The good folks at AdultFriendFinder.com have been advertising on this here site for a while now (bar on the right, the more clicks we get, the more we make and the more porn we can buy and review for you) so I thought we would check it out and see if it really works.
I need to say right upfront that Mrs Dave and I aren't into swinging. I have enough trouble keeping up with her insatiable appetite without adding extras. The idea was to set up an account and just see what the people on there were like and whether you could, if you wanted, use it to find like-minded people for whatever you are minded to like.
We set up our account and the first thing that struck us was how much work it was. The basic account was no problem but then we were told our profile was 1% complete and that we needed to fill in some more information. By the time we had filled in our basic profile, physical details, personality type, geographical location and done a purity test we had been there nearly two hours and were still only 40% complete. After setting our cupid settings - couples close to us interested in "other activities" (because it's really hard to find partners for doubles scrabble these days), answering about half of an endless series of additional questions and uploading a photo, it was nearly midnight and we gave up at 56% complete. I'm sure given a week or two we could get to 100% but frankly it's too much hassle.
Since we wanted to see how useful the site was for a casual user (and we're cheap) we decided not to shell out for a premium account. The second thing that struck us was just how useless a free account is. For a start, every time you log in, the first page you see is an order form for upgrading which is really annoying. Free accounts are also really limited in what they can do. You can't contact other free accounts for a start (without paying a fee). You can contact premium accounts but most of them have a message that says "contact by premium accounts only as we're not interested in time-wasters" or words to that effect. Essentially your only option is to wait around for a premium member to take a fancy to you and get in touch. So far, apart from a slightly dubious sounding "sexy Italian man" who I think spammed every new account that week, no one has. If you are going to use this site for real, you will need to fork out for a paid account.
We looked at a bunch of other accounts, as much as a free account is allowed to as you can't view others' photo galleries, or anything other than their basic details. Judging by the one tiny thumbnail of them we were allowed to see, on the "how much would you have to drink?" scale, the people on there range from "I'd do that sober" right through to "a bottle of tequila, three rohypnol and a blindfold". There's certainly enough variety so suit every taste. In fact, one couple we saw, actually sounded like they would have made ideal swinging partners for us, if we had been into swinging and they hadn't been 200 km away. A single woman's description had me asking Mrs Dave if she'd joined up without telling me.
That's the other thing we found - it's really bad at geography. Each time you view a profile, it tells you how far away they are. You also get an email every week with recommendations of people who match your settings and live close by. Nice idea but unfortunately their knowledge of Australian geography is sadly lacking. We live in the north of Sydney. We were told that a couple in Wollongong were 0Km away from us. Wollongong is actually about 100Km away. Someone in the next suburb was listed as 50Km away and we keep getting recommendation for people "close by" at only 500Km away. At least they were in the same state. Actually, their knowledge of world geography is pretty bad. We were also recommended someone in Paris (the one in France, not the one in Texas, although frankly that would have been just as bad), and someone else in Vancouver, Canada.
So, what's the verdict? Well, if you are prepared to put in the time in setting up your profile, and you are prepared to pay for an account, and you are prepared to ignore the urgent need for a geography lesson, I think it could work. There are heaps of people on there from all over the world in all shapes, size, colours and sexual preferences. There's bound to be something there for you. I'm sure they are all meeting up and rooting like mad, but not with free account holders.
