After 40 Dating: Singles’ Top 10 Online Dating Blunders

Dating Advice and Tips: After 40 Dating Singles’ Top 10 Online Dating Faux Pas

After 40 Dating Blunder #1.   Gossip About Your Dates on Your Facebook Page or Tweetstream

Stop laughing.  I know, you’ve warned your college age kids and teens not to post when they’ve had a few beers and not to swear and display their rich vocabulary of cuss words.  And then you return from a date where she never laughed at any of your jokes or stories and where he took you to a sports game you loath.  And you just added it to your tweetstream or griped about it at your facebook page.

Well guess what?  The same rules of “Your Tweetstream Is Forever” hold for you as they do for your kids.  The Library of Congress is recording Twitter.  Everything you say there and at Facebook could become viewable by your dates or your prospective dates.  Yes, you want it to reflect you and your sense of humor, so a little bite is ok.  But in the hours before and just after a date, step away from the computer and put down your smart phone so you protect yourself from you own impulsiveness to make a snarky remark to all the world.  Staying away from the temptation just protects you.

After 40 Dating Blunder #2.  Complain and Criticize Your Date’s Lack of Perfection in Social Networking

I am not kidding.  People actually do this, both men and women in the Social Networking sites of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.  The single women when they are being high maintenance about what they want their dates to have learned about them in terms of what flowers she likes and to what events she wants to attend when she has never practiced communicating that in a cute, fun, flirtatious and feminine manner with Body Flirting.  And the single men who are in the freshly post-divorce bitter stage who complain about how “all” their peers don’t take care of themselves.  Just means you are in the wrong haunts and your heart still hurts.

After 40 Dating Blunder #3.  Do you really want a lot more of the same kind of singles you are already dating

Are you guilty of advertising at the online dating sites for the same sort of attributes and person that you dated and married in your 20s and 30s?  Do you find your description of the type of person and the relationship you’re looking for is kinda generic?  Does it remind you of the relationship you were just in, like your former marriage?  Many of the over 40 year old singles have been married before.  Some are single again as a result of being widowed like myself or from divorce.  And while your former relationship may have had all the earmarks of the sort of relationship you enjoy, is that really the same kind you want to start now?

Or perhaps, are you thinking of downsizing your dwelling?  Are you finished with having children and are now wrapping up their high school years?  Please think about what sort of relationship you want now.  Think about, imagine, and do some writing about what you crave on a daily, weekly, monthly and periodic basis in a relationship now.  No longer are you looking for a good mother or father for your children.  Now you’re looking for an attractive and interesting life partner and companion for YOU!

After 40 Dating Blunder #4.  Subscribe for 12 months

You didn’t subscribe to the exact same internet dating site for a 12-month subscription did you, thinking you’d save on the average monthly price, did you?  Single women ask me online, “When they see I’m still single 9 months later, they don’t think I’m stale bread, do they?” (or words to that effect)  Well, yes, dear, they do.  When they see that your profile and your photos are all still 100% the same as they have been month after month after month, part of their brain is starting to wonder, “What’s wrong with her/him that they haven’t gotten into a relationship during all this time?”

You should at least have had a few starter relationships which got past 6 dates and you two considered a relationship enough that you took your profile down, right?  And should that have not been a life-partner match for you, well, when you put your profile back up, you changed things around like your Front Main Profile Photo, yes?

Over 40 year old singles are often both quite sophisticated and better versed in knowing what they want and what they don’t want in a relationship.  You have to keep your Online Dating Profile interesting and engaging.  One part of that fascination which you are striving to create with your internet dating profile is a touch of mystery and intrigue.  You want to create just enough intrigue that they find you alluring and attractive enough to make sure they get to a first date with you to meet you.

After 40 Dating Blunder #5.  Post Your Dating Profile Only at the Giant Dating Sites

The big name internet dating sites are simply marvelous.  They have literally multi-millions of members and can cite a number of marriages and engagements of single men and single women who have met at their sites.  However, when there are so many millions of other singles, what happens is your Prospective Date can get into what the Social Psychologists have demonstrated is Choice Overwhelm.  When we experience Choice Overwhelm of having many many choices, rather than making more selections, we actually choose fewer times.  On a consumer level, we make fewer purchases.  On the singles scene, that means we meet fewer people and go on fewer dates.

What can you do instead?  Yes, absolutely do post a great dating profile on the super large online dating sites.  However, about 8 weeks later, I recommend you also post a dating profile or two on some niche dating sites.

• Faith Based
• Shared Interest Based
• Interracial
• Ethnic Group Based
• Geographically Local Based
• College/University Based
• Other

After 40 Dating Blunder #6.  Keep your photos the same for 12 months

Closely aligned with the problem of subscribing for 12 consecutive months is the risk of keeping your main profile photo as well as secondary supporting photo albums the same.  For goodness sakes, you’re not the exact same person you were 12 months ago, right?  Additionally, since the After 40 Dating Singles are so sophisticated, they are looking for a life partner companion who both already has an interesting life and who will partner well with them and add to their lives to make it more enjoyable and interesting.  Let your secondary photos demonstrate you participating in interesting and engaging activities.  Over the course of 12 months, you should have collected several new great flattering photos of you at different and interesting distinct restaurants, hiking locations, sailing experiences, travel destinations, a variety of sporting events, as well as citing some of that in the text description in your profile.  You have to keep your profile up-to-date and interesting to catch the eye and interest of the After 40 Single and their sophisticated expectations.

After 40 Dating Blunder #7.  Have hyper specific criteria to get to the first date

Some of the After 40 Singles are still trying to protect their hearts in one way or another by keeping anyone less than “Perfect” away from them at arm’s length distance.  Real relationships are between real people who deal with the real relationship issues of daily life – The Dishwasher and The Bathroom.  Married couples laugh at that description of mine, because it’s true.  So much of the daily life grind of marriage boils down to The Dishwasher and The Bathroom.  And yet you find yourself grilling your perspective date in emails about their doctrinal party platform beliefs before you’ll meet them for DrinksNApps at the local Wine Bar?  Those topics really can make for fun conversations, but typically they are better suited not as a pre-screening device but for the conversational dates after the first month of courtship between singles.

After 40 Dating Blunder #8.  Don’t heal your heart or reflect on your part in past relationships

If you are an After 40 Dating single, whether you are divorced or widowed and are now Dating Again After…. Or your are Single Never Married, by now, you have in all likelihood been in at least a few Relationships.  You have broken some hearts.  And you’re heart has been broken or wounded on some level as well.  Before you can fully attract a new love which will be really and truly healthy for you and life-enhancing, you will need to do some reflection time.  Don’t worry.  I am not suggesting 5 years of therapy before you date again, lol!  However, do invest a weekend or two of your time to reflect on the relationship.  With it ending, what was your part?  Anything you have learned to do better and do differently?  Not about going back and FIXING it now, but, are there things and behaviors you’d change now, going forward into a new relationship?  Whether you go say this directly or not, any apologies to make?  Anything to release on the resentments side which is also known as forgiveness?  When you give yourself those gifts of reflection and heart healing time, you bless yourself and you increase your ability to attract, find, and create new lasting love.  Go ahead.  You’re worth it.

After 40 Dating Blunder #9.  Expect Massive Results in 6 Weeks

Just because the online dating sites television ads and some of the written testimonials at their dating sites tell the romantic tales of the singles who found each other over the FREE WEEKEND Trial or in the first month of dating, don’t set yourself up for jeopardizing success by expecting massive results ASAP.  To attract, find, and create lasting love can take a few months – typically 24-36 months.  When you make a concerted effort giving it a top priority in your life followed through with massive implementation of strategy and action steps, you can attract, find, and create lasting love in 24 months, definitely within 36 months.  It takes at least 12 months of knowing someone and seeing each other in the different seasons and cycle of at least 1 year before you know you two have covered enough ground and built your Marriage Foundation.  Love in 6 Weeks?  With yourself, yes?  With someone else?  6 weeks is only infatuation.  Real Love that lasts take time and is well-worth it.  So are you.

After 40 Dating Blunder #10.  Feel Like a Dating Failure Should That Not Happen

Did your best friend get engaged from online dating in the first few months of internet dating?  Are you comparing yourself to them?  You are unique.  You are not the same person.  Your needs, desires, and gifts in a relationship are different.  When you compare yourself to the folks who met and wed in a matter of weeks of being matched, you jeopardize setting yourself up to feel like a dating failure if the EXACT same thing doesn’t happen to you.

What to do instead?  Identify what it is that YOU want in a relationship.  Go on quite a lot of dates to test that out and fine tune your WHAT I WANT story and scenario.  Keep dating now for that fine-tuned relationship.  Give yourself time to attract that while you continue to develop your having and enjoying a marvelous life.  Before you know it, you will be magnetically attracting lasting love that fits YOU.  And isn’t that worth the investment of your precious time, money, and life?  You betcha!

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell

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Professional Internet Dating Profile Writing and Review

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