How to Get the Most From Online Dating

Online Dating Basics

Online dating is not as simple as it looks, you need to know how to go about it in order to get the best out of it. Unfortunately quite a lot of people who decided to give online dating a try ended up with their fingers burnt.

Here are a few pointers to consider when you start off online dating.

Getting started in online dating
There’s an old adage ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ which is certainly true here. It’s always best to be cautious when you’re in unfamiliar uncharted territory. You need to plan before you actually go out there and start showing your cards.

Just because the world and his wife can type out whatever they want in a chat room doesn’t mean that you have to do the same.

One of the benefits of the internet is that anybody can use it. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of the internet is also that anybody can use it. There are a lot of nice people using the Internet, but just as in the offline world, there are some not so nice people too.

So where do you start?

The first tip I would like to give you is NOT to go straight away into a singles’ chat room and try to find somebody who would interest you. We all know that most of these chat rooms are flooded with people who have only one thing on their mind – sex.

So instead of going into a singles’ chat room, what you could do is to try the whole thing out from a different angle. You could try working backwards.

In other words, decide what you’re looking for, and then go look for it.

It’s more than just looks

Sit for a minute or two and try and think about the things that interest you and things that you would find interesting in a person.

By ‘things’ I am not talking about physical attributes. I am not referring to something that might interest you in a person’s physical appearance. A distinction needs to be made between a serious relationship and a casual relationship. In a casual relationship, the importance is always for the physical attributes. We are more concerned with what the person looks like and what the person has been endowed with.

On the other hand, if we have a serious relationship, then the physical qualities are not so important. Compatibility is probably the most important factor over here. Along with that there are certain qualities that obviously we will be looking out for. We are talking about qualities of the mind. After all, beauty is only skin-deep!

This idea might sound strange, but it is actually true. The idea is that it is possible to grow to like the looks of a person. Once you find the character of the person agreeable you will start liking the person as a whole. It is entirely possible to fall in love with a person if the person does not look like a movie star. That is one of the tricks that nature plays.

There are many people who insist on taking a look at the other person’s picture before actually committing to a relationship. They might have their reasons of course, but I, for one, feel that such a decision based largely on looks is more suitable for a casual relationship. It is bound to sizzle off after some time. After all, how long can you keep staring at a person? And what happens if the person doesn’t stare back at you?

Or even worse, what happens if you find the person staring at another person? Looks may be important, but they certainly are not the most important thing and should never be used as the deciding factor if you are thinking about a serious relationship.

So what are your interests? What do you enjoy doing? And what are your dislikes?

Dislikes are just as important, or even more important than likes. We all have to make compromises here and there, but if we start off by condoning things which we genuinely dislike, one way or another the day will come when the relationship will end up in tears.

Only after you’ve considered the kind of person you’re looking for should you start using an online dating site.

How to Write a Dating Profile

Writing your dating profile

So you’ve taken the plunge and decided to join an online dating site. Congratulations, you are in the 21st century where meeting people via an online dating club is becoming more and more common and accepted.

Now you need to put together your profile so you can attract the kind of person you’re looking for. And you’re probably wondering what to say and how to say it.

The first thing that you should do is take out a pencil and paper and write down the raw details about yourself. By raw details we are talking about things like your age, your height and your weight.

This is the skeleton which we are going to build on. And when we have added enough flesh and blood to this backbone, why even you will be impressed by your profile! But first let’s steer clear of some pitfalls which most people fall into.
Read more

Online Dating Safety for Women

Online dating can be a fun and certainly a rewarding experience for women of all ages. Maintaining your safety while doing it is simply a combination of using common sense and exercising good judgment. Online safety rules are the same as real world safety rules.

You wouldn’t give your name, address and phone number to a strange man that you met in a bar or on the street so you should never do that online either. Play it safe. Get to know this man who could turn out to be Prince Charming before you give out any information that could make it possible for him or others to trace you. Don’t tell a stranger exactly where you work. Say that you are a legal secretary (if that’s what you are) for a mid-sized law firm….not that you work for Brown, Smith and Jones Attorneys-at-law. It is safe to tell him what city you live in but you should wait to be any more specific than that until you have been chatting and exchanging emails for awhile.

Use only the tools provided by the dating service you belong to. Most offer chat and private email on their site. Do not give out your isp email address. If you must give out an email address make it a free one such as Gmail or Yahoo. Your isp address is traceable for anyone who wants to go to the trouble.

When the time comes for you to have your first face-to-face, make that first meeting in a public place and during day light hours. Take a friend with you or arrange for one to call you on your cell soon after the arranged meeting.

Remember…you ARE in control so do not let anyone pressure you into revealing more personal information than you are comfortable with revealing.

Online Dating Safety For Men

Almost everything you read about online dating safety is directed at women but men need to be concerned as well. Perverts, sexual predators and weirdos come in both sexes, all sizes, and all ages…as do, liars and cheaters. So men need to stay on guard, too.

It is common knowledge not to readily give out personal information to strangers. The reason for not doing so is as large as the number of strangers who want that information. If you come across a person who is giving out personal information and asking others to do the same, don’t do it. You don’t know what they want to use it for….and you had better believe they want to use it for something. That “something” will not be for your benefit. Men, also, need to guard their real names, addresses, phone numbers, and place of employment. Do not give that information to anyone online until you are confident that they are who they say they are.

Men, be wary of women who seem too financially needy. If they ask for money, in any of a dozen ways women can ask for money, cut the relationship off immediately. They are not looking for love or even friendship….they are looking for financial help.

If a woman gives you a contact number but you cannot ever reach her at that number, beware. If you always have to page them or text them and have them call you back, this could be a sign that what they are telling you is not the complete truth.

A need to get married and insecurity are other signs men should be very wary of. If the woman is pushing too hard for a commitment you aren’t ready to make, it might be a good time to head for the nearest exit.

Falling in Love Online

Falling in love online can be just as completely emotionally real as falling in love in the real world. While it seems rather silly to think that we can give our hearts to someone we have never even met in person, on the internet it happens a million times a day.

When they are new to the internet, most people are pretty innocent characters who venture into chat rooms or instant messages, with the hope of finding some stimulation for an hour or two. But when they get into chatting, they are possessed by a current and dragged down a river of virtual sensations that completely sweeps them away. They are surprised when they notice the time and hours and hours have passed. And in not too long a time, they are addicted.

Most of us crave deep emotional attention but haven’t figured out how to get it and keep hold of it in real time. Now, with this outlet for our psyches to feed and get nourishment, we are finding that our addiction is easy to justify and chalked off to the techno onslaught and being able to keep up with it.

Even if we are not in love with anyone in particular online, we are in love with being online, knowing that we can get our fix, whenever we want it. Most of us have learned that when one online romance ends, our heart is severely broken, but miraculously we heal because another arises on the horizon in virtually no time flat….LOL.

Why is it so remarkably  easy to fall in love online and what are the long-term results of such a development?

As we all know and have experienced, the Internet has given us all a whole new way of life. The age of this new and ever-evolving technology has changed dating in a BIG way. Never again will people who have access to a computer, be lonely and ignored, even if they are shut-ins. They just have to turn on the pc, and there you go, the world is at their fingertips.

Once you’ve been online for a short amount of time, you realizes the intricacies of ”chatting.” Chatting is a dialect that has emerged from communicating on this venue, no matter what language it is done in.

There are all kinds of hidden nuances of this form of communicating. A well-seasoned “chatter” can create and project any mood, any emotion, any feeling imaginable, with the combination of several different “cyber graphics,” “emoticons,” (the little smiley face icons), words, keyboard symbols (@#^*((( ))) !~), and acronyms (LMAO, LOL etc).

Chatting one on one in instant messages, is one of the ways to get to know a person, very personally. Something magical happens during this type of communication that seems to be unique to this venue. Especially if you are speaking to someone who is a romantic interest, it seems like you have a more direct connection to his/her psyche.

How many times have I sensed the answer to a question or virtually read their mind? It seems to happen at an uncanny rate when in an instant message. Is it the electrical energy that is freely flowing from their pc to yours? If this online connection does something to our powers of exchanging thought, does this mean that we are developing a NEW sensory perception that has been latent in us but now coming to life?

Somehow, this new sense dominates our powers of perception and creates feelings, deep feelings, for some of the people we connect with online. Since we only have the written word and no other obvious audio or visual cues to clue us in on the chatters personality, we have to go on what we read, assimilate the meaning, and somehow imagine the person who is at the other end typing these words. We have to, in our minds eye, create a real person who we have no other information about except for what they have told us.

We cannot see how they dress, how they maintain their weight, personal hygiene, how they laugh or smile, what their voice is like, what kind of car they drive or if they have a nervous twitch or have all their limbs. We simply have their written word. Most of us believe the other person to be telling us the truth, and because they are giving us what seems to be a unique look into their psyche, we develop a kindred ness with them that is very special. This dynamic is what makes us able to fall in love online so easily.

Most humans are basically the same. We all want the opportunity to love someone, and to have our love reciprocated. What makes each of us different is how we go about achieving that goal . So when we chat in instant messages or in chat rooms, we extend a part of our selves that may not normally be revealed in a person to person or “real life” scenario. Since we have no outside cues or distractions, it makes it easy for us to be totally honest, because we have nothing to lose by being so.

In so doing, the connection between parties escalates at a rapid rate. The safety of extending ones emotional self across the cyber field seems to be almost unavoidable as well as incredibly fulfilling. The down side to this is that you might find yourself creating a fantasy of the person, which is totally unrealistic. This is generally what happens. Since there is no visual input for the mind’s eye to focus on, the brain has to assimilate the info, the input, and the sensory exchanges, and make enough sense of it to justify the feelings being felt.

There are a few “tools” that help us make further determinations. We might have a picture of the person, we might have heard the person’s voice on the phone, and we might have even be able to see them on video web camera, which overrides some of the data. If the intent is to actually “meet” this person for a date, it is important for our brain to collect as much data as it can in order for us to actually feel safe enough to meet face to face.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, sadly there are many people who never have any intention whatsoever  of ever venturing outside the confines of their safe little homes, in order to actually meet face to face. They are finding themselves making deep rooted connections with people online, and are getting themselves into trouble by either falling in love (without the capability to take appropriate action) or they are causing others to fall in love with them (thereby, breaking hearts, right, left and center when it has evolved to the “meeting” stage and one party has no intention of doing so). Sound familiar??

Pointers for protecting yourself in case of this happening to you:

1) Find out right up front if the person is seeking a real time relationship, or simply wants a virtual one. Many are simply filling time and have no intention on ever leaving the comfort of their own homes to meet you, no matter how close you feel you’ve become.

2) If you are considering meeting the person in person, make sure you clearly state this disclaimer: If, when we meet, one of us is NOT attracted, it must be made known, and all aforementioned plans or activities discussed are null and void.

3) Realize that people confide in you way more readily online, because they know they will never meet you, see you or otherwise find your knowledge of their secrets as any kind of a threat to them.

4) If you have met someone and you have both fallen in love online, realize that true love cannot truly be established until you find out whether you are in love in real time. Energy from online may not necessarily transfer, so be realistic, and save your self a lot of heartache. And don’t fall into the trap of saying “I love you” online if you haven’t met yet.

5) Realize that you are probably guilty of creating a “super” mate in your mind and that meeting with expectations is one of the major things that cause problems. If you go in totally open minded, with NO expectations, you can’t possibly be disappointed.

6) Lastly, don’t think that just because you fell once and failed, that every time will be the same. Keep trying, be REAL, and some day, you might find a keeper!!!

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