I did a really desperate thing today and joined an on-line dating service. Does that seem pathetic or what? :o
Well, judging by the number of online dating threads you’ll find if you search, if we think it’s pathetic, that hasn’t kept us from doing it!
It’s no more pathetic than any other method by which human beings find mates. It is, however, something you will need to have a sense of humor about.
There’s a good few number of people on here that use them too. It’s just a more refined tool to find a partner, really - although if you do get contacted by any nutters, please feel free to let us know! 
The stigma associated with on-line dating is long, long gone. Good luck.
I wouldn’t say so–probably a lot of us have tried them one time or another. FWIW, I don’t consider online dating to be any different from joining a club or church or going to a bar or any of the other myriad ways people seek to widen their acquaintance in order to expand their mating prospects. Actually, since it’s a low cost, low pressure way to meet people in which you can control the circumstances under which you meet and the level of information sharing you do as you go along I think online dating can be a safer, less traumatic method of getting to know the possibles. That being said, the real downcheck is also tied into the main benefit–too much material out there, with all of it conforming ridgidly to Sturgeon’s Law. I’ve had some luck with the online thing, if nothing else it’s been interesting and gives me something with which to entertain the cow-orks in the breakroom. BTW, so far Craig’s List wins for sheer volume of response and actual number of dates per post, not to mention that if you get tired of dealing with it you’ll stop hearing from people once your post drops down. With those personals boards, I’m STILL getting responses to profiles I put up over a year ago and haven’t checked or updated since.
But more importantly, why should you give a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks of a solution that may work for you? The search for love, sex, and gratification is inherently banal and ultimately pointless and no avenue pursued is any more silly or pathetic than any other. Get some dates, roll your eyes some, don’t worry if you’re coloring inside the lines. Oh, and good luck with it!
SmartAleq, where have you been all my life?
If it is pathetic, I’m there with ya. I joined one a month or two ago.
I have no idea where to go to meet women my age. I am not shy and don’t usually have trouble talking to women - but *finding *where to meet them has been a problem. So I have tried the online thing.
So far it isn’t working for me - hope it works out better for you! 
What’s the advantage of the ones you join and pay money for over, say, the free Yahoo one?
I’m right there with you too. I just answered a personal on Craig’s List. I figured what the hell. It’s free and if she doesn’t respond no biggie. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I found my man on one of those online dating sites. We started talking last February, met this summer, and we’ve been together six months now. Couldn’t be happier, unless of course we didn’t have that 500 miles between us. But we’ll figure that out after I graduate next summer.
People who knock online dating are just ignorant. Why is it any less acceptable than going out to smoky bars and hoping to catch someone’s attention? At least this way you can find people with similar interests right away and save yourself a lot of wasted time weeding through people who have nothing at all in common with you.
Craig’s List is really cool, too, in that you totally control the content and number of your posts. Even after I figured out I was still too in love with my longtime ex/not-ex to pursue dating seriously I still kept posting different ads just to see how many of the same people answered and whether or not they even changed their replies from ad to ad. It’s possible to tailor the responses to suit whatever mood one is in at the moment, and Craig’s List is SO much more dynamic than most personal sites. On one ad I got over 70 replies in a day, of course that was the more overtly sexy ad I ran just for the hell of it… Almost got myself a post as a mistress outta that one, but I got the guy talking about his wife and previous mistress, did some analysis of what his motives really were and remained obdurately unimpressed by how much money he had, so he went off to make it up to his womenfolk… Since that one I’ve considered getting work as a life coach–I wonder how one starts out a business like that?