Friends Reunited Dating Review
Friends Reunited Dating Ratings
Summary:
2.3
Friends Reunited Dating used to be a place for those of us were on Friends Reunited, who wanted to get back in touch with people we’ve once had in our lives and perhaps do a little dating on the side. That is not the case anymore. It’s just your standard dating site, having almost next to nothing to do with reuniting with old friends.
Sure, you can look whether any of your Facebook or Google plus friends are members here but to be honest I don’t really see much point to that. It’s not a site for getting back in touch with old mates – and even if it were, what chance would it really stand against Facebook or Google plus? It’s a dating site, fair and square, so don’t let yourself be fooled about the name Friends Reunited. It’s got the same people in its databases that most other Cupid sites have – in fact, even as you fill in your profile, you’re offered an option to tick a box and also appear at the searches in Cupid.com.
The Friends Reunited Dating Profile
Setting up your profile is nothing special, it’s all pretty standard stuff. Usual questions asked, usual boxes to be filled with the usual selection of pop-up answers. Perhaps the only not-so-standard approach about the whole profile building is the fact that you can start promoting your profile before you’ve completed it. Basically, all you have to do is to fill in your little description and then tick a box to send it to your 30 best matches.
Certainly an interesting little feature that helps you to promote yourself but we don’t know how effective it could be at this stage – if you don’t yet have a proper profile to promote then it’s hardly going to have a very good effect on your best matches. Therefore our advice would be to finish your profile first and perhaps take a little look around the site yourself in order to see what’s on offer before you start sending out your profile description to possible matches.
As you fill in your profile, you also get to test something the site calls your Dating Appeal. Basically it’s just Friends Reunited Dating’s version of compatibility and personality testing. You get to answer a bunch of questions and afterwards the system judges your answers and puts together your personality report with tips included. It’s not the most thorough and groundbreaking testing system we’ve seen in online dating but I suppose it fills the purpose just as well if you believe in that sort of thing.
Searching for a date
Profiles are informative and contain a lot of information – basic stuff as well as your own words which give you a chance to shine and stand out. However, they are really not the best designed profile pages we’ve come across. The fonts used, size of text, photos, the whole design of the profile page is just so bland and non-descript that it almost makes a tedious job out of the process of browsing. It should be enjoyable, not a chore!
However, the search works easily and the results are plentiful. In the past we’ve criticised Cupid-owned sites for scammy practices in trying to get you to join their sites. We didn’t notice anything fishy on this site, the profiles seemed genuine enough and we didn’t get any suspicious contact requests from anyone either.
Cupid has recently promised to clean up their act and give up those misleading practices, so maybe they have really done it this time. It doesn’t hurt to be careful though – if you get a feeling something is not quite right with some profiles or if you suddenly start getting a lot of emails (which you cannot reply to before you have subscribed to the paid version of the site), take it with a pinch of salt.
Winking & emailing Friends Reunited Dating members
Of course, you have the standard winking and icebreaking features on Friends Reunited dating or you could just send a plain old mail. But what’s really interesting is the Friend Chat system. You can simply chat with any of the members right there and then in the same environment without having to give out your Skype details. There’s even a video chat option, so it’s all pretty safe and secure.
If you don’t want to have a one-on-one chat with someone there are also a few of chat rooms on this site. Kind of old-fashioned stuff if you ask me – I remember using them in the early 2000s but at this day and age they seem kind of retro. Still, they work pretty well and some of them seem to have a fair number of users too, so if that’s your scene, go and check them out.
Free vs Paid site
Basically, all you can do with the free account is to create your own profile and search for others. You can’t send and reply to messages or chat on instant messenger or any of the chat rooms. But on the other hand, you can sign up to their 3 days trial for just £3.48, which is a cheap way to try out the site and see if it’s for you. We strongly recommend doing it before signing up for good!
Friends Reunited Dating Review: Pros and Cons
Their on-site chat system makes it easy to get in touch.
Bland and faceless – could really do with a re-design.
That’s our Friends Reunited Dating Review over, check our top 10 dating site reviews for some more options.
About the Author
Aet Suvari has been reviewing and writing about the world of online dating since 2008 and the launch of Online Dating Help. A stickler for promoting ethical practices within the UK dating industry she champions the sites that get it right while highlighting those holding it back. You can follow her on Google+
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