What is it?

More than just an online dating site, Date The UK also gives you the opportunity to make friendships by chatting people of the same sex online and they also have occasional parties at a central London bar

How does it work?

There's a pretty comprehensive sign up process where you give details on all the usual things and a section on your interests with pull down options enabling you to choose up to 3 of your favourite hobbies, tv shows, sports and newspapers. Photos need to be approved once you have uploaded them, but mine was online within minutes

Who does it attract?

A real little online community of friendly chatty varied people

What's different about it?

As well as being able to email people you are interested in, you can also 'flirt' with them if they are online at the same time as you (and the search facility has a 'online now' option.) Flirts appear at the top of the screen and are announced with

a little 'tinkerbell' noise. Clicking on them takes you to a page where you can see your flirting partners profile and have an online chat with them... I'm worried, I could see my self wasting hours on this particular feature! Very clever and as far as I know, unique too.

I also like this next feature a lot... You know how we've all got one particular star sign that's plagued us throughout our dating life? Now finally I've found a website where you can choose which star signs you do and don't want to hear from! So Geminis....both of you...stay away!

What does it cost?

Free to join, but as a 'guest' you can't send emails or initiate flirts. (although you can reply to flirts) To flirt, mail, chat or use the sites detailed search facilities, you need to upgrade your account to gold membership, which costs anything from £4.99 for a day to £74.99 for a year

Tickets for their parties are £15

What makes it special?

The flirting facility makes dating very instant and fun, this site also has a 'friends' facility where you can choose profiles you like and add them to your list of 'friends'. Then you can either wait for them to come online so you can chat or hope they've noticed you've chosen them as a friend and wait for them to make the first move!

I also like the fact that you can see from someone's profile whether they are a paid member or not, this helps avoid the situation where you are waiting for a guest member to initiate contact when they can't.

What's the down side?

Date The UK isn't strict with photos, so rather than a load of clear head and shoulder shots, you can end up with photos of people hiding behind hats and glasses or worse photos of their dogs or cars... However this relaxed policy might just serve to give you a better insight into peoples characters.. I think I'd rather know in advance if a man was obsessed with his car or dog!

Any tricks I need to know?

Under the 'find someone' section there is both a 'search' and 'search plus' facility. The latter gives you many more options on your search and allows you to choose to display only those profiles with photos too.

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