Many relationships have started online and led to happy ever afters for couples around the world, and I have personally met people who have met their soulmate after a few weeks on line.
But what about the rest of us? For many of us it has been a long hard slog paved with frustration, irritation and apathy. The endless boring conversations, the “sex talk” when they are only after one thing and the carpet bombers who bombard every profile with messages hope to get a response from someone, anyone.
Online dating certainly is a minefield and its telling that most of the apps have adoped the tinder swipe which shows how boring many of us are finding the whole dating thing.
I didn’t meet my partner online although I did meet my ex there.
Tinder as fresh in from the States and it was a novelty, I advertised for a relationship and nothing casual and I met the man who unknown to me broke my heart wide open.
I’m not against online dating at all, even though I met my partner naturally at a business event, I do feel that after 2 decades of easy online access to a the sweet shop more and more people are going to prefer eyes meeting across a bar or restaurant or park.
The thing about online dating you have to be discerning and not entertain the idiots who if they were in a bar would look at you yearningly but not have the courage to talk to you. Now that the only think that separates them from your picture is a keyboard, suddenly they are not backwards at coming forwards.
Once you sort out the initial rush from the serial onliners, looking for fresh meat and the scammers looking for the naiive ones, then you can wait for the quality people to come in, these are the people who have been looking at your profile and thinking about what you have written.
I also believe that in the saying by Maya Angelou “When a person shows their true self, believe them” and also by Freud that “we leak the truth through every pore in our body”
A person’s nature will be evident in the words they use, the sentences they do or do not put together and they things they talk about. The trick is to be able to read between the lines and not be driven by the fear of loneliness or lack of intimacy to make the wrong move.