For many people, they feel like if they take a chance and join an online dating website, the hiatus in their love life would suddenly disappear and everything would smoothly fall into place. Lots of people feel that it should be that easy because, well, isn’t that how the commercials on television make it look? Oh but alas, when we try to find our ideal partners (or at the very least a date for the weekend!), it never turns out as we had hoped.
Be that as it may, your experience on a dating website doesn’t have to end in disappointment. In fact, you could heed some of this sage advice we’ve gathered from experienced online daters. While we can’t guarantee that you’ll find The One, you’ll at least be one step close to finding someone.
1. Create a Wish List – Before you even start browsing the dating website of your choice, it would be in your best interest to have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for, both in a partner and in a relationship. You could always liken this list like a grocery list of items that you need to have for a fabulous dinner. You want to make sure the list is as detailed as you can get without being too nit-picky. For example, you can say that you want someone who has a stable career that pays well, but if you were to say that you want someone who is the CFO of a Fortune 100 company making over $500k a year… That’s a bit too exact.
2. Keep A Score Card – After you’ve done that shopping list, rate each of the items on the list of what is most important to you, or rearrange the list if it is too long. Ideally, you should have between 10 to 15 characteristics or traits. If you are over that amount, you can reorganize it so that the very most important characteristics/qualities are at the top and then file the rest in descending order. The least important features would be at the bottom and, of course, you can choose to eliminate them if you wanted to.
3. Select Your Site – Now the fun can begin! There are thousands of dating websites available that you could choose from. We recommend that you do a little bit of research before signing up to any old internet site. You want to join a site that caters to the sort of people that you are hoping to meet. For example, you might choose to date someone in uniform, or maybe you’re interested in dating someone older and mature. Why perhaps you aren’t even looking for something serious, and you just want to meet someone new to hang out with this weekend. You should choose the site that offers what you want because you don’t want to waste your valuable time sending messages to people who aren’t going to meet your needs.
4. Keep Your Profile Short, but Detailed – As you’re filling out your profile, you might think that the longer it is, the better your chances will be of finding someone. That doesn’t always work out and sometimes it can work against you. When your profile is too long, people could lose interest rather quickly and even though you could be their perfect match, they’ll click away from you just for the very fact that they didn’t read through the profile. Instead, try to put as much information in your profile as you can without it reading like a book.
5. Create Some Mystery – One of the best ways to draw someone in and want to get to know you is by creating an air of mystery about you. When we say that, we mean that you’ll want to dangle a juicy bit of information about yourself, but you don’t want to go into too much detail. This will make them want to send a message and learn more about you. For example, if you have a fascinating story to tell, you can hint around to some of your crazy adventures, but not go into too much detail so that when they do send you a message, they’ll be blown away by your experiences.
6. Don’t Feel Obligated to Talk to Everyone – You may want in order to make the most out of your time on a dating website, you have to respond to every person who reaches out to you; partially because you don’t want not to give someone a shot lest they are ‘the one,’ but, also because it would be rude not to. Experienced online daters feel like if you were to respond to every single message and entertain everyone who approaches you, you might get frustrated by the experience before you can give it a real chance. Instead, we suggest that when you receive a message, read it and look at their profile to decide if there is anything there that jumps out at you. If there is, respond. If there isn’t, reply back and tell them, you aren’t interested. After all, just because you online don’t mean manners doesn’t apply.
Online dating can be an extreme change of pace if you’re someone who feels like traditional dating isn’t working out. We hope that with these simple and useful tips, you’ll find some success with finding a date and maybe even finding that special love!