In a recent visit to CNN.com I bumbled upon an article about Internet dating sites that cater to (let’s not call them cheaters) attached individuals looking for some extra curricular activity. The politically correct term for this is Internet Married Dating.  Strangely I found this rather intriguing. The featured Internet Dating site was a site called AshleyMadison.com. After reading the entire article I was so disgusted that I did what I am sure many other outraged readers did - I immediately went to AshleyMadison.com and signed up.

The folks at AshleyMadison.com present themselves as an online dating agency. As I have discussed in an earlier IdleRomance post, an agency (a real agency) provides a much broader range of services than the standard, run-of-the-mill, Internet dating site. After looking things over I can safely tell you that AshleyMadison.com is not an agency. They are an online dating site plain and simple with a bit of twist on the pricing. I say this because unlike other Internet dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.com, AshleyMadison.com does not go in for the subscription price model. Instead they have you purchase credits which can then be used to contact other members via site email or chat. I know that doesn’t sound that different but it is in two ways. The first thing is that you only pay so many credits for the first email you send to another member. Once communication is established there are no more charges for email to that member. The second difference comes in how they handle chat pricing. Chat is priced by the half hour session and there is no break for chatting with someone you have chatted with before.

Another way that AshleyMadison.com is different from other  Internet Dating sites is in the amount of information you are asked to put in your online dating profile. They really don’t seem to expect you to write a whole lot. They cut right to the chase with nine basic details: a screen nickname, a brief caption which appears on screen under your screen nickname, a statement of your limits (more on this later), weight, height, body type, ethnic background, smoking habits, and (the all important) relationship status. Most of these are self explanatory but two are kind of interesting. In terms of your limits you are basically stating to others browsing your dating profile what it is that you are looking for. You can pick between long or short term involvement or you can go all in with an “anything goes” stance. You can be undecided or limit your “relationships” to “Cyber Affairs and Erotic Chat”. The other thing that struck me was the choices offered in the relationship status category. For males your choices are Single Male seeking Females, Attached Male seeking Females, and Male seeking Males. I guess in the Male seeking Males category it really isn’t important if you are Single or Attached.

I am sure I’ll be posting more about this site in the near future.
jd