Site Rating: 3 out of 5 

by Jason Tudor

A Canadian dating site that offers singles in Canada a way to meet other local singles in a comfortable online environment, and create relationships ranging from companionship to friendship, romance to marriage. Canadian Personals might not have the largest stockpile of members from which to choose, but it does appear to be a really well-designed site with quite a few ways to communicate with other members.

Odds are that if you’re reading this review, you hail from Canada. Either that, or you’ve heard the rumour (note the spelling) that Canadians are funnier, better looking, and smarter than anyone else. Of course, that’s just a rumor… or at least we up here in our igloos like to keep it that way lest waves of frustrated Americans pour over the border.

The first thing you’ll notice upon arriving at Canadian Personals is how simple everything looks. Getting around the site is child’s play; the pages are perfectly arranged for easy viewing and there isn’t an overload of information. There could be a little less blue, but hey, it could have been pink.

Creating a profile is easy and quick, the usual series of clicks on menus. This time, though, the predetermined lists of ways to describe yourself are varied and funny. The site gives you categories such as “mentality”, “politics”, “great getaway”, and “fashion”. Meanwhile, the requisite essay section includes “least favorite things to do”, “my perfect day”, and “If I had $10 million”. I have to complain about that last one – every Canadian knows it should be “If I had a million dollars”.

A surprisingly useful addition is the color coding of your profile. Based on your responses to a series of questions, the site assigns you a color based on what it figures to be your particular motivations: Red (power), Blue (intimacy), White (peace) and Yellow (fun). It seems arbitrary until you read how the different colors interact in a relationship setting.

Searching is fairly standard, but easy to use. You can search by location (either by area code or by distance from your location), who’s new to the site or has recently visited, and by the usual categories like height, weight, ethnicity, etc.. Humorously, Canadian Personals gives an amazing number of options when it comes to religion; can you see “Wicca” as a religion on an American site?

Contacting other members can be done by email or instant messaging, or simply by a quick “smile”. The way in which your profile page keeps track of not only members that you have emailed or have emailed you but also all smiles and even profile viewings is a really smart feature.

Free memberships allow you to smile, which is a great way to try out the site. You can receive emails and IM’s too, but to initiate such contact requires a paid membership. Luckily, this is cheap, even by Canadian standards! Ten loonies a month is the most you’ll pay, and forty gets you  a full 6 months.

There are only a couple of minor detractions to Canadian Personals. For one, there is no same-sex or “alternative” matching (kind of a surprise, actually). Two, the membership base is not as huge as some others. This can be an advantage as you have a better chance communicating with the members that are there. Remember, anyhow, that there aren’t that many Canadians out there… if there were more, the world just couldn’t take it.

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