I do not know much about dating sites, but I just heard from a male friend yesterday that guys tend to get a lot of advertisement showing pretty girls that end up being links for porn sites... so compare with these and make your site contrast!
I definitely agree that you need to motivate females to "trust" your site enough that they will sign up for it. Perhaps you might release a beta version for your friends and they can invite their friends?
It depends on your timeline. You might want to generate buzz before the product comes out so that there is some level of expectation and, if you have been advertising correctly, then you should have some people coming in to check it out once you release it. Ideally your site will be good enough that they will free-advertise for you via word of mouth.
Now, if it is going to take a while for the backend and the rest to be ready, you can make the best out of your time by creating what will be your advertisement strategies for the weeks before the site launches.
You are right, the user-base is far too large to be properly accounted for; and that is the root of the reason why there are so many articles about FB's decline is that some of us wish for it. Think about it: who writes these articles? The same basis of geeks, bloggers and web designers that consider that FB has become overpopular and loaded with a plethora of useless features (game apps, "like" buttons for pointless activities, etc.), and that some users tend to update their statuses too much and too often.
Which is the main reason why smaller, and arguably better communities like this one can thrive.
It is all a matter of who gets to call the shots regarding what the Internet should be like.
As a quasi-average person regarding computer usage, I can tell you about the way that less tech-savvy people around me deal with their laptops, as I deal less and less with people with PCs:
If it is an older model, it tends to be a matter of "hibernate until it runs so slowly that I have to restart."
Other than that, there is always some hard-core believers that you really need to shut off completely every time you use it.
It is not necessarily a bad idea, and it would not have to be restrained to people with disabilities. The way Google presented the idea was fun but it did make some good sense: it would make us, couch potatoes "have to" move.
I do not know much about dating sites, but I just heard from a male friend yesterday that guys tend to get a lot of advertisement showing pretty girls that end up being links for porn sites... so compare with these and make your site contrast! I definitely agree that you need to motivate females to "trust" your site enough that they will sign up for it. Perhaps you might release a beta version for your friends and they can invite their friends?