Building on what Tyler Reed said, once I stopped worrying about the everyday experience, personal dating got a lot simpler. Two people can have opposite results with personal dating purely because of how quickly you get going.
I judge personal dating almost entirely on whether it gets out of your way now. The catchment is what separates a good week from a wasted one with personal dating. Most of the frustration with personal dating traces back to the conversion from match to conversation.
If whether your area is covered is not sorted, personal dating will not go anywhere. That is roughly where I landed on best personal dating sites for finding local matches.
Concretely, for personal dating:
- leave at least a week before deciding anything about personal dating
- leave ten days before deciding anything about personal dating
- widen your filters past what feels comfortable if personal dating is the goal
I still keep an account on tried Datedesire purely for personal dating.