The Dating Dope

Quick Summary:

Value for money: 5/5    Features: 3/5    Design: 3/5    Member quality: 4/5

• The website is simple and easy to use.
• Offers a solid array of useful and interesting features, including a great blog.
• An easy, effective tool for finding casual dating partners.

The Full Story:

This website looks very clean… almost to the point of emptiness. I’ve seen plenty of other “clean”-looking dating websites, which while certainly not “busy” do not seem bare in the way this site does (really, it looks almost barren.) To my mind, a dating site ought to make some attempt to look alluring and inviting to single men and women–this website doesn’t seem interested in doing that. For example, there are no graphics of couples in loving poses, dating, being romantic, et cetera. It’s not that its approach is unattractive, exactly, but it is minimalist in the extreme.

Features

Well, the focus is certainly not on users who are looking for future long-term relationships or out to make friends. It soon becomes apparent that Local Tryst is solidly focused on appealing to the “casual hookup” crowd. Basically it is a site for total flirts: people wanting brief, casual, fun encounters. What is interesting is that the site does not immediately make its intentions clear in this regard—you could probably use the site for some time before realizing what its real “raison d’etre” is.

One thing that is very appealing about the Local Tryst is its ability (rare in a free site) to search for potential matches by vey specific geographic location. It will also let you search across Adult Friend Finder’s network if there aren’t very many matches within its own.

The site’s also great for practicing your pick-up techniques and flirting,and offers tips for both men and women on how to be better in bed. It has a great blog attached where you can find a large number of articles on sex and casual-dating related topics, as well as humor, interviews, site reviews, and many other subjects.

I really liked the blog. It is entertaining to read and disarmingly honest. It even reviews (and recommends!) some OTHER free hook up websites, which blows my mind.

It was good to see that despite the site being a bit oblique initially about its real purpose, its members (male and female) are not at all. The personal ads are nearly all uniformly up front and center about what the poster is asking for, though the photos are thankfully moderated—no dangly-bits-on-parade (thank heavens.)

Hookups and beyond

I found it both fascinating and refreshing that this site’s members were so straightforward about their motivations and desires. I particularly liked the “viewed you” feature—it tells you who has recently been looking at your profile, so you can click through and return the favor.

There are certainly some features that Local Tryst could afford to add (live chat? cams?), but I think it’s functionality reflects its decision about what it is: namely a lean, mean, local-hookup-finding machine. And that’s it. Though to be fair where it does have “extra” features (like the Casual Encounters Blog), it really shines. Probably the favorite part for me of my membership experience was reading through the blog, soaking up information and enjoying all the humor posts.

Definitely worth a go. And completely free, so you’ve nothing to lose!