Aside from niche sites, you can also take a look at the standard gay dating sites as some allow you to sort by sexual orientation. Even if they don’t, you can say that you are a male looking for a male or a man looking for a man. It’s not like the search options are locked for straight searches. Here’s an overview of the most popular dating sites and how they accommodate to the gay population…
Match.com: The most popular dating site. It allows you to start your search by saying that you are a man seeking men. If you live in a small/medium-sized city, don’t expect many profile results. If, however, you live in a big city, you’re going to get many pages of profiles. You can try out this service for the first 3 days before the subscription kicks in (which starts at $19.95 for 1 month). The main benefit to using this site is that it has a lot of real people browsing it, making it more likely that you’ll find a partner for yourself. It also has a cool keyword search tool. Match.com is a lot more gay friendly than it used to be.
Chemistry.com: It is what its name implies. You have to fill out a somewhat long questionnaire. Once you are done, the site finds matches for you based on your answers. You can say that you are a male looking for a male. It costs $49.95 for one month and $26.65 a month for six months. This site is recommended if you are looking for a long term relationship with someone else that is gay.
eHarmony.com: In the opening search option page, you can say that you are a man looking for a man. However, rather than being taken to eHarmony.com, you’ll be taken to www.compatiblepartners.net, which is made specifically for the gay community. Compatiblepartners has the same price as eHarmony ($49.95 for 1 month, $99.95 for 3 months, $159.95 for 6 months, and $249.95 for 1 year). If you don’t like the results that you are getting, you can cancel the subscription within 3 days.
Perfectmatch.com: You can say that you are a man looking for a man. Their one month subscription starts at $59.95. Although many dating sites have less than perfect reviews, this site had too many of them, making it a poor choice.
Lavalife.com: Caters to the gay population. It even has a web page where it claims that it offers queer dating services. Fees start at $29.95 for one month. The main benefit of Lavalife is that you can reply to e-mails from your prospects at no charge.
Yahoo! Personals: You can say that you are a man seeking a man. Although you can view the profiles for free, if you actually want to contact the person, you’re going to need a subscription, which starts at $29.99 for one month. A lot of the profiles you’ll get are actually just guys looking for other dudes to hang out with, not date.
PlentyofFish.com (POF): This is the best truly free dating site that there is. The guy who started this site made it a mission to provide a free online dating service at a time when every other provider was charging money. If you say that you are a male looking for a male, you’re going to have to browse a lot of profiles of men who are just looking for another guy friend.
OkCupid.com: Of all the sites that I’ve looked at (gay and standard sites), this one has by far the nicest layout and design, making it very easy and fun to use. It is the only standard site I’ve see that, from the very beginning of its use, allows you to specify what sexual orientation you are (straight, gay, or bisexual). Because this site is 100% free to use with no annoying premium membership option, you have nothing to lose by checking out this site. A sample search for a medium sized city revealed a lot of member profiles.
Although there are many more dating sites, these ones heavily used and should give you an idea of what to expect if you are looking for gay dating online.
Of these standard sites, which one is the best? The answer varies from person to person. If you live in a small city such as Omaha, you may have to browse multiple sites to get the amount of real profiles you desire. If you live in a city as big as New York, you can just stick with one of the aforementioned sites because there will likely be enough profiles to satisfy you. If you do get into online dating, fully test a site out before moving onto something else or giving up.