higher or lower

Do you prefer more to play with people who are of higher or of lower rating than yourself?

Depends on my mood heh.  Do I want to improve and learn something / not feeling satisfied with my current ability?  I look for higher rated people.

Feeling like using chess as recreation, just want to have a relaxing game / feeling satisfied with my current ability?  I look for lower rated people.

Same here

I normally have quite a few games going, I like a good mix.

I just became a gold member, and finally took a look at my overall stats, and saw that in live, on average when I win, the person is rated 1090. My live rating is 1215ish, so I found that to be quite disappointing. So I changed my seeks to play only people that are 1200 or higher, and after playing stronger opponents consistently, I have found that my level of play has gone up. So I think that playing up or your rating is the way to go, at least for me right now.

I always want a challenge and prefer to learn from a mistake than win a boring game ... I don't mind if all my opponents are higher rated than me 

I agree with this, but sometimes it is a challenge to play someone in which you have no idea what level you are up against.  

I like to play all levels. Mostly around 200 points either side.

In terms of practical entertainment ( I mean "interwebby chess" is hardly anything but ) it is far better to play people with a bigger number than you - that way, you always got a challenge - until, of course, you run into the mental defect that is using a machine to make up for his/her deficiencies

See i don't agree with only playing higher players, because if everyone else felt the same way, players like you wouldn't get a game. It's a give back thing that makes chess so much better.

not quite what I meant, Ian, just that it more entertaining to play good players than bad ones - I play quite a bit of team chess and 'tournaments' and there you have no control over the number of your opponent, so I end up playing people well outside of your self-imposed 'range' on both sides of the scale

I feel kind of bad beating up on crappy players. I'm afraid of discouraging them while not really making much effort.

 Playing up is the way to challenge yourself. And, if you beat a good player, you feel better about your abilities.