A lot of sites send you automated emails that look like from members but really they are not. You can spot them a mile off because they all say something quite generic or it just sounds really fake, some of them will also come from women who live literally hundreds of miles away (which could be real, but generally is a bit fishy). They do this so that you'll sign up & pay for their site.

Kowalski is right - Tinder & POF are free but from friends I've heard POF is pretty shite. Most women I know on it get bombarded with guys that message them with stuff like "Fancy a fuck?" etc & it puts them off straight away. Also understand that online dating is predominantly a womans market; the ratio of men VS women on these sites is always higher & given that women get hammered with messages all the time they have to filter tem down to a select few which makes "competing" (only work I can think of) for these women pretty difficult. This sounds materialistic & contraversial, but if your not good looking guy - you may find it a bit of a struggle (purely based on the volume of available men & the amount of messages women get); even average guys struggle with it.

Match & e-Harmony are 2 of the top sites, but you do have to pay for them. Or you can just use Tinder and just swipe yes to everyone like Kowalski says without even looking at your phone, then filter out when youhave matches as neccessary.

Why do you think he wants a relationship out of fear?