Online Dating Using Craigslist Personals

The other day I got an email from a guy asking me about whether he should use Craigslist Personals, my initial answer was no, and then I got thinking. A lot of guys seem to prefer free online dating sites over paying ones, yet surely you are going to have a better chance of meeting someone of quality on a paying site and that's my experience.

They tend to attract less spam and more quality, attractive, single women. So why do some guys refuse to pay for online dating sites even if it leads to them remaining miserable? Maybe they don;t have too much money to spend, they don;t have any confidence that they're going to meet anyone or they like to be lonely and alone. now I know saying that might be a littlie harsh but sometimes people actually fear successful as much as they do failure. The way many men conduct their dating lives leaves them little chance of success and sometimes you have to invest such a little bit more time and money into getting what you want and it makes a world of difference. So since I know that most guys will continue to use free online dating sites even though I recommend paying sites I decided to elaborate on the Craigslist Personals question.

Should you use Craigslist Personals?

You have probably heard at least one of your friends discussing Craigslist Personals at some point. Maybe they had a good experience perhaps it was a bad one, but I am going to assume it was probably the butt of a few jokes. I have heard some interesting experiences that different people have had using Craigslist Personals and I must say that you could probably write a killer novel on them.

While I would recommend that you try other personals sites such as Yahoo or AOL Personals before you try using Craigslist Personals there still may be a reason for trying Craigslist Personals.

Your own personal entertainment!

If you have never tried the old style of newspaper personals then Craigslist presents a great opportunity to try it out. It is also a great opportunity to practice using emotive language and the power of just your words to appeal to a woman and get them to respond to you. Practicing just the words you use is a great way too improve your success meeting women online and at bars and clubs too. It can also be a lot of fun seeing some of the responses you get.

That being said you have to be careful and use some common sense as well on Craigslist. There are a fair amount of dating and Russian bride scams running on Craigslist Personals due to the anonymous nature of their personals sections. If you do end up meeting someone on Craigslist I recommend you talk to them on the phone before meeting them. Make sure you avoid any women with really old looking pictures or that want you to send them money or buy them plane tickets too come and see you before meeting them. These women are not interested in you and for all you know if you haven't talked to them on the phone they may not even exist.

You have to be careful as these kinds of dating scams are becoming more prevalent on the internet in particular on sites like Craigslist. These dating scams try to play on the strong emotions that men have around the quest for fulfilling their desires for both love and sex.

I remember a few years ago now I was approached by a very attractive girl from Texas claiming she was new to my area and wanted someone to show her around. This didn't ring any of my alarm bells as every thing seemed genuine and it seemed plausible as I was having a lot of great success with women at that point. We took our conversation off Friendster and all the emails seemed pretty genuine but something was just off, after about three emails I got a link to some kind of adult entertainment or escort site she was running. For the next year I got unsolicited spam in my inbox from similar such "women" claiming they wanted to "get to know me" better. I was not amused! Safe to say I learned my lesson and I fortunately was not naive enough to get trapped or fooled again.

So make sure you keep that in mind when you are using free services like Craigslist Personals because there are a few dating scams out there. Be very carefully of women who approach you from the Eastern Europe, South East Asia or South America on these sites if you are living in the west. These are often some kind of dating scam and I'm sure you have probably heard about the Russian Bride Scams by now.

So go have fun on Craigslist and enjoy trying out a good old fashion personals ad with just words and a picture. Just keep in mind that some people do not always have your best interests at heart and are only trying to deceive you to take your money. If you are serious about online dating I highly recommend some of the major online dating services with good reputations like Match.com, Yahoo Personals and AOL.