Build It to Break It
The last thing you want is an invisible lover.
Even though you have chosen along with so many millions others to begin a love hunt online, the last thing you want is an online relationship.
You want something real! You want to be with someone. If your goal was to develop an online connection with someone then you would want to be headed to a site closer to Second Life than Chemistry.com or JDate.com.
The point of joining most dating sites is eventually to no longer be a member of that dating site. This is an important idea to keep in mind as you go forward putting screen names to faces and personalities to profiles.
So here are a few tips in constructing an online courtship that will move smoothly into reality:
- It’s a Dating Site, Not Facebook: The first key in making sure your relationship will survive the jump is in your treatment of the online dating experience as a whole: your online dating site(s) is not a community page – it’s not Facebook. Likewise, you do not want to spend your time networking with different groups and becoming a king or queen of the message boards – you want to find mates. If you get into the habit of identifying your dating site itself as a permanent fixture in your life, then you are more likely to keep the people you associate with that site (ie, the other members that you meet) online.
- No Sex Talk: Unless you’re on Passion.com or a similar “casual connections” site, don’t load your pre-physical meetings with a bunch of sex talk. As fun as it can be, sex talk is essentially a promise (or it certainly should be!) Beyond whatever moral implications you may see there, first dates are not the land of promises and expectations. First dates are introductions – they are places to get to know each other in person and decide if the chemistry is there. You want to be able to leave if you should want to leave, no matter how great your email exchanges have been. Not to mention the fact that sometimes we can get caught up in a moment and go along with some saucy talk – that may not mean we want to again. Keep it friendly and low pressure.
- Life Stories: This is a tough line to walk because you do want to be honest and open about who you are, but you don’t want to make anything seem weird. Keep things basically general in your email pre-meeting communications: “I went to X school,” “I do Y for a living,” “Z is very important to me.” The specifics of your story are great things to talk about during your first date – especially if you’ve already whetted their appetite with general facts. Don’t think of your story as a thing which has to be gotten out of the way up front – your history is not a test of your companionship.
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