Questions/Experiences on Ave Maria Singles (AMS)

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Hi,
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I am a practicing Catholic guy with no experience in dating. (Yes, that’s right.) From CAF and other websites I find that there are primarily two places to meet practicing Catholics online: Catholic Match, and Ave Maria Singles (AMS). I am considering joining both of these (i.e. I have not joined yet), but this post is solely dedicated to Ave Maria Singles (AMS).
**1. Premium Membership/Ordinary Membership: **

Which features of Premium Membership did you find useful? (Is this avemariasingles.com/cost-to-join-Ave-Maria-Singles.cfm the complete list?) I find the only “Drop Hints” feature possibly useful – the rest I can probably do without.

I am wondering if the “Private Chat” is only between Premium Members, or can also be used between a Premium member (myself) and another Ordinary Member?

Finally, I am wondering if you can take an Ordinary Membership and then upgrade to Premium later by paying the difference.

**2. AMS Privacy: **
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Did you receive any ***spam*** that came from the information you provided to AMS? Their privacy info at [avemariasingles.com/terms2.cfm](http://www.avemariasingles.com/terms2.cfm) seems to say that they “and their affiliates” can use any information you provide for “any marketing purposes”. I would hate them to “sell” the info I provide them since I am paying to use the site.
3. Profile:
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Could you please provide any tips, or ***“rookie mistakes”*** that I might make while creating my profile – esp. the ones that cannot be changed later?
Thank you very much.
O. O.
 
I am a member of Ave Maria Singles. I do recommend it, and I know at least 20 people personally who met their spouse there. The marriages that I am familiar with are sincere, holy Catholic marriages too. The majority of the people I have met there have been good people, and serious about their faith.

I do recommend being open to long distance correspondence too, and take the initiative. E-mail and phone calls can only do so much. You need some face-to-face contact and time spent in person. The founder recommends that if you are just e-mailing for say, 3 months without meeting, you are wasting each other’s time.

As far as the premium features, I recommend taking the Option Pack. This allows you access to the forums, and you have an opportunity to post more photographs in your profile. I know there is a one on one chat feature, and an AMS mobile/text feature, where you can connect via phone without giving out your number personally. I think you need the Option Pack, plus the two of you need to be on each other’s contact list. As for myself, I prefer to ask a girl for a phone call setup when I feel like we are establishing a positive form of communication and a comfort zone, so I haven’t used the chat feature or the mobile feature.

I don’t think AMS gives your name to marketing places. I think that would be a violation of privacy. I haven’t received anything from a mailing list.

I also recommend making some of their trip activities, such as the AMS Retreat, which will be held at Malvern Retreat House outside of Philadelphia ¶ this year from June 22 to June 24, 2012. There is also a Padre Pio trip scheduled for October this year.

Hope this helps, and good luck. I hope others here share their experiences.

Dennis
 
My husband and I met via AMS and I highly recommend it. We celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary later this year.

I cannot comment on those features, as they did not exist when we were online-- wow, 10 years ago.

I can say that they respect your privacy. I never received any spam.

My advice: be yourself.
 
I met my husband on AMS. I don’t remember there being premium member features. We really didn’t use any of the features beside the email and profiles. My husband asked to meet me about 4 months after we began emailing each other, and only began calling me because I insisted we talk on the phone before meeting in person. We had been corresponding for about 6 months when we finally met and it was at that point that we consider the beginning of our courtship. There were definitely no services for text messaging. We had to get to a point where we were comfortable exchanging phone numbers.

The value I found in the site was not having to renew membership. I felt I needed a site I could neglect for months. I had been on CM for years and felt it made me discontent about being single. I prayed about ending my subscription because I was concerned that I wasn’t meeting any devout Catholic men where I lived at all. I didn’t want to be desperate, but I wanted a way to put myself out there.
 
I met my guy on AMS I have a premium membership but I’m not sure I know about the Drop Hints feature that could just be for the guys, ladies can drop hankies which is probably the same thing.

I like that I could have restricted who contacted me, the age restriction was very important to me as well as only those eligible for the Sacrament of Marriage.

You can make changes to your profile at anytime, so except for your name I don’t think there is anything that cannot be changed later.

The forums are nice everyone is friendly and we have some great discussions going sometimes. We recently celebrated the engagement of 2 forum regulars and we kind of got to see their relationship develop so there are some great successes.

I like AMS, I got 2 discounts (a non-US discount and a referral discount that is available to anyone, I have a code you can use if you want) and I do not have to keep renewing my membership, I met a great guy whom I hope to marry and I met some great people by participating in the forums. There used to be a live discussion with Anthony Buono last year but that went on hiatus and I’m not sure if they will be re-introducing it, that was also great as we discussed some great topics LDRs, Catholic vs Non-Catholic Dating, just to name two that I really liked.

Read the success stories or try the write a married couple, your letter actually goes to someone who met and married on the site and they answer your questions from their own experiences. You don’t have to be a member to write, I wrote before I joined and the reply helped me make up my mind.
 
Thank you hwriggles4, 1ke, twoangels and trinichiqn for taking the time to write a detailed reply. As trinichiqn mentioned, if I can edit my profile at any time, then I could obviously correct my mistakes later. *(I always make mistakes, so this is important for me. 😦 ) *

Discount Code:
Thanks **trinichiqn **for pointing this out, I did not think about it. I just Googled for the code, and there seems to be a lot of codes that they say would work. E.g. avemariasingles.com/about_Ave_Maria_Single_Catholics.cfm?RefMemID=CY0044 gives CY0044, and sacatholic.com/san-antonio-catholic-singles/ gives DA0087

I think the following URL works best. avemariasingles.com/signup/signup1.cfm?coupon=am2011
You seem to get the $104 for the signature membership (no renewal, no expiry) (instead of $179 without coupon i.e. $50 discount, and $25 for referral). The premium membership is $25 irrespective of the discounts.

If you want me to put in your referral code *(so that you get the $25 according to avemariasingles.com/affiliateJoinStep2.cfm) *then please PM me by tomorrow evening US CDT. I would be joining AMS, once I get home from work. Thank you so much.

Thanks again guys,
O. O.
 
I have heard so many good recommendations for them. Best of luck! For myself, I wish they had some kind of a free trial or something though, there’s no way I can afford them.
 
Dear Elisabth51,
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I am praying for you ... Hope you start a piggy bank to get on AMS ;) Dating usually costs money.
O. O.
 
I’ve been a member of AMS off and on for several years, and I’ve not been happy with it – not from the aspect of the site itself but the people on it. I’ve been to one of their retreats and absolutely loved it. However, when initiating communication very few gentleman even have the common courtesy to respond. Not even a “Thank you, but I’m not interested” response.

So I’ve chosen to not participate anymore. I still check out their retreats and trip options because I like the idea of traveling with like-minded Catholics but not with any goal towards meeting someone or initiating contact.
 
How traditional is AMS? In term of the dropping a hanky feature for women. Is it recommended or is it seen as forward?
 
SeekNFind said:
How traditional is AMS? In term of the dropping a hanky feature for women. Is it recommended or is it seen as forward?
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Dropping a hanky is sending a message to the guy that you are interested but leaving it up to him to make a move or not.
 
Last time I checked, there’s no AMS here in the Far East. There’s sites such as Mamboo or Facebook, but I never recommend those sites for Catholics seeking romance.
 
trinichiqn said:
Dropping a hanky is sending a message to the guy that you are interested but leaving it up to him to make a move or not.
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Thanks for explaining. I thought that the dropping a hanky was like a “wink” or a “nudge.” I guess sending a message is taking a bigger risk but as you say, the ball is back in his court 🙂
 
I am a full member of AMS and was one on Catholic Match. I actually met a wonderful lady at a regular young adult retreat a few months ago, so I disabled both of the those accounts (I just made my AMS account dormant, and I completely deleted my CM one)

AMS tends to have more traditional/orthodox people on it. Much more marriage minded regardless of age. I went on it just that intention, to find a spouse, not “just” a girl friend. I know 3 couples personally that found their spouses on AMS. They all now have very happy and holy marriages. All of the had long distance correspondences with their future husband and or wife.
I personally corresponded with about 3-4 wonderful ladies, and I entered into a relationship with one, but broke up during further discernment. I stayed for the weekend with another lady and her family. I also had some great friendships with others.

Catholic match seems to be more of a catch-all catholic match-making service. You will find people with varying levels of faith, all the way from cafeteria Catholics to strict traditionalists. Quantity seems to be greater for people in a given area than AMS. The do have a pretty good temperament test that is included in the site.

As for subscriptions, it is give or take. AMS you pay a one-time fee of under 200 and you are a lifetime member and you can message and correspond with anyone you care to. You never need to renew. You can get premium features for a small fee every month, but I personally never found it worth it. You can add more pictures to your gallery and other things, but the initial fee pretty much gives you all you really need.

Catholic match you can pay by the month or every six months. This is convienient if you just want to try it and really see who is in you area, or message someone that you found intriguing. You CAN just have a free subscription, but all you can do is view basic profiles and send a smile emote, you CANNOT send a message or otherwise correspond.

Hope this helps, and God bless you in you vocational endeavors:cool:🙂

If you have any other questions, just Pm me brother!
 
JeraldW said:
I am a full member of AMS and was one on Catholic Match. I actually met a wonderful lady at a regular young adult retreat a few months ago, so I disabled both of the those accounts (I just made my AMS account dormant, and I completely deleted my CM one)

AMS tends to have more traditional/orthodox people on it. Much more marriage minded regardless of age. I went on it just that intention, to find a spouse, not “just” a girl friend. I know 3 couples personally that found their spouses on AMS. They all now have very happy and holy marriages. All of the had long distance correspondences with their future husband and or wife.
I personally corresponded with about 3-4 wonderful ladies, and I entered into a relationship with one, but broke up during further discernment. I stayed for the weekend with another lady and her family. I also had some great friendships with others.

Catholic match seems to be more of a catch-all catholic match-making service. You will find people with varying levels of faith, all the way from cafeteria Catholics to strict traditionalists. Quantity seems to be greater for people in a given area than AMS. The do have a pretty good temperament test that is included in the site.

As for subscriptions, it is give or take. AMS you pay a one-time fee of under 200 and you are a lifetime member and you can message and correspond with anyone you care to. You never need to renew. You can get premium features for a small fee every month, but I personally never found it worth it. You can add more pictures to your gallery and other things, but the initial fee pretty much gives you all you really need.

Catholic match you can pay by the month or every six months. This is convienient if you just want to try it and really see who is in you area, or message someone that you found intriguing. You CAN just have a free subscription, but all you can do is view basic profiles and send a smile emote, you CANNOT send a message or otherwise correspond.

Hope this helps, and God bless you in you vocational endeavors:cool:🙂

If you have any other questions, just Pm me brother!
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That’s expensive especially for those in the East!
 
o_o_82 said:
Dear Elisabth51,
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I am praying for you ... Hope you start a piggy bank to get on AMS ;) Dating usually costs money.
O. O.
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Thanks. I got the discount thing…and signed up, a day later I started emailing with one man that I am still emailing with two weeks later…so, we’ll see. It does seem to me to be a, I guess better, site than others I had looked at and not participated in. The men seem more serious about marriage and more traditional. Thanks for the prayers.
 
Elisabeth51 said:
Thanks. I got the discount thing…and signed up, a day later I started emailing with one man that I am still emailing with two weeks later…so, we’ll see. It does seem to me to be a, I guess better, site than others I had looked at and not participated in. The men seem more serious about marriage and more traditional. Thanks for the prayers.
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Just out of curiosity: did you e-mail him first?

Good luck with everything!
 
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