I've been test searching from Woodlawn, TN. A lot seems to depend upon the age range you set. Setting 66 to 69 seems to trigger the distance to be set within 500 miles, something automatically done when the number of results are low. But that doesn't mean there aren't any matches within 100 miles. There might be. Click on the "Nearby" sort order button along the top of the results. You'll see the distance to each result is listed.

Yes...the site is totally useless. You should probably leave and not bother yourself.

It won't let you limit the distance downwards IF there are no members that close to you.

We have just over 55K members - all over the planet.

Some within 500 miles is pretty good on a planet this size I would think? In the early days there were only a few members in my State. Now there are many.
(And might I mention I found a roommate here).

And you can't even Private Message yet - so maybe look around some before you throw in the towel.

We're much more a community of like minded people and a social media platform - as well as being a dating site.

There are limits on how fast you can go about contacting people to prevent scammers from doing so.
At some point you might actually appreciate the safeguards.

ICYMI

Ok bye then!

There's the exit. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.

100 miles is within the 500 mile range. Now, if you were searching for 1000 mile range and only 500 mile limit, that would pose a problem.

Pretty early to decide something is useless!