Online Dating: Don’t F it up

Spending your weekends playing Halo instead of racking and stacking the fairer sex?.  Man, that sucks.  By that age you’ve dated every woman in the entire city of L.A. and now no one will ever fall for you.  Perhaps it’s time to broaden your horizons.  There are plenty of other fish in the sea, as they say, and internet dating may be a good way to meet them.  So get ready to go fishing and reel them in through online dating.  But don’t expect your first time out on the lake to yield a beautiful eighty pound king salmon.  Internet dating takes effort and time, and there are some crucial no-no’s that you should know before setting up an online dating profile.

Odds of Online Dating Success

Statistics point out that approximately a third of individuals who date online form relationships.  The remaining are people who either can’t find a match or who just give up.  But are you a quitter?  No!  Your Little League coach ingrained that in you so well that you’d never give up on something worthwhile.  (You never know the things that Little League can affect later on in life.)  So the first thing to remember is, don’t give up after two weeks to start planning the rest of your life with your X-box.

Be Honest! Errr… Mostly

There are a few rules with online dating.  Obviously since the ladies haven’t met you, you want to put your best photo up on your profile.  But showing off your Captain America muscles in a wife beater at age 21 will not get you anything when she meets your balding forty two year old self.  And the futility of lying doesn’t end there – if you put on your profile that you’ve got three PhDs and a Nobel Peace Prize, she’s probably not going to believe it, and even if she does, your career as a middle manager might clue her in that something stinks in Denmark.

While  a little playing wide with the facts is expected, at least 90 percent of what you put on your dating profile should be straight up!

Be Just a Bit Light in The Loafers..

Don’t be a pessimist.  Of the 33% who do form relationships through online dating, many had to go through hundreds of profiles and tons of chats in order to find the one for them.  If you’re inclined to give up, don’t be part of that 33% and instead be determined to join the third who WON’T be spending the rest of their lives alone/bored/sexless/you get the picture.  Besides, if you’re super negative, every woman you chat with will pick up on that, and then you’ll just be chasing them away before they even get the chance to know your sparkling personality.  Keep the tone of your profile and chatting online in a positive upbeat tone. If you have a dark sense of humor ( like me) keeping that in check for a while is probably a good idea till you know her humor style as well.

Keep It Real

Don’t have unrealistic expectations about online dating.  If your beer belly and gnarly ponytail don’t get the attention of a young twenty something in a bar, why would you expect her to give you the time of day through internet dating?  And don’t expect a woman who looks like Kim Kardashian to automatically be your soul mate.

She may be a hottie but may also wring your neck and turn you into a purse carrying poodle walking doormat who reads his copy of Whipped magazine every night before he falls asleep on the couch. 

At the same time, don’t write someone off because her eyes are brown or she doesn’t have the biggest rack.  Of course you want to be attracted to her so that you will actually enjoy intimacy with her one day, but appearances only tell a small part of who someone is.  She’s going to put her most attractive picture up there, but be prepared because she might not look so good when you see her in person in different lighting.  It’s safe to assume the picture you are looking at is about 20 percent better than what reality is. Is what it is…..

Trusting Your Gut to Avoid Boiled Bunny

Don’t ignore early warning signs.  She may say she has an average body type and a friendly personality, but what does that really mean?  Is she 5’4” and 125 lbs or 5’6” and 190 lbs?  Is she a people person or is she just someone who likes to talk at people and whose mouth you will want to duct tape shut half the time?  Think about your future with this woman and then decide how much you’re willing to chance it, because let’s face it – you’re trying to put your best impression forward, too, and if you’re leaving a bit of room for questionable interpretation, you can bet she’s doing the same thing.

You Get What You Make Of It, Put in The Reps.

Chances are that an awesome Mr. Right like you just wasn’t going to meet the perfect woman in a bar or club.  Sometimes you need to broaden your circle just a little bit and fish in other oceans in order to snag the ONE.  So get a great profile together on a few of the better sites, and plan to spend about 30 plus minutes a day on the online dating thing to get it rocking.