Internet Dating as it Truly Is: Did You Really Think it was
Going to be That Easy?
I don't know what you've been told about internet dating, but
it's not always as easy as 1,2,3. If you've searched around or
thought about it much then you're probably aware of the upsides.
Ultimately, there's no better, faster way to sort through and
find potential mates that fit the "profile."
You can take your search much further than you normally could
offline. And if know yourself, what you want, and what to look
for, you can get great results. This is the stuff advertisements
are made of. But with these advantages usually come certain
challenges that you'll need to work through.
By the way, if you don't know yourself well and what it is you
want, that's fine. Have fun with it and learn. Just don't expect
to meet your match right away. You can use the internet to help
you discover these things.
What you can't do is use internet dating to smooth out all of
your rough spots and work some kind of magic for you. This will
not be fruitful. Because sooner or later, it all comes down to
the weakest link.
As an example, some people who live in areas of low population
will get online expecting this to fix that problem for them.
They end up blaming the service when they don't find a lot
people from their area online. They were hoping for something
that the online world can't necessarily help them with.
So it may not provide the automatic solution you were hoping
for. The question is, what does it allow you to do that you
couldn't easily do before? How can this make up for the original
problem? It's a negotiation. Sometimes you have to give a little
before you can take, or in this case, before you can benefit
from this new situation called internet dating.
You have to ask yourself, how important is this? In this
example, would it be important enough to drive a little further
or arrange to meet halfway? Because this is an option that
wasn't easily available before. If not, then there must be other
things that are more important. What are they?
Others become cynical and quit when their dates don't represent
themselves accurately or honestly online. It can happen to
anyone. It will probably happen to you. But it seems to happen a
lot more to some people. There are probably two things going on
there. One is akin to the inadvertant but habitual seeking out
of abusive relationships. Here, the person is presented with
signs of problems to come, but consitently overlooks them. Often
the people around them can see something that they can't.
Or it could be just a simple matter of learning from your
mistakes. You don't get to use your intuition the same way as
you would in real life, so you have to develop methods that will
make up for this. What I don't hear about in these cases is any
attempt to prevent this by changing the way they do things. This
usually explains why they're getting the same results.
It presents a challenge, but again, how could you turn this
around by using the new abilities that internet dating gives
you? One way is to be more direct with people in the future.
This is easier for most people to do online, and as a result
more common.
So learn how to take full advantage of this benefit. It may take
some time. But it's hard to give internet dating a fair chance
until you do. What could you learn if you could ask people the
kinds of questions that can take weeks, months, even years to
get answered otherwise? Remember I said that internet dating can
be the fastest way to sort through people?
Here's the most common challenge of all... getting a decent
response to your profile or emails. Profiles in general is a
subject that's too big to get into here, so let me restrict this
to email. The vast majority of this involves men. There are
approximately 4 times as many men doing this than women. Add
that to the fact that men initiate far more than women and you
can start to see where response might be a problem.
There are many upsides that can compensate for this. A common
one is that men can spare themselves the indimidation factor in
approaching women. And if they play their cards right, internet
dating can be a real confidence builder. Chatting with women
online is a skill that's not just useful for getting dates
online. It carries over to offline situations as well. But I
digress...
To this problem, the basic answer is the same. That is, you have
to change what you're doing to get different results. But that's
a little to vague in this case. The problem is that women
continue to see the same kinds of emails coming a lot of
different men. For the more attractive ones, it's out of control.
Under these conditions, you have to do something fundamentally
different in your approach to stand out... and standing out is
the only way to get fair consideration. Just refining your
current approach isn't going to be enough if your current
approach isn't working.
Take a lesson from nature - evolution had the same idea when it
gave male peacocks their colorful tails. What you do differently
depends partly on you, because it's mostly just a matter of you
being secure in your uniqueness.
But until you are, and until you've developed your unique style
around that, there are some things that you have to understand.
Things that most guys who aren't naturals don't know. Once you
do, your results will improve dramatically, reinforcing your
authentic character instead of calling it into question.
That's as much detail as I can go into in this article, but I'll
leave you with this... If you want to make internet dating work
for you, learn about what you have available to you, use it,
experiment with it, get creative, and try new things.
At the same time, you have to be aware of what's going on in
your head. In other words, what are you telling yourself? Become
aware of thought patterns that are working against you. If you
catch them, stop them immediately and replace them with ones
that serve you better.
It's not so much what's online or what's offline that will
determine your results. It's what's in your head.