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Online hitch of course is, clearly she hasn't experienced the completely dysfunctional dating scene here in Ireland. I'd love to bring her over and see the horrendous reality for what it is.
One of the really good pieces of advice by Vicky is to use the best dating services. I cannot agree more. Only hitch unfortunately is that really, in the Irish context this can be terribly limiting. Gaydar is obvious and cheap, but quite frankly, even though it probably has more active Irish users than any other (and a really, really great radio station), it also seems to have a huge proportion of the loony element online - just drop into the simplest of chatrooms, and well, experience the joys of the dyke scene in virtual form - there ain't no passive-agressive here, its just plain agressive, provocations, really really questionable people online (many of whom clearly don't seem to be women or who more likely just escaped from Portrane) who seem to get endless entertainment from either a) wanking over an internet site or b) deliberately stirring up fights between people they clearly seem to see as vastly inferior to their sad little selves.
There is pinksofa - again with a dedicated women's site. Lovely. Wonderful. Nice women. Not particularly expensive. And unfortunately, decidedly southern hemisphere-centric. It will be nice if I ever do manage to get that work visa for Australia, but right now, there isn't huge point in transmitting messages with anybody in Perth.
There are the straight focused sites. Irish Times dating turned out to be anotherfriend.com which has one huge flaw - it doesn't distinguish if you are gay or straight so unless you specify on your profile that you are looking for the same sex only you'll be sent lots of messages from heteros who cannot really be blamed for not knowing any better.
Match.com looks promising, I might check this out a little more. It at least doesn't try to match you up into a hetero relationship and doesn't steer straight guys your way in order to waste your time.
Parship.ie is REALLY impressive looking, but very expensive, even though not as much as the anotherfriend.com ripoff, (quite frankly if a site doesn't clearly distinguish gay and straight members, it is NOT worth paying for, that should be very, very basic). It seems to make a good effort to filter out those who might really match you. There is only huge catch I find with this site. Shortly after I joined I was highlighted to a top ranking match, which was more than a little disturbing as it turned out to be (I'm fairly perceptive) my previous partner. Which was a tiny bit disturbing. Matching you with a failed relationship isn't exactly a good sign.
Gaylog ought to be a good site, but quite frankly, its incredibly overrun with extraordinarily stupid hetero males from 3rd world countries who perpetually bombard me with messages, friend requests and demands for my msn address. They don't even appear to notice the word "gay" in the site description and I've had to block about 10 so far.
So still looking for that elusive dating site with a decent number from Ireland that is actually even half likely to work. I popped an ad in the Times anyway just to see if I get some kind of response. Who knows.
