Searching Tips
How to find your match

The general rule of thumb for searching on-line personal ads is to start simple and then narrow down as needed. I always get a kick when someone complains that there are no Jewish men in Toronto with 3 piercing, 2 tattoos, red hair, blue eyes, between 18 and 19, who don’t smoke. Maybe I asked for such complaints by offering so many search options on my sites, but really… are you that picky?

Start off with gender and location and any big items such as if you hate smokers or only date others of the same religious background. If the results are still too many then add a little more detail each time. Don’t go overkill on searches right off the bat or you may miss out on some otherwise good candidates.

City abbreviations and alternate spellings can be a problem. Normally the state and county fields are in drop down lists so there is only one way to select them, but cities can be tough since there are often several ways to type them... New York/New York City/NY/NYC/Manhattan for example are all the same place and need to be considered when doing a search. Likewise "Saint Louis" or "St. Louis" or even "St Lewis" (without the period) all would yield different results for the same location, although chances are at least in that case if you just entered "Louis" you might get all variations depending on how the search works, but even that may bring things like "Louisberg". Nothing is perfect but best to experiment. Always try a few variations on the city. If the online personal service has a "distance to me" option using zip codes, all the better but keep in mind not everyone likes to enter their zipcode when it is optional.