My Gay Peeps is an online dating site designed for gay men to meet for a variety of reasons, although in much of the promotional material, it would seem to imply that casual encounters were one of the main goals. At first, I was somewhat excited by the prospect of what the site might have to offer, but in the end, it really isn't anything that special. In fact, judging from what I found out through an independent website that tracks the volume of visitors, it isn't doing so well as far as gaining any momentum and increasing its popularity.

Nevertheless, while I was visiting there were over 400 members online, which would represent a real chance to make connections depending on where you were living. There is no fancy proximity search based on zip or postal codes, so you have to select broader geographic areas. You'll have a choice of country, state or province and a dropdown menu of select cities. Obviously, if you don't happen to live very close to one of the places listed that will make things a tad complicated.

As far as contact methods, there is onsite email, instant messaging and live chat rooms. I did have some issues with link for the instant messenger, which kept returning an error that it didn't recognize me as a premium subscriber. Which although I did not pay for a membership, all new members get about five days of free premium access. I say it's about that amount of time, as it depends on what time of day you sign up and how long it takes your profile to be screened.

In my case, I'm not entirely sure how long it took to get the approval as I started towards the end of my workday and left the office less than an hour later, before I had a full-access. I think the idea of granting new members a chance to experience the site fully is great, although as I said, I had issues getting the instant messaging to work. Nevertheless, even if I had to rely on email, I'd probably have a chance to make at least one connection in during the trial period without even paying yet.

As I mentioned in my introduction, the biggest issue with the site is the lack of visitors. My Gay Peeps is worth checking out for the free trial alone, but unless you upgrade it offers little. Luckily, monthly membership is inexpensive at about half the cost of most competitors.