Reviews of Lavalife

I give it 4 stars, as have actually met women from LL that I am still friends with, and hopefully I may get more out of. LL seems to be the best of the bad lot of these sites, I have even had 2 1/2 successes with the intimates section. I would give LL 5 stars but it isnt perfect.

The upsides to LL are: LL seems to kill fake profiles quickly, No recurring fees, just credits (in Canada anyway) custom filtration is quite handy, quick searches are a good idea.

Downsides are: one cant hide profiles one has already decided isnt for you, no way to filter out women one has already smiled at, forcing one to wade through scores of pics, Doesnt keep track of total smiles sent to received ratio, the LL 'party'isnt geo based, so ergo pointless, poor profile weeding out in 'intimate' sections, girls posting profiles that state " I dont want sex/nsa" etc (so why the HELL are they on intimates for???!)

Other than that, the usual ups and downs apply to the site. Girls being optimistic about their weight, putting 'few extra pounds' or 'average' when they are clearly VERY overweight, forcing one to untick the FEW (and I stress FEW) extra pounds box. To be fair, alot of men tick 'muscular' or 'athletic' when they have visible beer guts, so it does cut both ways.

From personal experience, I have found with LL and all others that one has a high failure rate of smiles, flirts or what have you. With LL, I must have smiled at every half decent girl 18-30 within a 200 mile radius over the last year or so, Im guessing it must be at least 300 smiles I have sent out, for a return of about hmmmm 20? I have learned, that to have even a small degree of success, one has to almost 'smile spam' a site in huge numbers, just to harvest a few back.

In essence, Im just about done with LL. I have pretty much exhausted the site, and to send out another 300 or so smiles to get 20 back is too much like hard work.

Everone knows that with dating sites, if you are a half decently attractive and nice intelligent girl, you get huge numbers of smiles/flirts/IMs from men, and that women dont really 'need' to activley participate, it all comes to them.

I think im going to go back to hitting the bars. Least I can talk to real people and not sit in front of the PC to send out smile after smile for little return!!!

There's 2 aspects to internet dating sites that can be critiqued. One is the design/usability aspect and the other is the experience + ability of the site to enhance yr social life or find true love. In the first respect I'd rate LL better than 2 stars, as I found the design and features good. The aspect about LavaLife that really appealed to me was the prepaid credits concept. This allowed me to judicially spend $ on prospects that appealed to me and who I thought I would be compatible with, even if that meant going many wks without contacting anyone. Much better than subscription site that encourages guys try to get value by contacting as many women as possible. I also liked the fact that you could see a persons last login, so you didn’t waste time on inactive profiles. With LL my review will focus more on the 'Intimates' section and is for male readers.

* Women tend to be passive users. If you think sending smiles is a good strategy to get a response..think again, though its hard not to after using up yr credits on unanswered emails.

* My feelings are that LL did not have a deliberate strategy of posting fake profiles. I know of a few girls + even guys who admit posting fake profiles to stooge guys or too waste guys $ and suspect this accounted for a few. I found there were quite a few profiles that would be established then no further activity for whatever reason, so it pays to wait a week at least before sending email. Though you run the risk that she would have received many emails in the meantime, I generally found I had better chance of response not from contacting a women who was only a few days new.

* I found I never got a response from women with raunchy profiles. No doubt they got 100s of emails or enjoy being c**kteasers. Even though it goes against instinct, you'll likely do better with the plain profiles.

* Initial smutty or even just flirty comments never really worked, even to my surprise on LL intimates many women seemed to get indignant. A number of good looking guys I know who use date/chat sites assure me that women totally love it, so play it on that basis.

* In relation to the above I also found a number of women who seemed to just enjoy conversation. If things don’t start progressing after a few of weeks, don’t get caught up spending weeks in the hope. I don’t think women should have any illusions as to why a guy is using the intimates section, but a lot seem to.

* Average size for women tends to mean size 14-16. A count on random day of % of slim women looking for 'muscular' type guys in my city came to 75%. Fit in many cases is used because they go to yoga class once a week or walk the dog and is a weasel type description. Its not the same as 'she's fit'. lol. Also when it comes to age You will also find any woman with sex appeal, tend to go for their age down. If you are over 37 and hope to meet up with nice women early 30s or younger..think again.

* I logged on once as a female and found there was 7 x the number of males logged on as females. Articles in the media on internet date sites tend to be fluffy PR pieces. Occasionally you get to read an article written by women that roadtest these sites, that from a guys perspective provides a reality check. In these the women gets 100s or in one case over 2000 emails a week from guys, or else they give their candid opinion on guy's profiles as they work through them filtering out the 'great guys worthy of investing any of their time with'. Like many male posters have commented here, when it comes to date sites women can and do go for guys above their league + with adult fun aspect of LL intimates, x that by 2, so definitely be prepared to lower your expectations.

With the people I know, their experiences with internet dating/chat mirror those of many the posters on e-date-review. While my avg joe mates (and myself) would complain how the women were so fussy, the good looking, hunky guys I knew would have no trouble finding heaps of women on the www who were 'bang up for it'. The women with sex appeal complained about all the losers + creeps, while the avg looking women write off the sites because all the guys they met either lied about themselves + career, or were dating multiple women, or broke it off at the 3 mth mark when the C word stared to get mentioned. Pretty much the modis operandi of a number of the good looking guys I know who use date sites and go back for more.

With LL intimates have a go, just don’t have any illusions that different principles from the niteclub/bar scene apply here and you are going to get heaps of raunchy slim women. Don’t get f**ked up over it like some of the posters on this site, though it can be frustrating. Likewise take a reality check on your own desirability. If you are an avg joe guy, thin, short, slobby or bit nerdy, you are really better off networking via a social/sporting/hobby club.

After reading Tim's review, I felt sick to my stomach. I am a victim of an online dating addict, and as funny as that may sound, it was a very painful experience. Tim spoke the truth about the whole scenario, even him saying "I haven't found the right one." The guy dumped me because i expressed an idea/emotion that he didn't like. He made me feel less than human and actually dumped me through a message. I'm pretty much done with the whole scene.

Lavalife should be put out of business for turning on its existing customers with its new pricing policy!

Lavalife was innovative with its concept of buying credits for contating members vs. having to suffer the typical "Monthly Membership" charges demanded by other sites. This "Credits" pricing policy is what gave Lavalife the edge.

Nobody (Get this Lavalife Managers) NOBODY likes the pressure filled monthly payment system.

Its much beter being able to have months on end to revue, search and pair down to a small selection appropriate people who at some point you would like to contact. Nobody knows when somebody interesting will show up so is Lavalife expecting one to have to keep a open active account at XXX dollars a month just in case?

No way.

I hope you pay the ultimate price of loosing severe market share until you go out of business for changing your rate plan. You deserve it!

Lava used to be the "least dreadful" of the services. As of 1 September 2007, without warning, they changed their website and shut out customers like me who have certain computers and browsers. I sent increasingly intense requests; their only attempt at a helpful reply gave detailed instructions for a browser that I do not have. Four more complaints went unanswered. Finally, I received a cursory "We do not support your browser." And that was the end.

Fortunately, I had "only" 10 credits left, but what if I had just bought another 50 on August 31?

I still believe that they owe me a refund for my unusable credits, because THEY took their system away from ME.

What a shame.

I have to say I am disapointed with lavalife and myself that I have enetered this site. After the divorce, I felt this would be the best way to find a partner. I did but I found a partner with troubles. I am very attractive, educated with a good job and financially secured. He is a nice man but with huge problems so these days I am feeding him because he has no money left to buy food. I feel bad leaving him and also I got used to his company. Is it better that being alone, I am not sure. His profile was not true, education and salary greatly exagerated and before I have realized it - it was too late. We are together for 1.5 years but I am asking myself what am i doing with this man beside helping him financially. My advise to women - stay away from this site.

Oh Tim......I do so agree and do so like hearing the addiction scenario you presented from a man's point of view! I see the same faces constantly online and doing my research of which one to join I saw that many men are one 3,4,5, or even more sites at one time! I was "victim" to one of those addicts...we dated for almost a year and he just could not stay off the sites. It drove us apart or maybe it just pointed out him inability to have a real relationship. As for Lava....i tried it briefly and the numbers were not there, the quality was not there.

Toronto.com, one of TOs most frequented tourist sites, posted an ad on lavalife (Canada's most popular dating site)that reads as follows:

"COUGARS SPOTTED IN THE CLUB DISTRICT. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MARTINIS UNATTENDED"

This message is accompanied by a drawing of a woman in a revealing short dress, in a provocative pose, with a Martini glass in her hand.

Beyond the label “COUGAR”, what’s wrong with this ad? What if this ad depicted a picture of a middle aged MAN with a beer in one hand, a little pill in the other, his shirt pulled out and a loosened tie? What if it said the following:

"HYENAS SPOTTED IN THE CLUB DISTRICT. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR DRINKS UNATTENDED".(Let’s just “pretend” that HYENAS are men who chase after younger women!!! Shall we dare?)

By the way....what "is" the official label for men who chase younger women? (now and in the past hundreds of years)

Create Awareness!!! Even if they are married, single, young, not so young, and whether they are or aren’t with younger men, every woman (regardless of her age) has the right to make choices without ridicule, prejudice, judgment or labels. And no one has the right to depict and stereotype women as desperate and dangerous sexual predators.

Either BOTH genders deserve a Label….. Or NEITHER does!

Lavalife as far as I'm concerned is for the not so serious dating crowd who maybe likes the idea of finding Ms or Mr Right, but keeps a nice safe distance through email conversation or by sending useless smiles. I joined Lavalife after seperating from my husband of 10 years. It was an interesting experience, but I think if you're serious about meeting the right person, you'll have to pay and join a professional service. Otherwise you're merely screwing the pooch with Lava!

MUCH LIKE A POKER GAME YOU SAY?

I agree that Lavalife has the potential to work. And it can. Their set up is fine. They control as much as they can and leave the rest of the behaviour up to the members. But I totally agree that online dating is addictive. There are women and men logging on to Lavalife all day. For what? It's easy to tell because Lavalife has a system that shows people who logged on last as "top of the list" in their picture gallery. The same people are there at the top, everytime, everyday, for years. Do they have a life? All you have to do is log on once a month and you'll see the same men and women at the top, no exceptions!

This is a great topic for research. I think that people addicted to online dating are not really interested in finding a relationship. They most likely display common symptoms of addiction. i.e. frequent and prolongued use, a feeling of satisfaction and comfort when logged on to the site, a secret contempt for the place ("I hate this place"), inability to stop ("maybe next time I'll log on and find/try....blah, blah, blah"), symptoms of withdrawal when not there ("gotta check Lavalife!!!!"), excuses as to why they are on the site for years ("I haven't found the Right One"), excuses to return to the service even if they find the right one ("She coughed too loud on the phone". Next!), and denial (I'm only here until the Right One shows up).

So heads up! The first question to ask if you use the service is....."How long have you been here, and have you had any relationships with anyone you have met here?. If the answers are..."over 3 years and NO", than this is your clue to well....RUN! If he hasn't stopped logging on after anyone he met during all those years on the site.....I'd say he's hooked on a "CONCEPT" -- the hit, the smiles, the 2D pics, the possibilities, the rejections, the chase, the non accountability, the game and the strategies (that keep changing with experience), the wins and the losses. Much like a poker game you say? Eventually, this becomes more important than a REAL relationship with a REAL person. Sad but true!

I'll be waiting for the attacks on this review. Addiction doesn't like criticism.