You are reading this post because you want to know which dating channel will give you the best investment of your time to finally find that great man or woman in your life and avoid as much of the nightmares in the dating arena as possible.
I'm sorry that you will be disappointed with my answer.
The answer is: Most are Good and There's Not a Single Best Channel.
There are many dating channels.
YES: Online Dating Websites
There are dozens of dating websites out there and there are successful stories, However, you must do the right thing. Register yourself at the more reputable websites where the communities are much larger than others and there are controls for scammers. The problem with dating online is there is no way to see the real person to determine his or her motive. There are both male and female scammers (some of the "female" scammers may actually be male scammers who are impersonators) and both men and women are equally likely to fall into scam traps. There are many guides about online dating that advise you how to best use a dating website, so I will not give much advice here. You just need to do two simple things: post a genuine picture of yourself and write genuinely and interestingly about yourself and write clearly about who you are seeking out to prevent those who are not your kind from contacting you. The most important thing that you need to know is that: it does work.
NO: Erotic Websites
There are also those sleazy and erotic websites. Do not mistaken these for dating websites. There are many men and women, single and married, young and old, on those websites who just want a no-strings-attached one-night fun. So you WILL NOT find true love here. Very highly unlikely. So don't waste your time here.
YES, BUT MORE NO: Online Personnel Classifieds
You might get a few genuine people there so this is still a channel you can look for your mate. However, similar to erotic websites, there are many people looking for no-obligation sex and there are scammers as well. Be careful and use your head to guide yourself when you are navigating the dating scene using this channel.
YES:Dating Agencies
There are quite a number of success stories. I am guessing because more work is done in analysing who you are really looking for and selecting those people who best meet your requirement. However, dating agencies vary in the qualities of their candidates. That said, it does not mean that budget dating agencies will always have bad candidates and that higher-end dating agencies will always give you the good candidates. Regardless of what agencies you go to, However, you do need to select the agencies based on your budget. Otherwise you will waste not only your time, but also find that your wallet will quickly be depleted.
YES: Family Referral/Arranged Marriage
Personally, I don't have much experience with these channels as my parents and relatives have never referred any guys to me. But my cousin did share with me her experience. She was about 28 years old and she never had any boyfriend. Her eldest brother recommended someone to her. Bingo! One year later, that guy proposed to her and they took another year to get married and another year to settle down in their new house and in the fourth year, they had their first baby.
As for arranged marriage, I read about it in articles that it still works. I believe it works because the parents have already screened through so many candidates to settle on a final one for their child. It must have a higher chance to resulting in a match.
YES-NO: Friends' Referral
I read in many dating books, manuals and articles that referral from people you know are more likely to result in a successful match. I have highly hopeful of this actually until I tried it for the first time and it failed me, miserably. An ex-colleague of mine, who was kind of a friend, recommended that I could try hanging out with a new colleague that had joined the company and told me he's a quite a nice person. The guy also took the initiative to chat with me and message me and we went out for a meal. He asked me whether I would like to go to Malaysia with him for a weekend trip and I said "Yes". But that day never came. Every time I brought up the topic of the trip, he would tell me "soon". That soon never came for and it came for him. After a while, I saw his Facebook post that he went to Malaysia Legoland with his aunts and cousins. When I asked him about it, he just said "sorry" and never contacted me after that. I felt very cheated. I had a bad experience but I still believe a referral from someone you know is still more reliable than just hitching a stranger. So I will still encourage you to try this method though, but beware of the guy's motive.
YES: Hooking Up with a Colleague
I see this kind of thing very frequently. In many of the companies I worked in, I saw many couples who knew each other from their workplaces and married each other subsequently. The key thing to this is: be brave and approach the person you want to be with.
YES: Other Unorthodox Methods
These include all other places that you can be and all other events that you are involved in. A girl friend of mine told me that one of her girl friend met her husband while she was on an airplane travelling to Japan for a vacation. They exchanged phone numbers and subsequently dated each other and then the wedding bells rang. Are you as amazed as I am?
If you are still single, and want to settle down quickly, don't fret. As you can see, there are many ways to find that someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Now what you have to do is to take action. If you just lock yourself up in your home after work, no one will know of your existence. So...
TAKE ACTION!
AND GOOD LUCK!!!
AND LET ME KNOW YOUR GOOD NEWS!!!!!!