I was actually wondering about the size of the user-base at CompatiblePartners. It seemed to me that if a company were intentionally excluding me but then made a service so that I could be included, I might not be inclined to use that service! Especially considering it took a lawsuit to get to that point.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts.

Personally I wouldn’t use the site CompatiblePartners. This is because I spent 15+ years (from the time I was around 10 to my late 20s) trying NOT to be gay. At a point you have to accept who you are, rather than listening to an outsider who says they know more about you than you yourself do.. I just wouldn’t trust someone who claimed to know more about me than I do, and have them fix me up on successful dates. Plus I have doubts about the size of their user base.

For gay men looking for a relationship, I’d recommend http://lovetastic.com . It does not have the personality test stuff but has many “getting to know” kinds of questions in the profiles. It’s a site focused on finding other people who are interested in a relationship rather than the overt sexuality on many gay sites. It’s also written in Rails, is beautifully simple, and takes its relationship-approach very seriously (and actively removes accounts that violate their guidelines).

I’ve noticed trends towards people there wanting more than superficial things. for example, same-sex people wanting to get married (not it’s not just to prove a point). There are articles such as http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/08/BAG6RNEKBM1.DTL in the San Francisco Chronicle that talk about the trend toward taking relationships more seriously. I think these trends will only get bigger over time and are very healthy in the long run.