I was talking to an old pal of mine the other day about relationships, and the subject of dating sites came up. She has met a couple of guys from dating services and she suggested that I make a profile as well.

In response I brought up the point that dating sites are often dead (the other people haven’t logged in for quite some time), impersonal, and so many of them want you to pay if you want to send or respond to a message. Oh, it’s free to sign up, sure, but if you actually want to use the site then it’s “pork it over, buddy”.

We both agreed that this is a seriously lame tactic.

This is where truly free dating sites come to the rescue. A dating service called JustSayHi.com has recently launched and I poked around with it for short. I created a profile, done a few searches, and checked out their message forum.

Where some free dating services attempt to be a social networking site as well as a dating service - ala OkCupid - JustSayHi.com seems to be keeping things simple and focused on… well, on saying hi; on meeting folks. Their interface was quick and simple, profiles are more like an actual profile than a blog post, and it’s just apparent in general that they’re more focused on getting folks to meet than some other sites are.

Not a bad thing in my book. These sort of alternatives can be very useful.

It is advertiser supported because it’s free, and I’d have to say that the most annoying thing about it was the large embedded interstitial ad that’s displayed immediately after signing up. It seemed for a moment like I had to complete those offers, but I simply closed the window and went on with what I was doing. They probably don’t appreciate that very much, but realistically that’s what most folks are going to do.

Do they work? I have no idea to be honest. Does it have potential? Certainly. JustSayHi.com has a clean design that’s to the point and not “busy”. The forums are active and a good place to socialize with other members of the website and there currently seems to be something of a “small community feel” to them.

Most of all, it’s all free.

~Steph