugh, made me feel special and who treated my children with kindness and respect.

That was 27 years ago, we are still together, and for the record he is MY carer not the other way around.

If you avoid the money scammers you’ll be fine.
There’s just as many weirdos in pubs / clubs & anywhere else people meet.
It’s pretty much the way people meet these days ( especially the younger generation )

Reader, I married him.
Kissed a few frogs on the way but 15 years on we're happily hitched for life.

Do watch the bbc prog For Love or Money. There are a lot of scammers out there. Learn how to do reverse image checks on photographs as well. Oh and if it all looks too good to be true it probably is. Saying that I have a lovely friend who I met on a dating site. I doubt it will develop into a relationship but I enjoy his company....lovely walks and good conversation. Meet without expectation and you won't be disappointed.

Be careful.My Son met a lady his own age ( almost fifty) and things were marvellous in the beginning she was a very intelligent lady with a good job and they seemed suited, but it turned out to be she was very minipulating, and caused my Son a lot of stress, she also nestled in, for her to have 5% of a summer cottage on the west coast of Sweden, where we all live, in Sweden not in the cottage.Things didnt go well, after six months ,my Son had had enough of being told what to do etc.and they split up, she is now demanding money from a project they did together ie. built a little workshop in her garden for my Son to work, as he repairs boat engines etc. It all sounded really good but unfortunately didnt last.I am just saying there are all sorts of things you should consider before taking on anyone you dont know.Good Luck I hope you find the right person.

I joined one in 2015 and after a couple of weirdos, one of whom I'm convinced was married, I met my gorgeous partner. We have been together for 7 years this August. Be very wary of anyone who wants to move contact from the dating website onto email, phone etc and never ever send anyone any cash. I second the advice to watch For Love Or Money on BBC. It is very good.

Just tread carefully and take your time getting to know them.
There are so many success stories out there.

I did some ‘lonely hearts’ dating before online came about and didn’t have any success they were either absolutely not for me total asses bor weird as
I do know one person who met on line and it was successful but I ve heard a lot of negative stories
I think meeting in person gives you a much better feel (not literally) for the person
I would have thought you d be better off asking on Mumsnet than us

Thanks for al these comments, they are giving me lots of different perspectives and making me think about things I hadn’t considered. I’ll give TindlerSwindler a watch on NetFlix.

I’ve had various experiences with online dating, in the past and current! I met my ex husband through online dating.
There are men who just want to meet just for sex, there are men who want you to take deliveries for them, there are married men, but there are genuine men out there.
I’m currently on Tinder (again) and I am very wary. I swipe left If there are only photos and nothing about them, if there aren’t any face pics and if they seem too good to be true (photos of fancy cars, boats etc).If you haven’t already, watch Tinder Swindler on Netflix, a very good watch.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Xx

I’m extremely tight fisted with money, and my hobby is amateur investing, so I certainly wouldn’t be sending any to men in UK either.

I've checked out a few dating sites but I am always reluctant to pay the fees in case the info they send you is false and the people don't really exist. Been bitten in the past so I am cautious. I have indicated that I am looking for a younger friend because they are usually more interesting and enjoy going out and doing stuff. They are not frightened to laugh either and usually have a good sense of humour. Most important is that I am looking for a true friend who I can talk to.

@ ShropshireMiss some of these ‘prospective partners’ are ver clever and it’s organised crime? Yes it’s about sending money abroad - so would you send money to someone who lived in the UK!!! You seriously need to get a bit more street wise as you appear very naive? Prospective partners could be abroad but have set up account here!

Where do I start!
After my divorce and a couple of short relationships that went nowhere I was on my own. My friend told me about a dating site called 'Plent of Fish' (I wouldn't actually recommend it but it wa a free site).
I told her I am not going on any flaming dating site but she assured me she had been reading all the profiles of American guys and they were funny.
So one Sunday afternoon I was bored and decided to take a look. I put in a 70 mile radius of where I lived. It was like window shopping. Thinking oh he looks nice etc. There was a button to save to favourites and when I hit it , it said I had to have a profile myself.
So without a picture I wrote

Only doing this to save someone to favourites
Medical professional
Divorced two adult children
Curvy , does that mean fat?
Can't help being cynical about a site like this.
Are all the women sad, desperate?
Are all the men predators?
Be nice to meet someone genuine.

I got loads of men asking who I had saved and got into one or two conversations but nothing that appealed to me.
I didn't bother with it for about a month when out of the blue I got a message from someone who was angry at what I had written. That there were women predators out there too!
We wrote loads to each other and found we had a lot in common. Eventually we exchanged telephone numbers. He rang me that night and we were on the phone for 3 hours!
He told me he had to meet me which we did the following week.
we hit it off straight away. I told him to be honest I would have walked past him in a pub because he wasn't my usual type. Obviously I had been looking at the wrong type! After five years we both sold our properties and bought a house together. We will have been together 15 years in October and we are getting married this month. (We had planned it for 2019 but Covid put paid to that).
He gets on great with my family. Sadly he is estranged from his own kids but have met other family relatives and we get on well.
Incidentally he had also joined another dating and friendship group called 'Midsummer's Eve where singles go out as a group. They go for meals together, bowling that sort of thing. It is an opportunity to meet up with other singles and even shopping trips if you want.
I met him when I was 52 so don't give up hope!

I have used OLD very successfully on two occasions. It was a sharp learning curve.
Your profile is the key, keep refining it to exclude attracting the wrong type of person for you.
Personally I wasn't interested in meeting men before I got to know them so it was more like having a pen pal at first.
First time I ended up in a long term relationship with a Kiwi. We both flew regularly to be with each other, eventually got engaged and after my mother died I went out to see if I could settle in NZ. Lived there for two and a half wonderful years until he told me he was very happy with our relationship but had decided he didn't want to get married.
Fortunately my home had only been rented out so I returned.
Second time around I met my now OH, we have been together over 10 years. I cannot imagine what my life would now be like without him.
Curiously I am the one now who doesn't want to be married. It was pointed out to me that had I married my Kiwi and we broke up he would have been entitled to half our joint assets. Both my other half and I are content to be living in sin. His assets go to his family, mine to my family.
If anything happened to him I would try OLD again. It is a safe way to meet men as long as you keep your head screwed on.
I hope you have great success OP, and if you need advice on your profile you can PM me anytime.

Twelve and a half years ago my Sister-in-Law put me up to going on an online dating site having come out of a relationship. After five months we moved in together and after a year we married. I am blessed to have a kind, funny, caring, loving husband who is also my best friend and soul mate. Obviously, you do have to be cautious, but as my 11 years of happy marriage prove, it can work. Good luck

I definitely wouldn’t reply to anyone living, working, visiting or travelling abroad.

You go for it, but just be careful as there are so many sites nowadays to go on, it's a minefield. A lady I know was scammed by a guy who promised her the world. She sold her house to send him money, her business has fallen apart and her family have been through the wringer with her all because of this manipulating scumbag.
Take care, meet in a public place and make sure there's someone at the end of the phone if you want to do a runner...

Thanks for all the comments, this is giving me a lot to think about. Married men pretending to be single is something else I’ve been warned about.

I've been with my partner for 24 years and we met online.
Back then it was more chat rooms rather than dating sites but they were basically the same .
We started chatting and didn't meet up for 3 months .
I think these days it will be much harder to meet someone as its much more about ' throw away relationships '

I met my husband 12 years ago through an online dating website. I was wary about this method of meeting people but I actually met 2 other people who were also decent guys before getting together with my husband. It was a very good move for me. I was 47 at the time

Why not? I met my husband through a dating site but you have to careful.
From my experience:
Be very careful if they are not UK based, say that they are offshore or are not available to meet up.
Stay with messaging on the dating site, it has algorythms to help isolate scammers. They may ask you to go to another messaging service but DON'T. A genuine prospect will respect your decision.
If they want to speak to you, ask for a landline number then Google their phone number to see if anyone has been scammed by them. Try who-called.co.uk
Google any details that they give eg employer's company name, personal email address if they give it, their name for any other details.
If they look particularly fanciable, you can reverse search on the photo to see if they have harvested it from someone else's Facebook etc account.
If they ask you for money, however small, they are scamming you, report them to the dating website and the police. Or say that you can't afford it but need them to send you a substantial amount of money.

I was the victim of a dating scam but sussed it early and never paid anything.
BUT I did meet my husband, who is lovely, on a dating site.
Good luck and I hope you get to meet lots of potential friends.

My own experience of online dating wasn't that positive and found that I seemed to only attract the type of man that if I met them in the street, I would have given them a wide berth!
One guy I did keep in contact with and actually had a few dates with , blew very hot and cold - there seems to be a general thing with some men that if you are on a dating site, you must be desperate! With this guy, after the 3rd date, he tried to insist that as he had seen me more than once, he had the right to have sex but only at my place. Difficult, as a single parent, I was living with my parents!
I found out several weeks later, after he had a dated a friend, that he was actually married and his wife was pregnant! He told my friend that using dating websites worked out cheaper than seeing a prostitute!!!
I was just unlucky - another friend has just got married, after meeting her husband on a dating site.
I'd just say to go in with an open mind, you may not meet anyone that looks like the ads on tv, and be careful if you meet them - have someone either in the vicinity or easily contactable and whatever story they tell, don't give them any money for any reason !

Go with your gut feeling, give it a try if that’s what you want to do! But me I wouldn’t do it, my friend met someone on pof married him and all hunky dory for few months then he just upped and left when she really needed him! ( illness) he decided that his AC should live there with them, they did nothing but cause problems!