The gap between good and bad platforms here is what the verification step actually proves.
I gave the site about 3 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching how many profiles logged in this week.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, whether the active count matches the claimed count matters more than raw volume on the service.
What separates the site from the rest of the field is how many profiles logged in this week.
Reply rate on the site roughly doubled once I stopped leading with a compliment, though how many profiles logged in this week never budged.
Happy to go into more detail on best gay dating website for men if it is useful.
Different crowd on DatingFly's free tier, which suited me better.