How Does the OurTime Dating Site Work?

On OurTime you can create a page for free and browse a selection of other members, but you need a subscription to read and reply to messages. From Discover you send a member a Like, which opens the message box so you can write a first message. From Search you click a member's picture to reach the message box. OurTime shows its prices when you subscribe, and they change, so check the purchase screen before you pay.

A free OurTime member can build a page and look around. OurTime's FAQ says free members can browse a selection of profiles, and that a search shows only a limited number of singles at a time.

That is enough to find out whether the site has women near you who look like your kind of person. It is not enough to hold a conversation, which is where the subscription comes in. Use the free stage for one job, working out whether the pool is worth paying for.

OurTime gives you two routes to the message box, and which one you use depends on where you started.

• In Discover, you send a member a Like. The Like opens the message box, and you can write a first message.
• In Search, you click a member's picture, and that takes you to the message box.

The Like route is gentler. A Like tells her you noticed her before you write a word, so your first message arrives with a little context. The Search route puts you straight into writing, so the message has to carry more.

OurTime's FAQ says a subscription is required to read and reply to messages. That is the main reason a man pays. A woman can write to you, and without a subscription you cannot read what she sent or answer it.

This is worth knowing before you spend an evening writing. A free member can put effort into a first message and then hit a wall the moment she answers.

Some men subscribe and still cannot read or reply. OurTime's FAQ lists three causes that can each block messaging:

• The subscription is not recognized.
• The payment method is invalid.
• You are logged into a different profile than the one you paid for.

The third catches men who made more than one page. Check which page you are signed into, and check that the payment went through, before you contact support. It is almost always one of these three.

OurTime deletes messages automatically after a set stretch of months. So a conversation you want to keep is not safe in the app indefinitely.

If you get a real conversation going with a woman, treat the chat as a place to arrange a meeting, not as a record. Move to her number once the exchange has some warmth. Keep anything you need, such as a time and a place, somewhere you control.

The site works the same way as every dating site on one point. A woman who is browsing sees many men, and most of them write a flat opener such as "Hi, how are you". It tells her nothing and gives her nothing to answer.

Pick one specific thing on her page and react to it with a little personality. Keep it to one or two sentences, and end with something she can answer in a line. a dating coach's aim is to get from a first message to her number in four to seven exchanges, and to bring up a drink early as a light idea and not a formal invitation.

A subscription only buys you the ability to message. It does not make a woman want to answer.

What does is the page she lands on. Make the lead picture recent and clear, with your face easy to see, and write a few lines that only you would write. My blunt version is that a boring, average page gets the average result, which is no replies at all.

Decide with a short test. Use the free stage to see whether there are women near you whom you would genuinely want to meet. If there are, a short subscription is a fair experiment, with your numbers written down first: messages sent, replies, and dates planned.

If the numbers do not move after a few weeks, put the effort into your page and your first messages and stop paying. A subscription multiplies what you already have, and it cannot rescue a page that gets no answers.