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Online Dating: How & When To Make The First Contact

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Online dating should always be premeditated – that’s the beauty of online dating! You can have the communication well thought out in advance. Here’s how.

In online dating, the first move is unlike any “in real life” first meeting you’ve ever had.

The Hunt

The first move in online dating is entirely premeditated. There’s no striking up a natural conversation at the water cooler, or meeting at a bar. You came to the site looking for a date, and anyone that responds to your messages or profile is looking for the same thing. Sure, you may both be looking for different types of romance, but at least the core is the same.

This can make online dating feel like a bit of a hunt. Both parties are looking for certain traits that they will use to filter out potential candidates. These might be age, looks or location. Some people focus on the “attitude” or “tone” of the profile, or the level of commitment they think the profile conveys. Because of these filters, when the first move is made, it carries a certain feeling of excitement, especially for the person being contacted. Out of all these choices, you chose them. You looked at tons of profile pictures and while you could have gone with the flirty girl or the shirtless guy, you chose them, despite being unable to crop out that random guy’s arm from their profile picture.

When you finally do find someone you’d like to “meet”, you can make the process seem like less of a hunt by actually tailoring your message to him or her. Your first message should say more than “I saw your profile and you look interesting. We should talk.” They’ve received spam emails with more personality than that. Try to refer to at least one unique thing in their profile or picture. Try something like “That’s an awesome view in your profile picture. Where was it taken?” or “I had a friend who went to that college! They raved about this restaurant downtown.”

The Catch

Striking a conversation with someone online can be scary. When the Internet was in its infancy, many people held misinformed ideas of what it was. The cliche was finding that perfect profile of a 6 foot 4 inch tall, blond, muscular, polo-playing firefighter who happens to be the heir to an empire but risks his life because he’s so courageous, only to learn that he’s a 5 foot 2 inch tall unemployed couch surfer who took 30 seconds to find a good profile picture. Or falling in love with emails from a leggy super-model who shared your passion for old movies and football, only to learn that she’s also that same 5 foot 2 inch couch surfer.

Now, the risks remain, but there’s a certain level of honesty expected from all involved. Make sure that your first move is a genuine one, even if it’s not necessarily full disclosure. They don’t need to know about your unpaid parking tickets yet. Or that you love trash TV late at night. But you should still be honest. When you make the first move, avoid the temptation to send an inaccurate photo or to fake a passion for college lacrosse. As soon as you meet, they’ll know how accurate the photo was, and if the relationship becomes serious, you don’t want to risk old “fibs” coming back to bite you.

The Bait

Every online dating site or social networking site has their own twist on the non-verbal, and non-committal, first move. Depending on what site you are on, you can poke, wink, cruise, smile, nod, give a flower or do any number of other ice-breaking actions.

Before you click that button, ask yourself if this is really the way you want your initial meeting to happen. It’s literally the modern day equivalent of walking into a bar, winking at someone and walking away.

To some people, it’s off-putting. They think you only like them enough to click a button, but not enough to say “hello, I saw your profile and noticed that we both like traveling.” They can’t tell whether you’re actually interested, or just quickly hitting as many people as you can.

Consider making your first move a little more meaningful by actually sending a message, particularly one that includes a reference to something in the person’s profile. If you share a common interest, use that as an icebreaker, not a “wink.”

The Release

The initial contact can be the end of the road for many online relationships. Accept it. There’s no obligation that either party has to go on at least one date with every person that talks to them online, or even that they have to respond to your first message. Or your second, third or fourth. It’s possible that you’ve contacted an inactive profile, or your target just found the love of his or her life minutes before you sent your message.

If you’re absolutely convinced that the person was a match, then a follow-up message may be appropriate. They may legitimately have forgotten to respond to you, or unable to get to a computer. Be ready to call a time of death on this potential relationship if you still don’t receive a response though.

Making the first move in online dating can be nerve-wracking and unusual, but every relationship has to begin somewhere. If you can avoid certain behaviors and you are willing to start a conversation, you can find easily handle the world of online dating.

Online Dating – When To Take Your Relationship To The Real World

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Online dating can be fun, but there’s a point where you need to move from online dating to real life. Here’s how to know when the right time really is.

Because people move at different speeds within the world of internet dating, it’s important to be careful about when you move the dating from online to offline. While you may connect with one person who is interested in meeting almost right away, the next person may prefer to take things slower and get to know you first.

No Pressure – Move At Your Own Pace

The truth is, moving from online to offline dating is not an exact science. The right time to venture offline and meet the other person is when you both are ready. This may take as little as one day for some internet couples and as much as a few months for others.

It’s important not to try to pressure your other, cyber, half into meeting you or not meeting you. The end goal is that both of you are comfortable with whatever decisions are made and that you are sure that whatever happens is right for you. If you put pressure on the other person to do what you want, you will be beginning the relationship in a flawed manner – one that could have more serious consequences in the future.

Make Good Use Of Online Tools

It may be a good idea to transition into video chat meetings before meeting in the real world. With video chat, you can get a good idea of what the other person looks like, if they’ve been putting up fake or altered photos, and if you connect with their appearance as much as you have with their personality. Video chat can get both of you accustomed to a more intimate form of meeting than simply chatting with another faceless entity. This can bring you both one step closer toward being ready to actually meet for the first time.

Honesty Is Always Crucial!

Whether or not you want to meet someone right away, it’s important to be honest and transparent in all your dealings with them. If you aren’t interested in meeting them, instead of stringing them along for months and months – getting their hopes up before dashing them to pieces – simply tell them how you feel. If you’re not really interested in meeting people, you may want to reconsider whether or not joining an online dating service is really for you.

How Online Dating Usually Progresses

The online dating progression usually begins with first contact on an online dating service. If you like the person’s profile, you then progress to chatting with them to further advance the connection. If this goes well, you may decide to upgrade to phone call status in which you exchange phone numbers and attempt a you-hang-up-no-you-hang-up kind of love. Once the phone calls are running smoothly and both of you are enjoying yourselves, laughing, and having a good time together, the relationship may finally be ready to progress to a first meeting.

If you are comfortable with your date on the phone and have also video chatted with them various times, chances are that your first meeting will go well and only enhance the relationship. Still, chatting with or calling a person is quite different than meeting them in person, and you should always be a little cautious at your first meeting. When moving from online to offline dating for the first time, always let a close friend or family member know where you’ll be going and how long you plan to be there. You may want to also leave them with a photo and some personal information about the person you plan to meet. First time meetings should always take place in a public area.

Examine Your Motives Thoroughly

Don’t pressure yourself into meeting your online date in person out of fear or guilt. If the only reason you are going to meet in person is because you’re afraid you’ll miss out on a golden opportunity, you may want to reconsider your motives. If you haven’t been able to talk to your special online friend for a few weeks and feel that the best way to make up for your guilt is to meet them in person, that might also not be the best reason to take the relationship from online to offline status. It is a natural part of the spectrum of human emotions to feel both fear and guilt, but make sure that you have better reasons than those to take your relationship into the real world.

If you do finally decide to take the plunge and move from online to offline dating, make sure that you can live up to the face you have presented them with in your online interactions. Being honest about yourself, your personality and appearance, right from the start is the best way to make your first meeting flow smoothly. Whatever you have said about yourself over the days, weeks, or months of your online relationship will all be either proven or disproven in the first few minutes of your first meeting, so speak wisely.

Online Dating: 5 Ways To Stay Safe

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Online dating is a great way to meet people, but it’s also an outlet for scumbags. Keep these tips in mind if you want your online dating experience to be safe.

Online dating has become one of the fastest-growing internet industries over the course of the past decade. Dozens of websites have staked their claim in the profitable realm of building relationships through the magic of cyberspace. While online dating is an attractive endeavor for folks who have a shortage of free time but an interest in meeting that special someone, it is important to know some general rules of the road in order to avoid regrettable or potentially dangerous situations. Here are five keys to keeping yourself safe while looking for a mate online.

Don’t Give Away Too Much

While you will certainly be asked about things such as your height, eye color and career field, it is important to draw lines regarding the distribution of your personal info. Information such as your address, the names and ages of your children or the location of your workplace should be kept under wraps until you have met with and personally verified the trustworthiness of a person. Not giving away too much applies to money as well as facts.

Over the years, hundreds of online daters have reported being the victim of scammers that were able to get money out of their pocket using a variety of creative techniques. As is the case with most situations that have a small potential for danger, a little common sense goes a long way.

Don’t Get Too Serious Too Quickly

Given that people who peruse online dating sites often do so while alone in the comfort of their own homes, thoughts and emotions tend to race in the wake of meeting someone who could be the one. In the aftermath of an introduction and a positive correspondence, many folks will drift off to sleep at night while fantasizing about a new life with Mr. or Mrs. Right.

While dreaming and wishful thinking can certainly be a fun and thrilling practice to engage in, it is important to not ante all of your emotional chips to the center of the table during the first hand. No matter how sprung you are on a potential online mate, you should never put yourself in a position to be easily heartbroken.

Use The Website To Communicate

Quality dating sites will have a user-friendly interface that allows correspondence between members in a private and secure setting. By conducting your communications within the dating website, you can streamline the process and ensure that nobody trolling the site will have easy access to pertinent information such as your e-mail address or phone number. Having a common place to do all of your online dating interactions can also minimize the chance of an un-received or lost message, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

Understand That Deception Does Happen

While the vast majority of online daters often slightly embellish entries such as weight or annual income, some folks go so far as to create a false persona. It’s one thing to say you weight 150 pounds when you are actually closer to 170, it’s quite another to say that you are a 27-year-old professional surfer when you are a 45-year-old manager of a Dairy Queen. Be careful of people or biographies that seem far too good to be honest. Hearts often race at the sight of a gorgeous face that claims to have a multi-million dollar annual income, but there is little means of verifying information up-front.

A good way to get to the bottom of a person and figure out whether or not what they are advertising is true is to attain the name of the company they work for and the city it is located in. Typing the information into a Google search will reveal if the company is real or not, giving you excellent insight into the legitimacy of the person.

Have An Easy Out

It is not a common occurrence, but at times online chemistry simply does not translate into real-life chemistry, causing dates to go sour long before their end. If this happens, having a plan to help yourself out of an awkward and undesirable evening is very important. The easiest approach is to schedule a planned phone call from a friend that can be used to prompt a quick exit if need be. If you are meeting a person for dinner at 7:00, tell a trustworthy friend to give you a phone call around 7:30.

If the date is going wrong, you can use your acting skills to pretend that your friend is stranded somewhere and needs a ride home immediately. If you are into the date and liking the person you are hanging out with, the call can be ignored or quickly finished, allowing you to get back to learning more about your new acquaintance.

Online Dating: What To Look For In A Dating Profile

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Online dating can be intimidating and overwhelming. Sort through the rifraff by keeping these things in mind when viewing online dating profiles.

What Online Dating Is All About

Dating websites have become a popular way of meeting romantic partners. They are helpful tools that the internet provides for finding relationships and often work because everyone who uses the site is interested in a relationship just as you are. The way you find out about potential romantic partners on these sites is by browsing through profiles. The profiles of the users give all sorts of background information on the person and allow you to choose people in whom you may be interested.

Though you shouldn’t jump to conclusions about somebody based on their profile alone, it can help to be able to identify profiles of people with whom you may find yourself compatible as contrasted with ones who will not be worth your time. Some of these sites even only allow you a certain amount of direct (i.e. messaging) contacts per month, so it pays to choose wisely who you would like to initiate a conversation with. Even on sites where this is not the case, wasting time with incompatible contacts just wastes your time and membership money. Though there are of course no set criteria as regards something like this, the following are some things you might consider looking for in a dating profile to help insure that it will be a fruitful contact:

Membership To Site

It is a good idea to look for others that have full memberships, because they tend to be the most active and easy to contact on sites. Many dating websites offer free initial memberships with a lot of restrictions. You may not even be able to send a message to somebody else who doesn’t have a full membership. Even if you are able to message them, they may not be able to respond. This will differ from site to site, but in general, paid site members are much easier to communicate with and begin a conversation with. They also tend to be more interested in the site as a real dating tool and not merely something to dabble in. So this is one this to look for if possible.

A Lot Of Information

A membership profile that offers a lot of information is often a good sign. It means the individual is forthcoming and open and that they are interested in the site. It also simply means that you can find out enough about a person initially to judge whether you’d like to contact them or not. If you only have a few pieces of information such as that their sex, age, occupation, and what they are interested in relationship wise, you really don’t have enough criteria for judging much of anything. Being able to read more about their interests, views, and activities before hand can save you wasted time.

Great Pictures

Few people would deny that a picture is important on a dating site. Though looks should by no means be the primary criterion for becoming interested in somebody, they do play a role. This is not only on the superficial level. You can tell “deeper” things about people by things like their smile, the way they dress, the environment where a photo was taken, and so on. Having a picture also shows that someone has an active sort of interest in the site and has taken to time create a complete profile. With all this is mind, look for profiles with pictures if possible.

Same Relationship Interest

It is a good idea to look for people with at least the same basic relationship interest as you. Certain people on dating sites will be looking merely for friendships, others for casual encounters, and still others for long term relationships. There may be gradations of these three categories as well. Generally it is important to find people that have a similar interest along these lines. This will maximize the possibility that you will both find the type of relationship you are looking for.

Friendliness

Though it might seem obvious, simple friendliness is an important trait to look for in a dating profile. If somebody expresses themselves in a friendly, encouraging, and open way in their profile, that is a sign that they will probably be this way in a relationship as well. If on the other hand they make a lot of demands, sound defensive, picky, or arrogant, this can also suggest the type of romantic partners they might be.

Active On Site

Just because somebody is a site member doesn’t necessarily mean they are very active on the site. So in addition to the things mentioned above, try to make sure a member is active and didn’t just sign up and then forget about it. You can often tell this by indicators that give the date of a member’s last visit to the site or that list the total number of visits.

Multiple Interests

A member with multiple interests is often a good person to contact, because it indicates that they will be an interesting and multifaceted person. This is definitely open to interpretation, and some people may like to find dates who don’t have a lot of interests and just enjoy a few simple things. But for the most part, people who have a number of different interests are dynamic and energetic people, and in most people’s opinion these are good qualities.

Online Dating: How To Create An Effective Username

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Online dating can be hard if you don’t know where to start. A good screen name is the first step – use these online dating tips for a great first impression.

Choosing a screen name for an online dating site should not be a decision made lightly. It is one of the key elements to site experience and interaction with other members. It is the first thing a prospective date sees and what sets one member apart from another. The ability for a screen name to stick out among a list of other screen names may be the difference between love and…nothing.

Do Some Research First

Initial research should be done by members before choosing their screen name. If they look around a site, they will see for themselves which user names they find appealing. Many sites do not allow the use of vulgar or rude names. Many blogs and articles recommend that a user not vulgarity, rudeness, depression, or self-deprecating user names. This is not good advice for everyone. If a user has these qualities, and expects their possible dates to accept them, then they should include them.

The intended audience should also be kept in mind when choosing a user name. Users are marketing themselves and should keep in mind who they will attract with their user name. Putting too much emphasis on physical qualities may attract a shallow type of person.

Make a User Name That is Easy To Read

The effort of creating a great user name should be rewarded. This will not be the case if a viewer cannot easily read it. 95% of computer users scan web pages. Those same people scan lists. The best way to make a name readable is by clearly defining each word through the use of capital letters or underscores.

Make It Easy to Pronounce

There is a direct relationship between being able to pronounce a word and being able to remember it.

Make It Short

SweetGirl is much easier to read than ThisIsTheLongestUsernameEver, even though the words are distinct in both. The first is the easiest to pick out when scanning a list and the easiest to remember.

Make It Memorable (No Numbers!)

Numbers should never, ever be used in a dating web site user name. Humans are more able to successfully remember names than numbers. They are also less likely to mix them up than the letters in a word. The opportunity for love could be missed if a prospective date mistakenly remembered SweetGirl101 instead of SweetGirl110.

Make It Descriptive

Include a hobby or interest: Common interests and hobbies are often the foundation of a relationship. If a member has a certain passion for something, it should be included in their user name. If the member really desires a prospective date to share their hobby or interest, the member should include specific, more technical elements or terms associated with that hobby or interest. A sporting fan could use vocabulary from their sport. A reader may use certain terms or characters from literature.

Use It To Describe Yourself

A member should include a descriptive word about themselves. This should be a quality that they have and they are proud of. It may be that they are romantic, humorous, honest, etc.

Make Your Gender Clear

Many chat rooms or instant message systems within dating sites do not have pictures accompanying the user names. Sexual orientation does not matter here. No matter what gender someone is attracted to, they need to know that the member is that gender. Being able to put a gender specific face or voice to written words is helpful in creating any kind of relationship.

Make It Unique

Feel free to add a twist to your screen name. This may include using an easily translated foreign word or a few symbols. Only one or two symbols should be used. They are easier to remember than numbers, but not as easy to remember as words. Create a name that leaves room for questions. Using easily translated foreign words is a good way to do this. While the meaning of the word should be obvious, a viewer may ask what language it is as an ice breaker.

A user name is a first impression. It is the first thing a viewer will see and the quality that a future partner will likely expect you to keep. Choose carefully.