Modern dating has largely shifted to the same place as retail, television and the black market for organs: online. Nowadays, romance has joined them and love is now most easily found online.
Just like anything else, moving from the real world to the virtual world does not, however, mean that the risk of social disaster has been extinguished. Here are some tips for avoiding online dating disasters.
1. Keep a lid on it – In this day and age its entirely common to double park your text messages. People forget that in the early days of mobile phones the etiquette was to send a message and wait for a response, even if that meant waiting 72 hours. These days people are used to sending four to five messages without a response and think nothing of it. This does NOT work in dating. Each unanswered message makes you exponentially less likely to bed the person you are messaging. Play it cool – if they like you they will get back to you.
2. Resist excessive online stalking – The temptation when you’ve found the profile of someone you fancy on social media is to trawl through through their history trying to find out who their exes were etc. The problem with this is that first, it’ll probably make you paranoid, and second, there’s every chance you’ll let something slip to your date which lets on that you know everything they’ve been up to since 2007. Expect your courtship to be short-lived if this happens.
3. If you do, DO NOT HIT ‘LIKE’ ON ANYTHING! – If you’re going to stalk your date online, be acutely aware of the ‘like’/’favourite’ button. Nothing screams creep like someone liking all of your photos with your ex fiancé on holiday in the Mediterranean in 2009.
4. Be choosey – Don’t just say yes to a date for the sake of having something to do on a given weeknight. Of the people you meet a certain number will be fine, well adjusted people, some you will have no connection to and will happily part ways after a date and some are outright psychos who will kidnap your cat and send it back to you in several pieces if you don’t return their texts. By limiting your selections to the cream of the crop you reduce the likelihood of meeting a complete nutter.
5. Turn of your phone when drunk – In the very early stages of courtship, one wrong move can spell an end to your prospective relationship. A social media/text meltdown when drunk will end it faster than just about anything else. You’re most likely to send a needy/clingy/unsolicited text that blows the whole thing out of the water when drunk. Best to keep the technology away when drunk to cut out the mere possibility.
So when venturing into the online dating world, consider the above tips to keep your chances alive.