What Not to Expect From Online Dating

Don’t Expect Too Much

Don’t expect truth and honesty, simplicity and easy silences, satisfying sex and ready-made intimacy, trust and transparency, straight-forward, no-games relationships. Do these qualities or destinations even exist?

Don’t expect to meet your match immediately. Don’t expect people to be true to their word. Don’t expect someone to show up at the time and place you’ve agreed to meet. Don’t expect someone to share their surname, or even their first name or phone number – for a while at least.

Don’t expect him to be monogamous, or her to be direct. Or vice versa. Don’t expect to be believed, honoured, appreciated or adored. Start with a blank canvass, reduce your expectations and then you won’t be disappointed. Expect the unexpected. Revel in the unknown. Explore your inner adventurer. Embrace opportunity.

I’m not going to lie to you about what this blog is and is not.

If you want to live vicariously through fluffy fantasy or saucy tell-all stories, or you’re searching for a simple, loose-ends-tied, neat and cheesy ending, this blog is not going to satisfy you. There’s no sugar coating here. There are blunt, difficult, confronting subjects butted right up against heartbreak, desire and soaring emotional highs.

And an awful lot of confusion.

I’m not here to dispense advice or paint myself as an expert. I won’t be telling you how to get laid, or how to increase your hit rate on a dating app. I’m clearly not expert at anything other than being authentically myself. Not that long ago, I was just an online dating virgin on a quest to enjoy life and give it my best shot.

I Gave Online Dating a Go for 3 Main Reasons

Firstly, as my colleague pointed out that day in the Asian diner, I wasn’t going to meet anyone new by sitting at home. I have little or no opportunity to meet men in any other way, in more traditional ways, if they even exist these days.

I’m beginning to think that these other avenues are no longer present in society. Research has shown that 61% of adults who have tried online dating say that it’s easier and more efficient than other ways of meeting people. I’m also a single parent in a small-ish city. My workplace or my children’s schools seem unlikely to deliver a person-of-interest. I love the way my life is so full but the downside is finding actual time to ‘date’ or meet men.

Secondly, online dating filled a niche for me and provided a world of opportunity. I need to insert a disclaimer at this point and make it clear that most of my dates were conducted in the day time. This does change the dynamic and also prevents some issues that can come up at night.

Thirdly, I wasn’t looking for Mr Right. Prince Charming was not on my agenda. I wasn’t even sure whether I was looking for anything. One thing was for certain, after a couple of decades in a monogamous marriage, I wasn’t looking to replicate the experience any time soon. I’ve heard that this attitude is not uncommon among ‘cougars’ online. In many ways, we are the antithesis of the stereotype often found in the media of the ‘desperate’ woman over 40!

We are looking for fun, on our terms.

As you read my stories, you might wonder why I haven’t just given it all up – decide to become a hermit who’s best friends with her vibrator. At times, the idea is tempting but I have stuck with it through thick and thin. I have been prepared to take the good with the bad, and to learn from and enjoy each interaction and experience as part of my journey as a human being.

In many ways, I’d led a sheltered life after being married so young. A couple of decades later, I was determined to live as fully and mindfully as my circumstances allowed me.
And I’ve certainly had a collection of mixed experiences, ideas and emotions that, together, offer a contrary narrative to the poplar ideal – the conventional story of Finding Love On The Internet.

‘Love’ by whatever name we give it, whether it’s romantic love, lust, affection, adoration, desire, infatuation and so on, drives so much of human behaviour and interaction. We all want some of it, we all want a taste and some of us want to live and breathe it and never let it go. Some of us want only the one bite, and others want to salivate lasciviously over the potential for sexual gluttony.

Wherever we feel we might sit on the spectrum will usually change as we live our lives. And I want some of it, in the name of life experience if nothing else.