Online Dating Site Gift Subscription

Perhaps it is because it was the during the Christmas season.  Perhaps it is because I wanted to do a thorough review of LDS Mingle.  Either way, when I saw the link marked ”gift subscription” at the bottom of the page I had a uncontrollable urge to click and find out for myself the exact details.  This is what I read:

“A gift membership at LDS Mingle is the perfect gift for a single friend or family member.  A unique and special gift that will give them access to a community of LDS singles just like them, and give them an opportunity to meet their one and only.  For friends, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, cousins and more – A subscription to LDS Mingle is the perfect gift!”

I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”  Now I will admit that it is not unusual for someone to admit that they joined an online site at the behest of (or experience of) a family member or friend.   Do you think that “encouragement” came in the form of a gift certificate?  Nor, is it unheard of for a friend to actual be the monitor for a particular profile.  (I remember a couple of profiles, specifically on LDS Singles.com, where one person was the moderator for the profile of a friend.  A little strange, but again not unheard of.)  Then, I wondered if there were other online dating sites for LDS singles that offered a similar service.  So I checked all of the sites listed in 7 Best Online Dating Sites for LDS Singles and discovered that LDS Mingle is not alone in offering their members the chance to give gift subscriptions to “friends, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, cousins and more…”  LDS Singles.com, Match.com and Yahoo! Personals all make the giving of gift subscriptions available to their members.

Ok, so the availability of gift subscriptions isn’t unique to LDS Mingle.  What about the giving process?  The giving the gift subscriptions is not the same for all of the sites, but relatively simple nonetheless.  LDS Mingle, LDS Singles.com, and Yahoo! Personals each allow you the option of purchasing the gift subscritptions online directly from the website.  Match.com on the other hand requires that you purchase a gift subscription by calling a toll free number.  (That number is availble from the site)  All of the gift subscriptions are, however, redeemable online when your gift recipients creates his/her profile.

Now, my mind was working.  I made a quick mental check of the people I know and still need to buy gifts for to see if there were any for whom I might venture.  I quickly ruled out all of my family because 1) they’re not LDS, and 2) they are married.  Next on my list were my friends, who, for the most part, are largely in the “happily married” category, and found none for whom I would be brazen enough to give them such a gift.  Then, I wondered.  Are there were any of my current (or future) readers who think that this might be a good goft idea for someone on their list.  Or, are there any who have actually been the giver or recipient of  a gift subscription to an online dating site. So, what about you?  Would you give your mom or dad a gift subscription to an LDS singles site?  What about your siblings?  Cousins?  Now friends…is there someone that you are close enough to that you would be willing to give them a gift subscription to an online dating site like LDS Mingle, LDS Singles or Match.com?  And finally, if you were the recipient of such a gift subscription to an online dating site, what would your reaction be?  Would you use it?

While you are thinking take a minute and let me know what you think by filling in the following polls.  And, if you have given a gift subscription to an online dating site or been the recipient of , share your experience with us in the comment section.  And if you are interested in offering a gift subscription, visit the homepages of the those sites that offer gift subscriptions.

Remember:  We’re LDS!  We’re Single!  And, we’re all in this together!

 

 

 

 

LDS Mingle Review

“LDS Mingle is an online LDS singles community dedicated to helping Latter-Day Saint men and women meet other LDS singles in a comfortable online environment.  LDS Mingle strives to be a source for creating relationships ranging from companionship to friendship, to romance and marriage.”  At least that’s roughly what they say about themselves.  Here’s my thoughts:

YOUR LDS MINGLE PROFILE

A profile on LDS Mingle is broken up into sections.  The introduction, basic information, about me, fun facts, match preferences, the essays, and of course photos!

The first major portion of your profile is the Introduction.  In this section you tell people a little about yourself in your own words.  Remember, this section combined with your picture goes a long ways towards giving people insight into who you really are.  This is where your personality should and does come out as you tell people the things that you think they ought to know about you.  Take some time. Put some thought into what you put here.  (This section is easily edited, so write. Read, rewrite, etc…until you are happy with what is written.)

Basic information
This includes a member’s: Gender, Location, Age and an indication of the type of relationship that you are looking for by selecting from dates, friends, or marriage (gasp!)

About Me
By selecting from drop down lists and checking those that apply a member shares: height, build, hair and eye color, relationship status (No, “separated” is not an option! It is an LDS online dating site!).  The about me section also includes information about: your occupation, education level, how frequently you attend church, temple status, what languages you speak, your ethnicity and whether you served a mission or not and if so, where.  LDS Mingle asks you to indicate whether you have children or not and whether you would like more or not.  I know that having kids and whether or not you want more can be a deal breaker for some people, I personally hate this question. I think that is a very personal question and is better prayerfully discussed rather than put on the front page of an online profile. But, that is just me!

Fun Facts
The fun facts section is about your interests and the way that you spend you times.  This section ask you to quickly describe yourself and to share musical taste, movie and television likes, the types of outdoor activities you enjoy, what other activities you enjoy, how punctual you are, how trendy you are, what type of food you like, your favorite restaurants, your political leanings, and what schools you’ve attended.  Some of these items you choose from a list, others you list yourself.

Match Preferences
Is used to identify the kind of person you are looking for on LDS Mingle.  You can and should review your preferences often, this helps with the two-way matching they do to put people into the recent match section of your homepage.  You indicate your preference by age, location, height, body type, education, relationship status, church activity, temple status, mission, and ethnicity.  For each of these you can indicate how important each individual characteristic is to you (not important, desirable, somewhat important, important or very important).  You can choose whether you are shown matches by how closely they match your criteria, if matches are emailed to you and whether or not your match criteria appears on your profile or not.

Essays
LDS Mingle gives you the opportunity to let your personality show through in more than just the introduction.  There are 6 essay questions that you can give answers to which will tell other members more about you and what you are looking for.  Those questions include: the top three things I enjoy doing; the three things I least enjoy doing; If I had ten million dollars, I would; describe my perfect day; the area that I need the most improvement in; a few more things I would like to add.  These essays are easily edited, so that you can change them and the impression that you leave people with as they visit your profile.
  

Photos
A profile on LDS Mingle (as with other online dating sites) can, and should, if you are serious about meeting people, a profile photo and a photo album.  A profile picture is one of the key elements in making your profile more appealing to those browsing and search profiles. The guidelines for posting a profile picture on LDS Mingle are:
recent photo of you (duh!) distinctly shown and modestly clothed
no cartoons, graphics, collages, photos of celebrities or swimsuit photos
photos should be JPG, GIF, PNG or BMP format that is between 40KB and 5MB

LDS Mingle reviews all the photos which are posted within 48 hours of being uploaded and they reserve the right to remove any photos they feel are not appropriate or violate the guidelines.  And, speaking from personal viewing experience, the photos on LDS Mingle are usually very tasteful and modest!  I personally appreciate that.

One quick note: You can customize the theme (color scheme) for the pages that you view.  The choices are interesting and don’t really make much difference in the experience.  I changed mine to the passion fruit theme.  It thought it was a little brighter.

NAVIGATING LDS MINGLE

The Dashboard on your home page makes LDS Mingle simple, easy and fun to navigate.  From your homepage (or from anywhere on the site) you can quickly navigate to all the features of this site.  You navigate by selecting from four main areas:

• Your Home Page
• Connect: Inbox, Chat, IM, Message Boards
• Search: Quick Search, Username Search, Advanced Search, Who’s Online, Photo Shuffle, Recently Updated, Photo Gallery, “Think You’d Click?”, Today’s Birthdays, Question of the Week.
• My Profile: (primarily for editing purposes) Basic Information, About Me, Fun Facts, Match Preferences, Essays, Color Code, Photos, Question of the Week.

CONNECT WITH OTHER LDS MINGLE MEMBERS
Above and beyond the normal ways of connecting with people that other online dating sites offer (mail, flirts, message boards and instant messaging), LDS Mingle offers its members the opportunity to connect directly with other members in real-time in their chat rooms.  There are 5 chat rooms available: a Main Room and then four rooms broken down by age group (20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s).  In the several weeks that I have been using the chat rooms, I have found the people who frequent them to be very friendly and quick to help you learn the chat room lingo (it’s like texting, there’s a “speak”) and how the rooms work.  The rooms are really easy to use though if you’re not paying attention, it can quickly become very difficult to follow the conversations when there are a lot of people in the room and several different topics being discussed simultaneously.  LDS Mingle does provide one basic guideline for using the chat feature: “Member engaging in sexual, vulgar, abusive, or inappropriate behavior in chat and IM will be deleted from the site.”  LDS Mingle scans chat and IM conversations and encourages its users to report inappropriate behavior.  I’m mentioned it before, but I’ll repeat it here: the message boards and chat rooms are a great way to get to “know” someone without the “risk” of contacting them directly.  (A quick note: I’ve complained in some of my other online dating site reviews about not having pictures when reading messages, LDS Mingle doesn’t have this problem.)

SEARCHING WITH LDS MINGLE
Searching for your match on LDS Mingle isn’t as complex or complicated as other sites.  Realistically, there are only three true search options offered by this site:  quick search, username search, and an advanced search
The quick search allows you to search for someone of a specific gender and age range.  You can determine whether you want to include keywords in your search (and no, a search for “root beer” didn’t net me any results) and whether the results show only members with photos.
The advanced search (do I really need to discuss a username search?) allows you to add additional parameters to your quick search.  For instance: where someone lives, height, ethnicity, education, relationship status, body type, whether they served a mission or not, current temple status, church activity level, and whether or not they have children or not.  This search also allows you to narrow your search to people who have recently been active and how recently their profile was created.
Despite having limited, though effective, search options, LDS Mingle does have quite a few “browsing” options.  You can browse who’s online, you can check out random photos based on an age range of the opposite gender, you can check out profiles that have recently been updated in someway (new photos, new essays, or updated information), you can view the latest member photos filtered by gender, age range and how recently the photo was posted.  Another interesting “search” category is the “Think You’d Click?” feature.  The idea is that LDS Mingle randomly shows you profiles of the opposite gender within an age range and you indicate whether or not you are interested (no, maybe, yes).  When you select “yes” LDS Mingle confidentially finds out if that person might be interested in you as well.  If there is mutual interest they will “introduce” you with a Click! alert.  Don’t worry with this feature, it’s not just about looking at the photos and making your indication.  The process shows part of the profile and gives you the option of seeing more of the profile before you make your selection.
The final “search” category allows you to see who might be having a birthday today.  If you see someone you know (or someone you’d like to know), you can then opt to send them a card.  (For more information about the cards see below)

FLIRTING ON LDS MINGLE
There are several ways to flirt with other LDS Mingle members and I thought I would quickly highlight these because for the Guest Members these flirts are the only way you can contact other LDS MINGLE singles in whom you are interested while you are trying the site out.  However, if that person emails you back, all you are going to know it that you received an email you won’t be able to know who sent it or even read the email.  (So, if there is someone you really like, you are going to have to join.  The Flirts on LDS Mingle are broken down into three categories: sparks, smiles, and cards.

• Sparks are designed to begin a dialogue with another member.  They are questions you send which have a list of possible answers. The sparks are broken down into the following topics: analogies, comparisons and metaphors; casual; dreams/wishes; opinion/taste; personality; practical/financial; seasonal; situational; and Dating/Relationship.
• Smiles are little notes that help you quickly and briefly communicate something to another member.  The smiles you send can be casual (Hey, What’s up?), Flirty (How YOU doin?), about sending and receiving emails, about profile photos, a pick up line (Cupid called.  He says to tell you he needs my heart back), about their profile, a response to something another said (I’m flattered.  Thank You.), to tell you more about them, a Thank you (Thanks for the smile, it made my day!) or about getting together (Can I take you out to dinner?).
• The cards are creative graphics (they’ve actually put a lot of time into designing them) with customizable messages.  You can send cards for special occasions like Birthdays, the seasons and Holidays, to express care and concern and to say thank you.  There are cards for expressing friendship, love and just to flirt.  The Pick up Line cards are funny.  And being the movie buff that I am, I like the Movie Quote Pick Up Line Cards: “I think I’d miss you even if we’d never met!” (The Wedding Date)

EVENTS
LDS Mingle posts notification of LDS singles events on your homepage.  These events include things like Singles Cruises, Dances, and Singles Conferences.  I did notice that many of the events listed seem to be located in the mountain west or California; that may simply be reflective of the general population of the site or who is actively posting to the event board.  (If you are aware of an event that you think might be of interest to other LDS Mingle members, you can post the event yourself.)

PROFILE MATCHING

LDS Mingle offers its members the opportunity to take the Color Code Personality Test.   The intent of the color Code Personality Test is to define what makes motivates you (makes you tick).  The different colors have different motivations. I’m a blue and therefore my core motivation is intimacy.  That’s not physical intimacy; I need connection – the sharing of rich, deep emotions that bind people together. Reds core motivation is power, for whites it is peace and for yellows it is fun. (As a note, I took the Color Code Personality Test years ago at a seminar that I was at.  I was a Blue then as well.  The author maintains that your core color is intrinsic and doesn’t change.  There seems to be some evidence of that in my retaking it more than a decade later.)   Taking the Color Code Personality Test is totally voluntary.  While the test is a series of comparative questions, it’s relatively easy and takes just about 15 minutes. After taking the Color Code Personality Test, you can see how you and other members who have taken the test would match up.  LDS Mingle provides a message board where you can discuss your colors and ask questions about the Color Code.  If you would like to learn more about the Color Code and its author, you can also visit the Color Code Website.

COOL EXTRAS BY LDS MINGLE

There are a couple of other things that LDS Mingle does which separates it from some of the other LDS sites.  The first of which is that LDS Mingle has set up a beta version for mobile viewing.  As a member of LDS Mingle, from your phone, and thus anywhere that you have service, you can read messages, view friends, search profiles, send mail, view matches and play with the “Think You’d Click? feature.  You can have LDS Mingle send you a text every time that you receive an email.  As an additional feature -or separate if you prefer- to the phone browser viewing, you can elect to receive a text message anytime that you receive mail, a smile, a card, a profile, an IM and/or a “Mutual Yes Alert.”

ANNOYANCES

The big glaring annoyance with LDS Mingle is how busy the pages are, especially the homepage.  Take a look at the screenshot again.  Talk about visual overload.  There are advertisements (I will rant about those in a minute), profile activity, matching information and pictures, your links, searches, friends, events…ahhhh!  I wish they’d tone it down just a little bit.  The other thing that annoys me is the placement of the pages.  Why can’t they be centered?  Why do they have to be all the way left? (Am I being too picky?)

As with the other sites I’ve reviewed, a really bothersome issue with LDS Mingle is the third party advertisements (sponsored links they call them) that are placed throughout the site.  I appreciate that by having those links, the site is able to offer memberships at a more reasonable price.  However, the placement of them, especially on the homepage is irksome at best and as annoying as fingers on a chalkboard at worst; especially with the homepage being so busy already.  I also really don’t enjoy reading someone’s profile with a big ad taking up half the introduction page.

SIGNING UP FOR LDS MINGLE

There are several subscription options to choose from.  You can choose to sign up on a month by month basis for $14.99 with a monthly renewal at the same price.  You can pre-pay 3 months in advance for $35.97 with a monthly renewal rate of $11.99.  You may also go for the gusto and pre-pay 6 months for $59.94 (a 33% savings from the monthly subscription) with a monthly renewal rate at the end of the 6 months of $9.99.

The payment options are not as limited as some of the other sites that I have reviewed.  You can pay by credit card, by mail (if you pay six months) and, by Pay-Pal (Wahoo!). Both the pay by mail and the pay-pal option require that you select the 6 month option and subsequent renewal rate.  (And just in case you are brazen enough to not only believe that one of your single friends should be using online dating, but have the moxie to get them there, you can buy them a gift subscription using with above options!)

Despite my frustrations with LDS Mingle, I enjoyed the reviewing the site.  With all of the features, it took me a little longer than I wanted it to. I really enjoyed the chat rooms (so, you may catch me there sometime) the people were really fun and it was a great way to make friends.  And after the initial learning curve, I was able to maneuver around pretty easily.  I don’t know if I would have thought that LDS Mingle was so complicated, it I hadn’t reviewed it after I reviewed LDS Planet.  (Planet is by far a cleaner and easier to use site.)  I love some of the features that LDS Mingle offers that her competitors don’t (the chat rooms for instance and the Cards).  I’d easily recommend LDS Mingle to anyone who wants to have online dating as part of their repertoire for finding their eternal companion.

Click here if you are ready to try LDS Mingle out for yourself.

Remember:  We’re LDS! We’re single! And, we’re all in this together!

 

 

Related Posts:

LDS Singles Online Review
LDS Planet Review
7 Best Online Dating Sites for LDS Singles

LDS Planet adds Keyword Search

I received a notice from LDS Planet this morning that I had a new message from someone.  I logged in to see it (it’s so rare, that I thought I’d better check it out before the offer expired!) and noticed that LDS Planet has added a keyword search to their list of search options.  I just recently finished my review of LDS Planet and this wasn’t an option at the time I did the review, so I thought I would check it out and tell you about it.

As you can tell from the screenshot (click to enlarge), this isn’t just the ability to search profiles for a specific keyword.  You can refine your keyword search to a particular age group, the gender, and how far someone lives from you.  I don’t know about you, but, personally I’m not looking for a long distance relationship.  (It’s tough even admitting I might actually be looking for a realtionship at all.)  So it doesn’t bother me in the least, that LDS Planet limits the distance parameters to 25, 50, or 100 miles.  If, however, you are looking for other LDS Singles that are further away from you than that, then the keyword search may not be for you.  To help you out, LDS Planet also given lists some choices of popular keyword searches that you can try.  These include: travel, dancing, movies, sense of humor, hiking, dining out and pets.

Obviously, if you have been reading this blog for very long, you know that I am an avid fan of rootbeer.  So, I used rootbeer as my first keyword search.  I thought that I would find out if there were any women, ages 38-43 within 100 miles of Salt Lake City who were fond enough of rootbeer to put it into their profile. As you can see from the screenshot, the message from LDS Planet was that I need to open up my possibilities.  (What do they know?)  Next I tried a differnet age group 32-37; same answer.  I tried again with the next older age group and finally with the “of any age” and got the same response each time.  Luckily,  having a potential partner be a rootbeer fanatic is not a deal breaker.

At the time I am writing this, I was thinking that Mexican sounded like a good idea for lunch, so I thought that I would search for women (incidentally, I always search for women), ages 38-43 within a 100 miles of Salt Lake City who like Mexican food enough to list it in their profile.  This search was much more successful.  It netted me three pages of result (approximately 30 individuals).  Which was awesome, until I started looking at the pages of profiles.  The last 2 pages (or 20 results) were of women who had not logged in to LDS Planet in over 30 days.

I tried a few other of my own keyword searches with similar results.  I even tested it with a keyword that was specific to the profile of the woman who sent me the message this morning to see if the keyword search was accurate.  Indeed, it is.

Finally, I gave the keyword suggestions that LDS Planet provides a spin.  I quickly discovered that whatever other parameters you want included in your search you should select first.  So if you want to find women, ages 38-43 who like movies within 25 miles of where you live, then select those options prior to clicking on “movies.”  (For you ladies, if you are looking for a man, age 32-37 who lives within 50 miles of you who enjoys hiking, then make those selections before selecting “hiking”).  I was actually happy to discover that the other criteria apply.

I will admit that I was a little leery about trying out the keyword search.  Mainly because the way that LDSSingles.com does their keyword search it creates little hyperlinks on the profiles of all the members.  And if you will remember from my review of LDS Singles, that was a huge annoyance to me.  I am happy to say however, that is not the case with LDS Planet; they have seamlessly incorporated the keyword search.  Kudos to them.

Now, that being said.  The issues I have with the keyword search are two and they are pretty minor.  I’m sure that I mentioned in my initial review of LDS Planet that not having the ability to define my own age group rather than select from predetermined ones or the ubiquitous “of any age” was an annoyance.  (If I didn’t I should have.)  That annoyance carries over to the keyword search feature as well; but admittedly it’s minor.  The other annoyance that I have is that I would like the option to filter out inactive profiles and perhaps profiles with no photos either.  Again, however, these are minor annoyances and don’t really affect the overall quality and enjoyment of the keyword search.

Really, you can have a lot of fun with the keyword search.  I wasted the better part of an hour just playing around.  For instance it was eye opening to read what women within 100 miles had to say about spiders!!  So, wanna have some fun and learn more about LDS Singles within a short distance of you?  Then head over to LDS Planet and check out the keyword search!

Remember: We’re LDS!  We’re Single!  And, we’re all in this together!

Related Posts:

LDS Planet Review
LDS Singles Online Review
7 Best Online Dating Sites for LDS Singles

LDS Planet Review

LDS Planet is one of the LDS specific online dating sites I mentioned as worth a look in 7 Best Online Dating Sites for LDS Singles.  This article is designed to give you a broader overview of the site, provide a greater explanation of its features and offer my personal commentary.  Note: As with my review of other online dating sites, I may not always remember to make clear when a particular feature of the site is for subscribers verses guest members.  So, if it doesn’t work the way that I describe, you need to subscribe.

THE ONLINE PROFILE

This includes your basic personal information: age, height, body type, and hair and eye color.  Let potential suitors know your level of church activity, whether you served a mission and marital status.  (I reiterate, a site maintained by LDS individuals or those who understand the culture will not list “separated” as one of the choices.)  You indicate how many children that you have and how many currently live with you.  Other information in your profile includes occupation, temple status (worthy, recommend, prefer not to say), your level of education, and what kinds of pets you have. The other major parts of your basic profile on LDS Planet are “The Greeting” and “Personality” summary.  For “The Greeting” LDS Planet suggests you share with potential matches:

• “A little about me”: personality, what’s important to you and your career.
• “How I feel about the church”: a small testimony perhaps, whether you are a convert, what’s your favorite calling, which general authority you enjoy listening to, etc…
• “What I do for fun”: Do you like musical theatre?  Are you a snowboard fanatic?  Is underwater basket weaving your thing? What kind of music do you listen to? Do you like to ballroom dance?  What’s your favorite holiday?  Share these things in your own words.

For the “Personality” summary, you answer the following questions:
• Are you patient?
• Are you romantic?
• Do you enjoy cooking?
• Do you enjoy going to the movies?
• How much do you enjoy a walk in the park?
• How much do you enjoy live theatre?
• How much do you like reading?
• How often do you like to go out?
• When dining out what food do you enjoy?
• When you go anywhere are you usually on time?
• Which sports do you most enjoy watching?

I’m not sure why they say this is about your personality.  It seems to me more about your interests.  Plus this section provides some ideas as to what activities would be enjoyable to you (or your match) on a first date.

Your profile page on LDS Planet is customizable and says a lot about you.  You can change the wallpaper (my wallpaper is the Logan Temple) and you can change the icon from a heart to something else (I changed mine to a smiley face).  LDS Planet also allows you to customize your profile by uploading audio clips (via your phone or an audio file on your computer) and video.  These sections combined with your picture give people insight into the person you are. They can be edited easily.  Reread them often; change them regularly, until you are really happy with how you are portrayed. For greater success take advantage of all these ways of telling others who you are.  There is a section on your profile called “message ideas” that helps you to learn about those who contact you.  It is a set of four questions that you select from a list, which people who contact you can answer when they send you a message.  LDS Planet also helps get you noticed with the ability to permanently highlight your profile in bright yellow. (There is a one-time charge for this service.)

PHOTOS ON LDS PLANET

A profile on LDS Planet can include (and should if you are serious about meeting people) a profile photo and a photo album.  At minimum you should have a profile picture.  The picture should be of you (dare I say, DUH!? But there are people who for whatever reason ignore this rule).  You are best served with a shot that shows your entire body and/or face.  You can change these as often as you would like and remember the pictures you post says tons about you.  I’m not sure how many photos you can put in your photo album on LDS Planet, but I have seen as many as 36 pictures in a photo album. (If you do not have a digital file of your photos, there is the option of mailing photos to LDS Planet to have them scanned and added to your profile at no charge.  Given the importance of having a photo on your profile, I say find a friend with a scanner or go to Kinko’s. You will be better served and the lag time will be lessened.)

NAVIGATING LDS PLANET

The Dashboard on your home page makes LDS Planet simply, easy and fun to navigate.  From your homepage (or from anywhere on the site) you can quickly navigate to all the features of this site:

• Your Profile (for editing purposes)
• The Inbox: Messages, Who’s Viewed You, Who Bookmarked Me, Who Flirted With Me
• Search: Profiles, I’m Interested, Username Search, My Match
• Community: Live Chat, Who’s Online Now, Today’s Birthdays
• Who I Like: My Flirts, My Favorites/Bookmarks, Who I viewed
• What’s New: Dating Tips  and Member Deals

THE INBOX

You can easily see who has sent to a message, what the subject is and when they send it.  You can create folders to organize responses and an icon appears to show you the messages to which you have responded.  The “Who Viewed Me”, “Who Bookmarked Me”, and “Who flirted With Me” pages also show the profile picture of those who have performed those actions along with when they checked you out, when you may have flirted or sent a message to that person.  The features on these pages are easily performed and navigated because they work similar to many email programs and social media sites.

The inbox represents the ability of others to contact you.  There is also an instant messenger feature to LDS Planet that is easy and fun to use.  From the profile homepage of someone who is online you can click the “chat now” option and if they accept your request to chat– instant contact.  There is also a buddy list (of those you’ve bookmarked) that allows you to see if any of your “friends” are online and strike up a conversation with them.

SEARCHING LDS PLANET

The search tab on your homepage at LDS Planet allows you to perform 2 types of searches: A basic search and an advanced search.
The basic search enables you find singles within any distance from you by gender, age, and location.  You can specify if you want to be shown any profile or select whether the profile includes a greeting, video, photos, audio, or a complete personality test.

The advanced search feature allows you to include marital status, ethnicity, height, general build, temple status, mission service, church activity, occupation, and if they have children into the basic search.  With the advanced search options you can also dictate whether you see those who have recently logged in, who are new, or who have new photos. (A great argument for regularly changing your photos.)
From that same navigation bar on the left, you can see those currently online in an age range and perform a username search.  Also from there or the navigation button on the top right you can browse through profiles within an age range and location to indicate if they pique your interest or not.  Those that do will be sent a flirt that says, “I’m Interested in You”

FLIRTS

For Guest Members sending a flirt is the only way you can contact other singles in whom you are interested.  Flirts are sent from a member’s profile homepage.  (So they will also know that you checked them out.)  There is a button you click which gives you the list of flirts that you can send.  However, like other online dating sites, if that person flirts/emails you back, all you are going to know it that you received a message you won’t be able to know who sent it or even be able to read the email.  So, if there is someone you really like, you are going to have to join.  Otherwise spend eternity flirting back and forth like two 18 year-olds at their first Institute Dance; “forever [flirting] but never coming to a knowledge of the [other’s name.]” (I know I’ve said that before, but because it’s so clever, I’m saying it again!)

ANNOYANCES

There a several things that I don’t like about LDS Planet.  The biggest thing that irks me is that that if you are idle too long on LDS Planet, it will kick you off.  Admittedly there is a little note that tells you that in 5 minutes or so, you will be disconnected unless you click; but, you may have several pages open at a time and you get booted without knowing it.

Secondly, I admit to really enjoying the “who’s online now search” and use it almost exclusively, but I would very much like to have the option of seeing who is online in an age range that I select rather than the choices that they provide and the option of choosing a location or distance from me. (I’m just not up for long distance relationships.)

A third thing that can be tiresome is actually an opposite problem from of the other online dating sites we’ve discussed.  It has to do with the email notifications.  When someone sends a message, flirts with you, or bookmarks you LDS Planet indicates each of these things on your dashboard and will send you an email notification of each. (So if someone bookmarks you, you get two email notifications: a message and a bookmark). If they flirt, you get two. (You can see the problem.)  LDS Planet does tell you who the flirt is from, who has sent you a message, and who bookmarked you (but only if you are a paying member).  The options of what notifications are sent to you can be changed.  So I took care of that annoyance by only allowing message notifications to be sent.  (Also, if there is a user that won’t take the hint, you can block them too!)

And finally, I’ve brought this up before, but again, the third party advertisements (sponsored links they call them) that are placed throughout the site distract and annoy me.  I appreciate that by having those links, the site is able to offer memberships at a more reasonable price.  However, having the right column of the screen constantly enticing me with computer products, cell phone service, online safety services, television shows, anti-aging products, IQ Quizzes, muscle building remedies and sometimes even inviting me to visit another dating site gets on my nerves.

SIGNING UP FOR LDS PLANET

There are several subscription options to choose from.  You can choose to sign up on a month-by-month basis for $14.95 with a monthly renewal of the same price.  You can pre-pay 6 months in advance for $59.70 with a monthly renewal rate of $9.95; a 33% savings over the monthly rate.  You may also go for the gusto by paying for a full year for $119.95 (which translates to about $9.99/month).  There is a one-time processing fee of $3.95 added to all new orders.  (These rates are similar to those of other online dating services of this caliber.)  You can pay by credit card, by mail or by western union.

I’ve mentioned this in other articles dealing with online dating sites, but I’ll mention it again: it would be nice if they also allowed for a Pay-Pal option (I personally like the safety of that) or perhaps an online check option.  But those are more preferences than requirements.  (So, anyone from LDS Planet reading this review…there is my $.02.)

Okay, so I have to confess something: I’m a fan of LDS Planet.  I find the site very easy to navigate and use.  Admittedly, it’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have too many features that you get distracted trying to figure them out, but enough that finding people you are interested in is a breeze.  And as with any dating site you have to be vigilante.  However, I’ve met some really great people through LDS Planet, some of whom are very dear friends.  So give LDS Planet a try by clicking here!

Remember:  We’re LDS! We’re single! And, we’re all in this together!

P.S. For a look at some of the other online dating sites suitable for LDS Singles read 7 Best Online Dating Sites or my review of LDS Singles Online

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