Tag: internet dating

My One Piece of Advice About Online Dating

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 7 Comments

There’s one piece of advice I’ll stand by here and that’s to ‘meet early, meet soon’.

If you meet the object of your desire within seven days – even if you have messaged 24/7 in the meantime – you’re limiting the potential for elevating them onto an unrealistic pedestal.

And that cuts both ways.

Being a disappointment to someone is surely one of my greatest fears, but neither do I care to waste hours, days, weeks or months of my life maintaining a false intimacy with someone who’s ultimately unsuitable.

I’ve learned this many times through hard-won experience. “You can do all the box-ticking, messaging and phoning you like, but real-world chemistry can very easily make it all irrelevant,” says Guardian columnist Stella Grey. (Stella Grey ‘From Oddballs To Indiana Jones: My Online Search For Love’ The Guardian Mid-Life Ex-Wife 2 April 2016)

Like me, you might be wondering whether meeting someone online is realistic for you. After a couple of years going on and off actively looking for a mate online, I still waver in my interest. But, as it was explained rather charmingly by Harmony May in Elephant Journal, “Online dating seems to be the new way to go. Lives are busy and it eliminates the need to go out and be social in the real world playing a guessing game of who you are compatible with. You’re able to find people that you’re attracted to that have similar interests … before you even invest too much time… It can be a beautiful thing, if you do it right. But see… [there is the] possibility that expectations [will] develop before we even [meet].” (Harmony May ‘My Adventure in Online Dating’ Elephant Journal 3 December 2015)

Pandora’s Box

Some people already think that meeting people online is the new normal for relationships.

Statistically, although most singles have used a dating app, they don’t necessarily meet long-term partners this way. And this opens up a Pandora’s box of issues and concerns. I wonder how the current generation of teenagers will manage relationships in a world where sex is fast becoming a commodity, porn distorts reality and damages the sex drive and performance of young men, and where knowing how to attract a mate online is a more important life skill than being a decent person.

It might well be a world, according to Simon Sinek (author of Start with Why) without joy, without the deep fulfilment associated with … genuine, meaningful connection with our nearest and dearest. I truly hope not.

At my end of the age spectrum, Stella Grey says “online dating at 50 was much harder than I thought it would be. I was prepared for hard, but I wasn’t prepared for going down a rabbit hole to another land, or its perpetual magic realism.” (The Guardian, 2016)

There’s no denying that this simple change in the way we might meet people has big ramifications.

One example: a female friend of mine was asked on a dating site, “Are you fatter than you look in your photos?” This sort of impolite and direct question would not usually be asked in person. Granted, physical proximity would render it pointless, however, the glib rudeness, the sheer boldness or discourtesy is discomfortingly close to nasty hate speech or threats that people feel entitled to express to strangers because of their own relative anonymity.

There’s also the unspoken expectation that, often before you have even developed a sense of the other person, you’ll exchange nudie pics.

But It’s Not All Doom and Gloom

Meeting people online might sap your strength or make you wish you’d never been born. But, equally, it might fill your soul with happy juice and propel you into places you’ve never been before. There’s fun to be had, excitement to be hunted and pleasure and connection to be found in the most unlikely of places.

“We have become products of the online dating generation, which makes actual dating more difficult. We expect to know as much as possible about someone up front before we agree to spend time together, even if it is just over coffee…We approach dates with caution and scepticism. We shut down if there isn’t that instant spark of chemistry, instead of trying to get to know someone past the awkwardness of a first date.”

Kelly Seal offers good advice there for anyone in this confronting, confusing, disappointing, heart-breaking and funny world: “So on your next date, take your time. Engage. Try to be fully present. Put away your phone. Talk. Ask questions. Listen. Then see how online dating works for you.” (Kelly Seal ‘Do You Want To Give Up Online Dating?’ www.datingsitesreviews.com August 2015)

What Not to Expect From Online Dating

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 8 Comments

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.