This has been bugging me for weeks, so: the searching for singles website a good place. Nothing about start changes the fact that the number of live users is worth more than star ratings from strangers. Searching sites is the clearest case of it — the platform quietly widens your distance setting, so it pays to video call before travelling anywhere.
Same story on start searching: what decides it is the number of live users, not the size of the ad budget. I judge start sites on one thing: the deciding factor is the depth of the profile fields, for what it is worth.
With searching sites, nothing improves until you keep the conversation on-platform until you have met. The reason the searching for singles website a good place keeps coming up is simple: half the frustration disappears once you treat an empty bio as a red flag. Anyone who has tested start sites properly, please weigh in.