My Penny’s Worth on Online Dating

There are some things that I found horribly wrong with Online Dating when I used to dabble. I listen to friends talking about it now and my heart plummets. Then I paste on the smile and try to be really upbeat and cheerful for them. They are excited and I don’t want to be a killjoy. They have a date at the end of the week and, “He is lovely!” they tell me with twinkling and expectant eyes. Of course they want him to be lovely but, until they’ve met, it is just the image of their date in their imaginations that is lovely. I know Online Dating sometimes works. I know it can be a lot of fun. But I know now that it is not a good thing for me.

From the outset, you are meeting people who don’t share your social arena. There might not, in fact, be any common ground whatsoever apart from the dating site that’s brought you together. They write their profile and you write your profile, and anybody can write themselves out to be whatever they wish. Email contact lulls you into a comfortable virtual relationship with people very quickly. It is lovely and flattering to be chatted up, while you sit at home with your laptop on your knees and the fire warm at your side. It feels safe. You might spend weeks in contact like this, feeling the rush of excitement when another email comes in. You secretly come to expect to hear from them. Then communication might stop dead with no forewarning. This is because, while they’ve been emailing you, they’ve had a successful date with somebody else. You probably never hear from them again.

The other huge problem with over-emailing before meeting is that you grow attached to this perfect virtual man or woman and hopes are dashed when you finally do stand before one another and the chemistry isn’t there. You are both disappointed and wonder why the hell you didn’t meet sooner to discover the incompatibility. So, if you are trying internet dating, I must strongly recommend that you meet quickly. Remove the ‘virtual’ from the relationship and see what they are like over a relaxed coffee and a chat. The proof is in the pudding, not in an email that may have been rewritten several times.

If you start seeing somebody who you know from your own social arena, you are less likely (in my opinion) to be getting involved with a predator-type who strikes and then disappears. Meeting amongst friends also allows there to be the element of mystery... “I wonder if he’s single. Did he just look at me? Gosh, is he chatting me up?!” What a thrill! However, with Online Dating, from that very first glance, you both know you are ‘in the market’.

I'm not sure if I want to be shopped-for anymore. I don’t want to be on a conveyor-belt of girlies, knowing that when I’m broken and tossed aside my ex is just reaching back to get a ‘better model’! It is too easy and too casual and it only costs “£30 for three month to find somebody or your money back”! What a disservice of Consumerism.

I say, bring back a bit of good old-fashioned romancing!

Here endeth the lesson.