Overview

Living with an STD can make it quite challenging to initiate and sustain a relationship, be it a friendship or romance. STD Friends is a popular support and dating website that makes life a lot easier for people living with STDs. STD Friends is a lot more than just a dating forum dedicated to finding other like-minded singles facing the same problem as you are. Its scope extends to publishing blogs and articles, finding support and advice, and making new friends to share your problems with. STD Friends boasts of thousands of members who create a strong network to make the world a better place for STD positive people.

Sign Up

The process of STD Friends is pretty straightforward and not all that different from any other dating site you’ve come across. You get started by signing up for free. The first step is to provide general information about yourself, and this covers all the basic stuff like your name, gender, age, ethnicity, height, country and zip code details. You will be asked which STD you are living with. You will also have to describe what you are looking for on the site. Here, you can choose amongst a good range of options starting from email, chatting or friendship to hook-ups and long-term relationships, not to mention marriage.

STD Friends will then ask you for miscellaneous stuff like your headline, description and display image. As these are the things that other users will see while interacting with you on STD Friends, it is advisable to pay some attention to detail while updating this section. Adding a high-quality image helps as you have better chances of getting a date. But even if you choose not to, you can still see other people’s pictures. The differentiates from other sites that follow a tit-for-tat policy in viewing profile images. In the final step of security verification, I faced some technical hiccups while entering the security captcha, as the image failed to load initially. I realized it was due to image blocker and ad blocker extensions in my browser, so make sure you disable these before the signup process.

Pricing

New users can join as standard members with a free lifetime membership. If you want to experience the full features of STD Friends, you can choose from the following three membership types:

1. $24.95 for a 1-month membership ($0.83 per day)
2. $54.95 for a 3-month membership ($0.61 per day)
3. $79.95 for a 6-month membership ($0.44 per day)

The 6-month membership is your best option if you are in search of a serious relationship.

Safety and Privacy

You need to be careful how much you share because all members can view the details of your profile. However, you can easily ignore or block users and report any unpleasant incidents to the site administrator. You’ll probably be safe as long as you follow the golden rule of online dating – if you’re planning to take a promising relationship offline, make sure you conduct your first face-to-face meeting in a safe public area.

Features

The Standard (free) membership offers a host of features that include:

• Search options and full profile views
• View full member photos
• Rate member photos
• Personal blog with unlimited posting

By upgrading to any of the paid membership plans, you can enjoy the following additional features:

• Sending personal messages
• Sending greetings (ice breakers)
• Live chat room
• Instant messages+video
• Posting on other members’ timelines

STD Friends has also developed an Android App that’ll help you maintain your relationships on the go. Its features are very similar to the website and integrate well with your smartphone’s location settings. Though I experienced no issues while downloading, installing and logging into the app, some users seem to be facing issues with first-time registrations, image uploads, and repetitive information requests. These are hopefully minor glitches that’ll disappear with a couple of bug fixes and updates.

Which STD Singles Does STD Friends Cater To?

STD Friends caters to an audience covering virtually every type of STD. The site lists 13 types of STDs, including AIDS, chancroid, chlamydia, CMV, gonorrhea, HPV, HSV, hepatitis, HIV, and syphilis. All other STDs are bunched under “Others”, this gives it an edge over many sites with a Herpes-only audience.

STD Support

The support forum is easily the best aspect of STD Friends. Teeming with helpful individuals who are ready to provide emotional and informational support, the forum enjoys a steady stream of articles, stories and blog posts. You’ll find a lot of useful stuff like how-to articles, relationship advice, motivational blogs user stories and experiences, articles on symptoms and treatments, home remedies, myth busters and much, much more.

Room For Improvement

I can’t help but feel that the user base is pretty limited. It doesn’t have enough diversity and app users are still below 5000. The design of STD Friends could also do with a makeover as it is a little too simplistic and lacks the visual sophistication of other STD singles dating sites.

Verdict

STD Friends functions just like most social networking sites regarding sending friend requests, liking pictures and chatting with members, it makes it a great option for singles who are new to the big bad world of online dating. Everything about STD Friends is pretty intuitive. But that also means that it has no outstanding features that set it apart from the other STD dating sites out there. It doesn’t offer as much bang for your buck as some other sites might. What sets STD Friends apart is the excellent database of informative articles about STD illnesses that the site provides. Everything considered it’s a great place to get started, make new friends and build new relationships.

STDFriends.com can’t be reached already. Please join PositiveSingles.com to meet other HSV singles, or check the top list of best herpes dating sites.