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fin
Guest
Anyone here tried Ave Maria Singles? It seems there’s no forum or message board feature there, unlike Catholic Match. Oh well I already signed up.
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mdgspencer
Guest
I was on Ave Maria Singles, which is a reputable site for looking for a spouse. I also was on catholicmatch then, where I found the woman I married. Catholic match is less expensive and has more members, but more people of questionable views (though you can screen the members of the opposite sex).
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GraceUnderFire
Guest
As with any dating site, most men are “window shopping” so don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The site has zero membership interaction. There used to be a forum but that went away when the site was “improved.” The one redeeming quality is that most of the members are orthodox.
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Naskor
Guest
That tends to be true of either gender for online dating.
blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
In all honesty I wouldn’t recommend it to a guy. I’ve heard a handful of good things for those it worked out for, but many more stories of horror. You’ll have to spend hours of your time writing out thoughtful messages to dozens of women before you even get a reply. Years worth of rejection in only a few weeks, by Catholics whom you would think would be less shallow, can really hurt your confidence and self esteem.
That and I don’t like how Anthony Buono has been “lobbying” to remove single groups from parishes and colleges. I guess he wants everyone to be using his site.
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GraceUnderFire
Guest
My question is are you only writing girls who are a “10?” If so they probably have lots of men writing them and can be more choosy. Are you also writing the girls who are not physically “perfect” but are still very orthodox? I think there is an obsession with looks online. Also, an obsession with age. I see men my own age or even older who I am not eligible to communicate with because they want someone much younger. When I hear men say they don’t get replies it makes me think there is a problem with his profile, he is not realistically assessing what he has to offer, or he is targeting women “out of his league.”
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polki
Guest
One of my family members met his wife on Ave Maria Singles. He actually got a lot of dates locally from there, but ended up expanding his search and got into a long distance relationship which led to marriage. It didn’t happen overnight but they have a wonderful family now so they are a success story.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
Well, DH and I met on AMS, so I might be a bit biased towards it. 
For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine that “window shopping” applied to us. Dh is very handsome and in very good shape. I, however, have a pretty face (IMNSHO
) and a proportional body, but I was (and am) about 50 pounds overweight. There were plenty of much more attractive girls, objectively speaking, on there. He picked me, and vice versa, because we loved each other. Period, full stop, end of sentence. It is a much smaller community than other Catholic singles’ websites, and the lack of a forum now is irritating. However, the more consistent orthodoxy is nice.
One thing I’d suggest if you join any singles’ website is making a concerted effort to contact people. I tried to have at least one correspondence going on at any time, and usually more like two. Obviously, only one worked out, but the correspondences and the dates I went on with various men from AMS both helped me with my communication, made sure that I was “out there,” and also helped me narrow down what, precisely, I was looking for in a spouse besides that he’d be a practicing Catholic.
Naskor, could you back up your claim about Anthony Buono (the founder/owner of AMS, for those not in the know) trying to shut down geographic groups with a link or something? I’d be curious to see. DH and I met a few months before the big revamp, I believe. Later on, when I went back to print out our correspondence as a keepsake. I was more than a little annoyed that it was no longer available post-revamp, and was also irritated that when I emailed them for help they said they were working on getting it back and would let me know when they could send it to me. That email was over a year ago, so I hold out no hopes on that front.
All the same, I’m very glad that AMS exists, as you might imagine, and I’m more grateful than I can say that DH and I met through them!
For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine that “window shopping” applied to us. Dh is very handsome and in very good shape. I, however, have a pretty face (IMNSHO
) and a proportional body, but I was (and am) about 50 pounds overweight. There were plenty of much more attractive girls, objectively speaking, on there. He picked me, and vice versa, because we loved each other. Period, full stop, end of sentence. It is a much smaller community than other Catholic singles’ websites, and the lack of a forum now is irritating. However, the more consistent orthodoxy is nice.One thing I’d suggest if you join any singles’ website is making a concerted effort to contact people. I tried to have at least one correspondence going on at any time, and usually more like two. Obviously, only one worked out, but the correspondences and the dates I went on with various men from AMS both helped me with my communication, made sure that I was “out there,” and also helped me narrow down what, precisely, I was looking for in a spouse besides that he’d be a practicing Catholic.
Naskor, could you back up your claim about Anthony Buono (the founder/owner of AMS, for those not in the know) trying to shut down geographic groups with a link or something? I’d be curious to see. DH and I met a few months before the big revamp, I believe. Later on, when I went back to print out our correspondence as a keepsake. I was more than a little annoyed that it was no longer available post-revamp, and was also irritated that when I emailed them for help they said they were working on getting it back and would let me know when they could send it to me. That email was over a year ago, so I hold out no hopes on that front.
All the same, I’m very glad that AMS exists, as you might imagine, and I’m more grateful than I can say that DH and I met through them!
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polki
Guest
Congratulations on being a success story! I love to hear things like that. I was wondering what you meant by consistent orthodoxy. Do you mean that they prefer the Latin mass? Did you find that AMS members go to the ordinary form or mostly TLM? Did you find the members accepting of those who were annulled, single parents, or had other “baggage”( as some people would say)? I was just wondering what the environment was like on there.Well, DH and I met on AMS, so I might be a bit biased towards it.
For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine that “window shopping” applied to us. Dh is very handsome and in very good shape. I, however, have a pretty face (IMNSHO
One thing I’d suggest if you join any singles’ website is making a concerted effort to contact people. I tried to have at least one correspondence going on at any time, and usually more like two. Obviously, only one worked out, but the correspondences and the dates I went on with various men from AMS both helped me with my communication, made sure that I was “out there,” and also helped me narrow down what, precisely, I was looking for in a spouse besides that he’d be a practicing Catholic.
Naskor, could you back up your claim about Anthony Buono (the founder/owner of AMS, for those not in the know) trying to shut down geographic groups with a link or something? I’d be curious to see. DH and I met a few months before the big revamp, I believe. Later on, when I went back to print out our correspondence as a keepsake. I was more than a little annoyed that it was no longer available post-revamp, and was also irritated that when I emailed them for help they said they were working on getting it back and would let me know when they could send it to me. That email was over a year ago, so I hold out no hopes on that front.
All the same, I’m very glad that AMS exists, as you might imagine, and I’m more grateful than I can say that DH and I met through them!
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UbiCaritas
Guest
Insofar as the Extraordinary Form (Latin Mass) goes, I’d say that a disproportionate number of members attend it as compared to, say, the general US single Catholic population, but not an overwhelming number. At a guess, I’d say that perhaps 20% of members attended it at least sometimes? There were a few people who attended SSPX chapels at least sometimes, but I’d say those were very, VERY much in the minority of those who attended the EF sometimes–I believe in my year+ on there, I encountered (“encountered” meaning “saw it mentioned on their profile”) two.
The members seemed fairly accepting of annulled/single parents/etc overall, though I’d say that those over 30 were more likely to be accepting than those under 30.
When I say orthodoxy, I meant general prayer habits, Mass attendance, belief in core Catholic beliefs about the sacraments and marital theology, and so on. The profiles have fields for things like belief in the Eucharist, frequency of Confessions, beliefs about contraception, NFP, etc that one selects answers for–“I believe in using contraception in some circumstances” vs “I believe that prayerful use of NFP and abstinence is the only acceptable way to space children,” for example. In my time there, while I saw a number of profiles that weren’t filled out at all in these areas (and guys, take note–if you didn’t bother to fill out basic areas like what your beliefs were, I stopped reading and moved on), I saw exactly ONE person who thought that contraception was okay, and he was in the process of converting and didn’t understand the Church’s teaching on contraception vs NFP/abstinence.
From what I saw re baggage, the most important thing was to be honest without being too honest–which is common sense anyway. I know another woman who met her husband on AMS; she and he both had children from previous relationships but were free to marry in the church. They didn’t meet the other person’s kids until they’d dated for about a year.
It can be very quiet on there; as I mentioned, it is a much smaller community than Catholic Match etc. However, I also found that it could be as quiet (or not quiet) as you made it. I actually wrote my DH first because I liked his profile. I wrote letters to a lot of guys on there and vice versa. I figured that if I were at a party, I could smile at a guy or make small talk (“Isn’t this wine great?” “How do you know Tony?” etc), and that online a brief note saying “I enjoyed reading your profile, and I love Julia Child’s books, too! Have a good day!” was about the same thing. Clearly, this paid off.
Sitting around waiting for Mr. Right to happen wasn’t my style; if marriage was my vocation, I figured I’d have fun and polish my social skills while trying to find Mr. Right, and if in the end I didn’t–well, I’d have had some fun and would have better social skills! Win-win.There are some very socially-awkward people on there, as there are on probably any dating site. I was in my early twenties, and got contacted a few times by men in their late 40s or 50s. There were a few on there–and I expect, still are–who were in the unfortunate position of being nearly of retirement age but wanting to marry a woman in her 20s, early 30s max, to have a (preferably large) family rather than a woman closer to their age. Again, definitely very much in the minority. I never had anyone contact me again after I replied with a polite but firm “no, thank you.”
All in all, I liked the stronger focus on orthodoxy, the clarity on what people believed about Church teachings, and the longer personal essay questions about oneself, faith, and family life. The small number of members and, later, the technical issues were the biggest problems.
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fin
Guest
Thank you for the responses. I guess the only way to interact with other members is to send them a direct message. Just my opinion, I think it would be nice if AMS had a forum so you could talk, not just with members of the opposite sex, for friendships. I already paid for my account, might as well make the most of it.
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GraceUnderFire
Guest
However, I know success stories where the women messaged first or dropped their hanky.
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polki
Guest
Thank you for your thoughtful response and advise. I can see why you are a success story. The questions that you have to fill out with online dating have pluses and minuses. It gives people a good idea of who you are and where you’re coming from, but sometimes it isn’t detailed enough, or people read things differently. For example a question about how much you drink: “socially” could mean once a month to one person, or every day for another person. So it’s good that they have the essay option.Insofar as the Extraordinary Form (Latin Mass) goes, I’d say that a disproportionate number of members attend it as compared to, say, the general US single Catholic population, but not an overwhelming number. At a guess, I’d say that perhaps 20% of members attended it at least sometimes? There were a few people who attended SSPX chapels at least sometimes, but I’d say those were very, VERY much in the minority of those who attended the EF sometimes–I believe in my year+ on there, I encountered (“encountered” meaning “saw it mentioned on their profile”) two.
The members seemed fairly accepting of annulled/single parents/etc overall, though I’d say that those over 30 were more likely to be accepting than those under 30.
When I say orthodoxy, I meant general prayer habits, Mass attendance, belief in core Catholic beliefs about the sacraments and marital theology, and so on. The profiles have fields for things like belief in the Eucharist, frequency of Confessions, beliefs about contraception, NFP, etc that one selects answers for–“I believe in using contraception in some circumstances” vs “I believe that prayerful use of NFP and abstinence is the only acceptable way to space children,” for example. In my time there, while I saw a number of profiles that weren’t filled out at all in these areas (and guys, take note–if you didn’t bother to fill out basic areas like what your beliefs were, I stopped reading and moved on), I saw exactly ONE person who thought that contraception was okay, and he was in the process of converting and didn’t understand the Church’s teaching on contraception vs NFP/abstinence.
From what I saw re baggage, the most important thing was to be honest without being too honest–which is common sense anyway. I know another woman who met her husband on AMS; she and he both had children from previous relationships but were free to marry in the church. They didn’t meet the other person’s kids until they’d dated for about a year.
It can be very quiet on there; as I mentioned, it is a much smaller community than Catholic Match etc. However, I also found that it could be as quiet (or not quiet) as you made it. I actually wrote my DH first because I liked his profile. I wrote letters to a lot of guys on there and vice versa. I figured that if I were at a party, I could smile at a guy or make small talk (“Isn’t this wine great?” “How do you know Tony?” etc), and that online a brief note saying “I enjoyed reading your profile, and I love Julia Child’s books, too! Have a good day!” was about the same thing. Clearly, this paid off.
There are some very socially-awkward people on there, as there are on probably any dating site. I was in my early twenties, and got contacted a few times by men in their late 40s or 50s. There were a few on there–and I expect, still are–who were in the unfortunate position of being nearly of retirement age but wanting to marry a woman in her 20s, early 30s max, to have a (preferably large) family rather than a woman closer to their age. Again, definitely very much in the minority. I never had anyone contact me again after I replied with a polite but firm “no, thank you.”
All in all, I liked the stronger focus on orthodoxy, the clarity on what people believed about Church teachings, and the longer personal essay questions about oneself, faith, and family life. The small number of members and, later, the technical issues were the biggest problems.
All in all, AMS sounds like a good site. Thanks again for the info and God Bless!
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Luvz2travel
Guest
Well I signed and tried it and 2 days later the site disappeared. Not only was it expense but when it was appearing the site ran slow. I got no refund and the site was on and off for almost a month. I never renewed. I was on there years before and only ever got interest from guys on the other side of the world. I would save your money . A friend of mine did meet his wife there so to be fair it does work for some.
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1ke
Guest
Don’t have unrealistic expectations, that’s my advice. I was on AMS for 2 years before I met my DH. I talked with probably 10-12 guys during those 2 years, and met/dated about 6 of them (in and out of state) after correspondence who didn’t work out for various reasons. Still friends with one who ended up not being “the one”… he and I are Facebook friends. Correspondence only with probably another 10 or so, and some one-and-done emails.
You have to have a thick skin, because people have their own agendas and sometimes act flaky. Which is no different than people you meet in other contexts.
DH wrote to some girls during his 2 years on the site-- not much response. He did correspond with a few, and met/dated one girl who turned out not to be “the one”. He had a lot of “no thank you” replies. He said at times he got discouraged and thought he should just give up. I am glad he did not. He took one more chance and wrote to me… so glad he did.
My DH and I met in 2003 and dated a year, engaged a year, and now coming up on our 10 year wedding anniversary. We were in different states and would never have met without AMS.
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hwriggles4
Guest
I am a member of Ave Maria Singles, although the past few years (outside of going on a few AMS trips, which I recommend) I haven’t utilized the site, primarily because I have made enough single female friends that I would like to pursue.
The site did “crash” around 2012, and there were many delays for extended periods (months) in making updates. Unfortunately, many members gave up on Ave Maria Singles (AMS) during this time. The site was re-launched around April 2013 with an updated format. It took me a while to figure out the settings and the navigation, but it still works. Something must be going right - I don’t log in very often, but when I do it seems like AMS is getting a good following of younger people (20-35), which is a good target audience.
IMHO, I think many young people have grown tired of some of the online dating sites, where it is frustrating that people may not write you back, and I have friends who have had bad experiences on other dating sites (even e-Harmony), and I do think AMS does a good job of reaching the Catholics that are 7/7 (the first things I would look at are the responses on abortion, contraception, and their availability of a sacramental marriage) and more of their success stories reflect this. Statistically speaking, nominal Catholics have not had as much success on AMS, and people with incomplete profiles receive very little correspondence.
Yes, AMS no longer has a “forum”. It was good for outreach and posting about issues such as Church teaching, inviting others to Catholic activities, dating questions, etc. I met some good female friends through this “forum” myself, and there are even two success stories where AMS members met through this “forum”. My opinion was it was hard to monitor and regulate, and like some of the posts on the Catholic Answers Forum, some had to be shut down due to them getting out of hand, and some members were banned from using the forums.
AMS also is set up where only men can write women and women can write men. This is to encourage pursuing “one on one”. I think one of the other sites men can write other men in their area for say, organizing a basketball game or a fishing trip (nothing wrong with that), or just for sharing ideas. AMS at one time did have a feature where you could “refer someone to a friend”, and I did receive some of these. I also returned the favor, and at least two of my friends did get dates when the girls that I referred them to. I also got a few “dropped hankies”, and I met two women personally who did this. It’s OK for a woman to write a man first, and there are some success stories (I personally know one woman who did this) from AMS where the woman wrote first.
One complaint I do hear about AMS from members and past members is there aren’t as many people on there, and most of their success stories (most, but not all) involve long distance relationships. The ladies tell me there really aren’t many men on there, so some men say they feel like the kid in the candy store at first (I did). Before signing up now, one can view some profiles of real members (it was not like that when I joined - I joined after a friend of mine got several dates out of it, and another friend got engaged - the friend who referred me met his wife a couple years later through AMS) and get an idea of what the site is like. AMS has a one time fee, instead of a fee for a certain period of time, unless a member wants the option pack, which for a fee is renewed annually. With the option pack, a member can add extra photos, etc…
I do recommend Ave Maria Singles. I have been tempted to join another site, but I’ve heard from many other Catholic friends that some of the other sites attract mainly nominal Catholics. However, I did attend two of the National Catholic Singles Conferences where the Catholic Match Institute gave some presentations, and I was impressed with the speakers and the information provided by the Catholic Match Institute.
The site did “crash” around 2012, and there were many delays for extended periods (months) in making updates. Unfortunately, many members gave up on Ave Maria Singles (AMS) during this time. The site was re-launched around April 2013 with an updated format. It took me a while to figure out the settings and the navigation, but it still works. Something must be going right - I don’t log in very often, but when I do it seems like AMS is getting a good following of younger people (20-35), which is a good target audience.
IMHO, I think many young people have grown tired of some of the online dating sites, where it is frustrating that people may not write you back, and I have friends who have had bad experiences on other dating sites (even e-Harmony), and I do think AMS does a good job of reaching the Catholics that are 7/7 (the first things I would look at are the responses on abortion, contraception, and their availability of a sacramental marriage) and more of their success stories reflect this. Statistically speaking, nominal Catholics have not had as much success on AMS, and people with incomplete profiles receive very little correspondence.
Yes, AMS no longer has a “forum”. It was good for outreach and posting about issues such as Church teaching, inviting others to Catholic activities, dating questions, etc. I met some good female friends through this “forum” myself, and there are even two success stories where AMS members met through this “forum”. My opinion was it was hard to monitor and regulate, and like some of the posts on the Catholic Answers Forum, some had to be shut down due to them getting out of hand, and some members were banned from using the forums.
AMS also is set up where only men can write women and women can write men. This is to encourage pursuing “one on one”. I think one of the other sites men can write other men in their area for say, organizing a basketball game or a fishing trip (nothing wrong with that), or just for sharing ideas. AMS at one time did have a feature where you could “refer someone to a friend”, and I did receive some of these. I also returned the favor, and at least two of my friends did get dates when the girls that I referred them to. I also got a few “dropped hankies”, and I met two women personally who did this. It’s OK for a woman to write a man first, and there are some success stories (I personally know one woman who did this) from AMS where the woman wrote first.
One complaint I do hear about AMS from members and past members is there aren’t as many people on there, and most of their success stories (most, but not all) involve long distance relationships. The ladies tell me there really aren’t many men on there, so some men say they feel like the kid in the candy store at first (I did). Before signing up now, one can view some profiles of real members (it was not like that when I joined - I joined after a friend of mine got several dates out of it, and another friend got engaged - the friend who referred me met his wife a couple years later through AMS) and get an idea of what the site is like. AMS has a one time fee, instead of a fee for a certain period of time, unless a member wants the option pack, which for a fee is renewed annually. With the option pack, a member can add extra photos, etc…
I do recommend Ave Maria Singles. I have been tempted to join another site, but I’ve heard from many other Catholic friends that some of the other sites attract mainly nominal Catholics. However, I did attend two of the National Catholic Singles Conferences where the Catholic Match Institute gave some presentations, and I was impressed with the speakers and the information provided by the Catholic Match Institute.
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hwriggles4
Guest
UbiCaritas, you gave some really good advice and suggestions here. Being single, putting yourself out there is part of the game. A prominent Catholic speaker said one Valentine’s Day weekend about two years after she married said, “if I wasn’t called to marriage, I wouldn’t be dating”. How many men are spending their nights out at a sports bar with their buddies?Well, DH and I met on AMS, so I might be a bit biased towards it.
For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine that “window shopping” applied to us. Dh is very handsome and in very good shape. I, however, have a pretty face (IMNSHO
One thing I’d suggest if you join any singles’ website is making a concerted effort to contact people. I tried to have at least one correspondence going on at any time, and usually more like two. Obviously, only one worked out, but the correspondences and the dates I went on with various men from AMS both helped me with my communication, made sure that I was “out there,” and also helped me narrow down what, precisely, I was looking for in a spouse besides that he’d be a practicing Catholic.
All the same, I’m very glad that AMS exists, as you might imagine, and I’m more grateful than I can say that DH and I met through them!
Also, as far as the content of Ave Maria Singles (AMS), AMS once advertised on their site, “fewer members, but more marriages.”
Naskor, I have met Mr. Buono. I don’t recall him saying anything about shutting down parish singles’ groups. However, I will share some experiences with some singles’ groups:
My personal experience with parish singles’ groups in the 1990’s (and I went to at least two, and was a member of one for a few years, and spent six months as an officer) was unfortunately, running into issues with drama queens, cliques (some people just wanted to hang out with their clique, and would ignore others), free loaders (people showing up for pot luck dinners without bringing anything - I can tell an offline story about this, and there were a few incidents at restaurants of “dine and dashers” - no joke, where others got stuck paying their bill), and some of the men showing up would sometimes literally saying things like, “where are the good looking girls - I’m going home”.
There were also people that would just show up for parties and happy hours. When work like community service needed to be done, or a booth for the parish picnic, or volunteers for other ministries, only a handful would show up (actually, the “workers” were the ones who became my friends - many I still keep in touch with today).
Naskor, I don’t know how old you are, but if you are in your mid-20’s or even in your early-30’s, check out a Catholic Young Adult Group in your area. I helped start a young adult group when I was a young adult (at the same time I was a member of the singles’ group that I discussed above), and I much preferred the young adult group. I found the Young Adult Group to have more “faithful Catholics”, much less drama, and much less personality issues. If there isn’t a Catholic Young Adult Group in your area, consider beginning one.
A
ack
Guest
This brings up a good point, which holds true both for people that you meet online and people that you meet in person. Within any group of men or women, there will be a number of people who are narcissistic, flaky, dysfunctional, or just plain clueless. Dating Catholics won’t necessary prevent you from meeting these people – in fact, I think you are much more likely to meet certain dysfunctional types in Catholic groups or websites, because they have found a group which they will never be excluded from.
In my limited experience in meeting Catholics online, I would suggest that you (this is directed at anyone on the thread, rather than the previous poster specifically) don’t spend a lot of time cultivating a “pen-pal” friendship – instead, try to go on a date in person as soon as you can tell that there aren’t any obvious deal-breakers. Then, if the person is clearly someone who you wouldn’t have pursued if you had met them in real life, it’s probably better to break it off rather than spending more time chatting.
Although it may initially seem like interacting online is a time-saver – making it easy to greatly expand your pool of possible matches – this is deceptive, because it takes much longer to carefully craft an e-mail than it does to communicate the same sentiment in person.
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Luvz2travel
Guest
Waste of time as with most online dating. Tried it for years nothing came of it but meeting folks just playing around. Ava was expensive though if you want more bang for you buck go with catholicmatch. They at least have a forum and events where you can meet others and exchange ideas. It’s also cheaper. Just my 2 cents
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