Reviewed 2013-12-26 l Last update on 2020-10-28
Gay Bear Dating is a site that has been specifically set up to meet and match gay bears with other gay bears and their admirers. It covers the whole world, you can search locally or abroad, you can build up a profile, check out photos and do all those things usually associated with a dating and hook-up site, and here you can also chat online. Add in your video camera and you can video chat on line and stay within the safety of the bear only environment.
There are certain things that a good chat/hook-up/dating site should have and you will know what you are looking for before you hit the pages. The nice thing about this site is that you can more or less see everything before you pay over any money. You start off by registering and you can't just put up a couple of words and then start browsing, this isn't set up for voyeurs on the hunt for pics of real, amateur bears and their cocks. You need to spend a few moments (but not long) adding in your introduction. You can skip parts of the later process but if you are to use the site seriously then the more you put in the more you will get out.
So, register for free and then scout around. When you find something you want to do, or someone you want to see, you discover that you need to upgrade to full access. You can take a three day trial and this will re-bill at the standard rate if you decide not to cancel it. From then on you will be able to use all the features of the site. More about them lower down, but for now, who actually is here?
I didn't actually see any numbers in the members' area, but here is a large search function where you search by area. There was no drop-down for country so you have to actually put in the name of a place and then search within a certain distance of it. Doing this in one small area of one small country and I was told there were a couple of hundred guys. Only 14 of them had photos and you're not going to be that interested without a photo are you? That's what I was saying about uploading as much info as possible when you sign up. If you search by city you get the chance to filter down to parts of that city and also whether the guys have photos or not. It's hard to say but I reckon this site is well used, and that there are probably thousands of guys on it, both bears and their admirers, and it's simply a question of what area you are in and who you are looking for.
Some guys have more photos than others. The guys from the USA seem to lead the way in this respect. You view a profile and then you see to the left his collection of images. It's another nice thing this: you can keep some photos private and only show them to people who message you. This filters out the voyeurs who use sites like this to find pics of other people and yet don't actually want to meet them. The images you do see are, of course, of various qualities. To make it easier for you there is a browse photos function in the left column, on the home page. This lets you see the thumbnails from profiles, 20 at a time, click one and then reach the rest of the profile that way. Again, it is impossible to count the number of images here but I was clicking away 20 at a time for ages and still didn't get to the end.
So: varied guys, both bears and friends, cubs and chubbies, and some but not all with photos. Sexy pics are kept private.
I liked the layout and design of Gay Bear Dating apart from some misleading links and adverts. For example, there is a Gay Cams link in the top menu but this takes you off to Flirt For Free and a new sign up is needed there to go all the way. To the right of pages were Our Friends and Cams Online and so forth and again these were 3rd party upsells. I just felt there was too much of this going on. Once I am in my members' area I like to stay there and not be directed out.
The search function works well here but a drop-down list would be much easier. You not only need to type in the name of a place, say London (and then which borough of London!) but you also need to know how to spell it in the local transliteration. So, again a wild example, Rhodes in Greece comes out as Rodos, Gr. And the site seems to think it knows where you are. It gave me a default search of somewhere in my country, but nowhere near where I was. There is an advanced search facility with loads of different criteria, but still you have to specify a place first, and it can't be a country.
It is though easy to upload your pics and your profile details and you can add quite a lot of information. There is a members' chat thing happening as well, and you have an instant message facility like you do on Facebook and other social networking sites. You can block members, you can keep a Little Black Book and kind of have a favourites collection of guys, and there is a Rapid Match service as well and here you are taken through images of guys who are near you and you can say if you like them or not. It works both ways and when you and someone out there like each other you get matched up by a message.
Gay Bear Dating could do with a slight change to its search facility and let us search by country, or on a wider basis than the specific areas, but if you are only looking locally it will be great. There are one or two too many adverts for other cam and hook-up sites for my liking, once I am signed up I don't want to be directed out to another similar site. But the more you put in here the more you will get out, it's not a bad price and it seems to be well used.
