“Marvellous! Another wink from someone who resembles my 56 year old father” So I found myself saying out loud on a few occasions as a “matchee”. Sorry dad, love you, I just don’t want to date your lookalike. I’m not shallow and don’t always judge a book by its cover or a profile by its picture. It’s just that as a 30 year old not unsightly woman (I could have said attractive but I’m a fan of self deprecation), I feel I am allowed to set myself some standards. Despite capping my dates age at 36, I had many winks from older, let’s say unkempt, men or those without pictures at all.

Nevertheless, match is a numbers game and I also had reciprocal winking with profiles that did indeed ‘meet my match’.  I  ended up with about 4 dates a month, and whilst I didn’t find my prince to whisk me off my feet, my accumulation of match dates definitely answered ‘yes’  to that niggling question ‘are there any decent, normal, single men left out there?

Match is probably the most popular, well known dating website, and does leave you feeling “wow there really are some fish in that ocean or men to be caught in that world wide web of yours”. With so many millions signed up, statistically, amongst perhaps many undesirable profiles, you are bound to find many that are worth a wink.

The millions of match members make it difficult to conjure up a genre of men that use the site. Like the Liquorice, there are all sorts. I guess one trait that did prevail was the successful careers that many male members have. The site is laden with well educated, well travelled, interesting profiles and I can gladly report that the small selection of “matchos” that I met in the flesh did live up to their profile facts (though not always their profile pics!)

Match is marketed more for those looking for relationships and although I found this to be the case with the majority of users, there were 1 or 2 matchos who were 'looking for fun' which is a polite way of saying 1 or 2 sleazy men. But what I did appreciate was that most of these types did admit their intentions early on so you didn’t need to waste time on them unless of course that’s what you are looking for!

You are guaranteed the fun out of functionality on match. There are so many features that make it interactive such as instant messaging, and taking quizzes on desired profiles. However the page can be a little overwhelming with so much going and if, like me, you don't have much free time you may not want to create and take quizzes about whether a matcho prefers cats or dogs, or tea or coffee. It can also appear a little on the intrusive side in the fact that his face flashes on your screen whenever he winks, emails or so much as takes a peek at your profile. I must admit I actually like this feature from the receiving end, it’s good to see who’s checking you out, but when the shoe is on the other foot and they can see me peeking at their profiles, that’s a different ball game. I want to be able to view the profiles and show my friends as many times as I want without him being aware  I’m doing so and potentially being put off me in thinking I’m a stalker because I viewed his profile 3 times in 1 evening! It’s like shopping!  I want to be able to window shop and go back and see the first pair of boots I saw 10 times without the shop owner seeing me.

There is an option to choose who can and who can’t see you are online. In fact there are a few useful account settings including notification of a wink or message but you have to pay a supplement for such privileges! Be careful when subscribing to match because it will automatically take you to the upgrade selection and you have to ensure you deselect the upgrade before you land up paying unintentionally. ( A bit like those cheeky airline sites that automatically select 'yes’ you do want travel insurance and ‘yes’ you do want to pay extra for taking skis with you on your summer holiday to Tenerife!)