Internet Dating

Well I'm now at that point in my life where I am looking to settle down with the right guy. No more endless bar nights and flings. I want to find that special guy. The problem with this is that I live in China and finding a decent guy here isn't easy. Problems

1) I'd say about 89% of the single males here are into Asian women (nothing wrong with that but makes the dating pool fairly shallow)
2) Chinese guys tend to be hitched by the time they are thirty and I certainly don't want to date a married man
3) Let's face it, most people here are just here for a year or so and not looking for anything serious

So I have decided to try internet dating. I always thought of it as fairly desperate but now after joining up to a site, I see a lot of people on there who are also sick of meeting people in bars and lame hook-ups. I also see that it is a popular way that Chinese people meet.

So what are your thoughts?

It sounds like a good idea. In my experience, most of the people who find long term partners via internet dating sites are financially stable, emotionally mature and able to identify both what they're looking for and who they are; in other words exactly the kind of person we're probably all looking for.

I'm sure there are untenable and undesirable people also joining the sites, and they probably don't meet with much success, but you sound very much like you fit into the first paragraph category.

I'd certainly be interested in any stories guys wish to share as to how they've used the internet to find a long term relationship. My reservation with a dating site in china would be a fear that it would just put me into contact with naieve immature 'girls' who want to marry a westerner and have beautiful babies.

Every now and then I go to the things I'm interested in (mostly concert (classical) music) and see women who, by dint of their being there, share an interest with me, and I'd love to have the courage to go up and talk to them. If any of them smiled at me I probably would talk to them, but I don't smile at them first, as I unfortunately look like a dangerous predator when I form my mouth into that unfamiliar contortion. The other problem is that if they're Chinese, they're probably married. Honestly, if they're western, they're probably married. If there was a way of using qq to find local women who fancy having someone to go with to what passes for concert music in my city, that would be great.

I know a lot of Chinese couples who met on the internet. In fact, I also know quite a few Western guys who met their Chinese spouse on the internet. It could work. There are some Chinese men on sites that cater to international dating, and lots of foreign guys too, but most of the foreign guys tend to be on the hunt for a Chinese woman.

I don't think Chinese guys are quite as likely to be married by the time they're 30 as girls are. My husband and I got married when he was 33 and I was 26. I know quiet a few guys, mostly musician or artist types, who are in their 30s and unmarried, mostly because such careers are not so lucrative and most Chinese girls have parents who are not really into their daughters marrying a guy who doesn't have the requisite stable job/car/apartment. Usually we Westerners (and our parents) are not so hung up on what our partner can bring to the table materially -- we might not want to marry a bum, but we don't necessarily need a guy with an apartment a 10k a month job and a million RMB in the bank. If you have some good Chinese friends, especially the more outside the box type folks, ask them to introduce you to someone available. Friend/family setups are a tried and true method of dating in China. My best guy friend in China introduced me to my husband.

LD, I know what you mean. I dated a Chinese musician before. Still I'm now 41 and haven't meet anyone I'm interested in here in ages. I guess my Chinese friends here just don't know guys in the arts community I'm not using an Asian website. I'm going a different route. There are some guys on the website who are in China but it's an international website.

Good for you. You'll probably find the same amount of creeps, idiots and also good people as you would face to face but are casting a larger net.

Good Luck!

I met my wife on Chinese Love Links dot com. Take whatever route you need to take to find the one for you.

Use http://worldfriends.tv/welcome

I just had a quick over at both of those websites but it seems that they specifically cater to the Asian woman/foreign man relationship.

www.dateinasia.com is worth a try.

AsiaFriend Finder anyone?

Interesting!
I like to see all the happy love stories happen everyday.

I have tried them all (I think).  DateinAsia is FULL of scammers *avoid*. ChineseLoveLinks is great, a lot less scammers but you of course will have the usual issues. For women I guess the issues will be lying men. "Of course I am single"....I have been that douche on occasion. For guys looking for women, that website is a goldmine. if you don't want to pony up the cash for membership, you can get a fair amount of traffic by putting your QQ number in your profile.

Good luck!!

I actually have a website. It's not a China specific one. As I stated before, those websites tend to cater to foreign men. That's the whole problem here, all the men want Chinese women. Why go on to a website that has the same situation

FWIW, for other women who might be considering online dating, when I was preparing to come to China but hadn't actually come yet, I did register on AsianFriendFinder and met some guys who seemed to be fairly normal and decent and I emailed back and forth with them a bit. Obviously nothing ever came of it but there are a lot of Chinese guys on that site, I seem to remember older guys too.

It creeped me out a bit that there did seem to be a sort of fetish factor to choosing people based on the fact that they were Asian, but then there was a Jewish Friend Finder too and I think Indian Friend Finder and all sorts of niche dating sites so maybe it wasn't really that creepy.

This was nearly 10 years ago though, so all with a grain of salt.

so all with a grain of salt

Or a grain of rice in your case, you yellow-fever-havin' fetishizer, you!