SEATTLE TIMES — Oct 30 — If many women over 40 find the dating scene a dark continent, older single men have their own news to share: It's not all that great for them, either. 42% of single men in their 50s named bitter baggage as their #1 complaint, according to a 2003 AARP survey of 3,500 baby boomers. 35% of women had a problem with this, as well. "I'll meet a woman and the first thing she'll do is ask 'What do you do?' They'll weigh your wallet," says Scott Abraham, a 53-year-old Seattle counselor who says he's given up on dating. "I have a friend who's a doctor, but he never wants to tell women that because he'll be treated differently. We went out one time and he said, 'OK, tonight, you be the doctor.' That night, I got all the attention. I had my choice of three or four women. He said he sold cars and he got no attention." "Dating is a numbers game," he says. "The more people you meet, the better chance you have of meeting quality people and to me, dancing is a good way to meet them. It's not like you're being set up, it's not like a Match.com type of thing. You've got a girl in your arms for two and a half minutes. You can talk. They're right there." Match.com lists 9,000 local members in their 40s, nearly 60% of them men. There are another 5,000 in their 50s. Seattle's own PerfectMatch.com currently has more than 100,000 "over-39" members in the Seattle/Tacoma area. The over-39 category is one of their fastest growing age groups. Some local options: PlayDate Seattle, Space City Mixer, Elements of Soul and Spartay.com, which recently added events for the 35 to 55 set.
The full article was originally published at Seattle Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Social events are a pain to organise and not that profitable. But, they are the last vestitude for online personals to make a real world connection and offer instant gratification for those who venture out from behind their computers. Check out my little club http://www.ace-club.com.  I started it in 1998 by sticking a poster up in a bagel shop in Silicon Valley. People talked and it grew to an email list of 3600. Now, my legion of hosts run a few hundred events a year for an exclusive base of paying members; $20 a month.
I paid dating direct £44:99 for three months membership then uploaded my picture they responded informing me that my pic was not clear and therefore refused to use it in my details .i responded by informing them that it is the only likeness of myself and if they wont use it to cancel my membership& refund my payment .I have emailed them about 20 times and no reply no money would you approach them for me and get money refunded norm
I tried several times to contact Singlesnet.com and they just hang up on you when they get a complaint. I have never seen such poor customer service.
If I should tell you anything, its to STAY AWAY from SINGLESNET.COM. This site is a complete scam from the beginning, (1) to start did you ever wonder why there is always 500 people online (not 378 or 502)its always 500 no matter what state, what region, what time your online. (2) Once you pay for a membership you get swarmed with emails, they give you a little taste by sending you a few emails here and there when your not a paid member but once they get them $’s its a wrap. I got about 15-20 a day, everyday. I started to think I was the man or something. (3) They say its a 100% moneyback, YEAH RRRIGHT!!! You try calling them and see how far you get, I actually did a little D.T. work and found that the number isnt even a landlne its a cell phone. So to sum this all up, SINGLESNET.com.. leav it alone!! The whole time I used it I talked to one real person and she was a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 (and those are the only real people on that site).
I have recently caught singlesnet.com accessing info. from my computer.This happened more than five times,Thanks to avast, they were blocked.Stay away from them.
Singlesnet is a scam. They are preying on the hearts of mostly women who are trying to heal from a relationship gone bad. It even seems that they scan the emails you send to each other through their site to make sure you do not exchange each others emails. As long as they do this, they can continue to charge the outlandish prices they are getting richer on by the day on. Everyone reading this please take the time to file a complaint with the federal government. If they see enough complaints we can put them out of business.
Here is a link to the governments Internet Fraud Complaint CEnter. Here is where we can make a BIG difference in the world of fraudulant internet scams.
http://www.ic3.gov/
tried to register for free as it had advertised this would not let me do this
I tried to do a review of Singlesnet relationship assessment or algorithm today but it appears that what they promote is not what they deliver. The free version of the site doesn’t really have any matching algorithm???? Sites like this really discredit the whole industry, not sure how they manage to have such high ratings as it doesn’t obviously reflect their real service to customers? You can check out my review at http://www.astramatch.com/blog
I have not had all this bad stuff from Singlesnet. My main complaint with it is that you have no access to selection criteria. you have to take what they provide you. Come to think of it I was getting the oddest junk mail from them for awhile. If you actually tried to correspond with the person you had sent you a wink you would be told you couldn’t because you are straight and they are gay. Ok, but then why did I get a wink in the first place then?