I have had lots of friends come to me asking about online dating and if they should try it. They are unsure if it is the right way to meet people and have concerns over the way it feels unnatural. Since so many of my friends are asking me, I thought more people might have the same questions, so I put together this guidance.
Expectations for online dating
First, when it comes to jumping into the online dating pool, it’s important to set the right expectation for yourself. If you think of online dating as the solution to all your dating expectations, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, think about online dating as a microcosm to the macrocosm. What I mean by that is the odds of meeting someone online mirrors that of meeting someone in the real world.
Let’s take the example of a restaurant with 100 people in the room that could be potential dates. Out of that 100, there may be eight or fewer people that you find physically attractive. Out of those roughly eight people, maybe half of them are married or in a relationship. So, that narrows the pool down to four. Out of that four, there may be two that you are able to converse with in an intelligent manner. Out of those two, you may be in the same place, from a timing perspective, of only one. If you look at online dating as having the same odds as this, you are less likely to be frustrated with people you meet that turn out to be duds for you.
A few pros of online dating
The advantage to online dating is you aren’t limited to one space in one time, such as the restaurant example above. With online dating you cast a wider net than the people you run into during your normal day-to-day life.
Also, because you have access to a person’s profile, you tend to know more about the person before meeting them, i.e., their age, occupation, relationship status (single, divorce, widowed), as well as if they have children or not. These are things that would take some time to get to know in the real world. Match.com and a few other online dating sites have a section where the person can check their income range, which is also helpful, if you are particular about that.
In addition, online dating gives you an opportunity to meet a lot of people from the comfort of your own home. You can peruse profiles in your pajamas, with your hair a mess and your feet up!
A few downers about online dating
When it comes to the downside of online dating, you must beware of the people online that misrepresent themselves. It can be as simple as posting inaccurate pictures of themselves, or even pictures of someone else. They may be married or in a relationship and just looking for a little extra attention. Then there are those profiles that seem too good to be true because they usually are. I believe some of these too-good-to-be-true profiles have been developed by the dating sites and then used to encourage members to keep renewing their membership every month. The person typically has model good looks, the highest possible income level, and a very well written and “normal” sounding profile. These people reach out to you and compliment your profile and engage in conversation via the website.
The way to know that they are either a fake profile or someone that is already involved with someone else, or has no interest in dating you, is that you never meet them. After eight years of online dating and speaking with many friends, both male and female, I have countless stories about the person online that seemed so “perfect.” They constantly send messages with the promise to make plans, but then the plans never come to fruition.
If you are new to online dating, this kind of activity will be incredibly frustrating. You may even start to take it personally. Please don’t. Again, it is a microcosm to the macrocosm. In the real world, there are also phony and flaky people that could mislead you.
My advice in these situations is this: if an in-person meeting never occurs after you have attempted to make it happen more than once, I recommend ceasing all communication with that person and even “unmatching” (Tinder/Bumble) or blocking them (Match). Otherwise, you are just feeding someone’s need for a little extra attention or communicating with someone who isn’t even the person in the profile pictures.
Quick tips for dealing with all of it
As a way to avoid these kinds of interactions from sucking up too much of your time and energy, I recommend not exchanging phone numbers until an in-person meeting occurs. Why do you want to give out your number to someone who will simply text you nonstop and never ask you out to meet you in person? Force each individual situation forward by insisting on in-person meetings before moving forward with anything else.
There are a lot of pros to online dating, but if you set the right expectations, you are smart about your interactions and keep yourself safe, it can be a very enjoyable experience! 😊