I don't have the courage, myself. I am reluctant for 2 reasons: my ego doesn't need to be rejected by multitudes and what if I meet an ax-murderer!

Actually I posted a profile on one site a few years ago. Nothing much came of it, though. I had a few responses, a couple of which I replied to, but nothing came of any of those contacts. Some of them did not respond again, some of them were a bit obviously randy and that was a turn off. (I'm all in favor of s-e-x, don't get me wrong! I just think a gentleman would wait until AFTER the first email to bring it up.) The ones that wanted to have threesomes didn't get responses. Some wanted a photo before they "wasted time" on me.

I don't know what to tell you or where to direct you. I think most men who put up profiles are really primarily interested in sexual relationships. Finding an email buddy only might be hard. Nah, I'm not cynical. ;-)

I think these forums are a great place to meet people with similar interests if you aren't interested in a romantic connection.

Eileen

Kay -- I saw on another thread that you're in the KC area. I'm just down the road, in Lawrence. Although I've begun a new relationship this last year, I've been single my entire life. I think after you come out of a relationship, you need some down time before you're ready to jump in again. I spent several years not dating -- and for various reasons. After a 5 year, off-and-on relationship ended, I just plain didn't want to date for a while and threw myself into other activities -- I worked full-time, ran a small business out of my home and went to school part-time. About the time I started thinking about men again, we began a major project at work and I had to work a huge amount of overtime for a year or two. Once that was all done, I was just about to turn 40, decided I wanted someone in my life and it was up to me to do something about it. I went the on-line dating route, deciding to devote a year to it. The service I used was about $25.00 a month and it was a very interesting experience. I hope my current relationship lasts, but if not, I would probably go on-line again. Yeah, I certainly had my share of rejection, but I like to think that those guys really missed out on a terrific lady and it was their loss.

One other option that I considered (but it hasn't been too successful in my area) is speed dating. Have you heard of it? Anybody tried it?

Janet

I did online dating for a few months. I hid my profile recently only because I'm starting a new job and want to focus my energy for a little while. I plan to resume online dating as soon as I feel settled into the new job. I think that online dating is not geared toward making friends, but depending on the site, it may be geared toward finding a life partner or a sex partner.

Eilleen, while I understand your hesitation to send someone a photo if that's all they are interested in, I myself will not carry on communication with a man who won't send me his photo. People who refuse to post/send a photo often have a reason: they've lied about their looks or they're married. I believe I can tell a lot about a person by how he/she looks (but not everything, and I know that looks can be decieving) and if I'm thinking about eventually maybe kissing this person or even having s e x with him, I want to know that I don't find him physically repulsive to me. Looks are a part of who a person is, and I want to be intellectually, emotionally, and physically attracted to someone I'm considering entering into a physical relationship with.

There are ways to minimize the number of sexual responses you get when you post a profile. Of course, you can't always control who responds to you, but the occasional sexual-content emails are easily deleted. I've had no sexual emails, though one man, who seemed nice via email, wanted to talk sex when we finally spoke on the phone. I told him that I didn't feel that we were a good match, wished him luck, and got off the phone. I lost nothing except for the fifteen minutes we spoke on the phone.

During the ten weeks I was online, I got dozens of emails, talked to about six men on the phone, met four men, went on one to four dates with each. While none of these men was my soul mate, they were all nice guys and I'm glad I met them.