Midlife Dating Expert’s Advice to Singles About Starting Out at the Internet Dating Websites
13 years ago, internet dating was unusual. There were only a handful of sites. And if you were on one of them and blithely and successfully meeting and dating other singles there, you spoke about it in hushed voices. When friends or family members asked you how you met your current girlfriend or boyfriend, you were in a jam trying to make up a story rather than tell them how you really met. And for those lucky many who actually met their fiancés online, they were mortified and their best man and maid of honor had the perfect story for sharing at their toast at their weddings.
Times sure have changed, haven’t they?
Online dating has gone mainstream. It is a mature market and perfect acceptable and normal now. Everyone knows others who have tried it and succeeded at it and many know at least someone who met their spouse online. Internet dating is now totally normal.
So normal, in fact, that what is now daunting is selecting from the hundreds upon hundreds of internet dating sites. How are you to choose? It has literally opened up a brave new world to singles of hundreds of thousands of other singles to choose from. It can seem overwhelming. In fact, influence and persuasion studies demonstrate that when humans have more than a handful of choices, the brain goes into overwhelm. You cannot distinguish the nuanced differences between the choices. And so you make no choice whatsoever. You don’t make a purchase. In terms of for singles, what that means is you remain single.
But when you have a strategy. When you first have a system for determining what you want in a relationship, what you specifically want, not just what your good friends or family members want. Then we can work a system for meeting, dating, and courting til we mate and marry.
Happy Dating and Relationships,
April Braswell
Las Vegas Online Dating Expert
Follow and Engage with April on Twitter: @AprilBraswell
Steve Chambers says
October 14, 2009 at 10:53 PMI remember the days of personal ads. Now that was taking a risk! Online dating seems to make perfect sense, although it provides too many choices for anyone to make a reasoned choice for a long term relationship. At best it seems like it would be useful for a series of one night stands and short term trysts, which anecdotal evidence tells me is what most men use it for.
Hope does spring eternal.
Steve Chambers
Sales Training Speaker
Lisa McLellan says
October 15, 2009 at 3:52 AMIts funny how these things happen. I remember when my husband had one of the first cell phones. It was a “bag phone” that you carried around. It was the size of a shoe box – lol. Now, even children have them.
You are right, there are sooooo many dating sites. One of my babysitting clients is a single dad. He’s tried many of them. I wonder how the free dating sites make money and how they compare to the ones that require a paid membership.
They sound like fun!
Lisa McLellan, Child Care Expert
Babysitting Services, Babysitting Tips, Babysitters, Nannies
John Ho says
October 15, 2009 at 3:45 AMApril,
Social fabrics changes over time. Whatever comes, comes; whatever goes, goes.
Nothing is really stagnant. Trends come & go, then resurface again as “new” trends after 15-20 years.
Online dating does speed up the whole process and goes to the core pretty quickly like speed dating, table for six …..
Speed is of essence in today’s business AND social life a time is a scare commodity these days.
Your excellent info here helps lots of readers to get their act together!
John Ho
Katie says
October 15, 2009 at 3:52 AMOne of my older cousins, she is somewhere over 65 but I dare not guess by how much, jumped into online dating after much prodding from yours truly 2 years ago.
She already lives a jetset life and now she has boyfriends in her regular ports of call . . . if not boyfriends, dates. She is thrilled to have the social interaction and potential matches. It keeps her sassy and gives that little extra kick to her day.
Katie
Martin O'Connor says
October 15, 2009 at 4:16 AMLisa asks an interesting question. Are the “open source” sites as good as, better than, or inferior to the paid for dating sites.
Martin O’Connor
Rob Northrup says
October 15, 2009 at 4:58 AMI like your “real world” engagement and conversation strategies and if I were looking to find a long-term relationship (I already am happily married) this would be the strategy I would use.
The Internet stuff seems to me to be more short-term oriented.
Seize the Day,
Rob
Kate McKeon says
October 15, 2009 at 6:05 AMI was just thinking about the Cougar Queen Bee and wondering if you have considered creating an online gravatar-like badge that could travel with people from dating site to dating site that would mark them as Cougar Approved . . .
Just a thought.
Mastery and Team Building, Kate McKeon
Nickolas James says
October 15, 2009 at 10:59 AMNice article April and it’s true. When I met one of my previous girlfriends on plentyoffish we agreed to tell our friends and family that we met at the beach (plenty of fish in the ‘sea’) and it worked, but that was even in today’s day and age. We still felt strange telling people where we met. Now I really wouldn’t care about telling people the truth about where I met someone, especially considering I own my own dating site now. Thanks for the article April.
Kate McKeon says
October 15, 2009 at 11:23 AMI was just thinking about the Cougar Queen Bee and wondering if you have considered creating an online gravatar-like badge that could travel with people from dating site to dating site that would mark them as Cougar Approved . . .
Just a thought.
Mastery and Team Building, Kate McKeon
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.
Lisa says
October 15, 2009 at 12:48 PMI actually know quite a few people who met their loves online — and the ones I know are getting married. I don’t see online dating as a fun short-term commitment, it seems those busy with their lives or who don’t trust meeting people at bars turn to online dating as a way to sort out someone’s intentions. As for personal ads, my friend’s parents met that way. I always thought that was really interesting and such a shot in the dark.
MissMentor
Jose Escalante says
October 15, 2009 at 12:39 PMI’d probably go with Rob on this one.
Jose Escalante
Martin says
October 15, 2009 at 4:52 PMAs more and more personal data is stored online and is (legitimately or otherwise) accessible, maybe a computerised expert system could match people based on the real data (grocery preferences, cars, flowers, books, toiletries, restaurant reservations, film tickets, sports tickets, fitness data, medical records, credit rating, bank balance!, internet sites visited etc etc etc). Then of course we would need to check their DNA compatibility!
Who said romance was dead!!
Martin says
October 15, 2009 at 4:54 PMSorry about the accidental double URL!
April Braswell says
October 15, 2009 at 6:00 PMHi Martin,
NP. Thanks for stopping by and commenting at my dating and relationship tips blog. Just had my admin fix that so your comment was no longer spam that way. 🙂
April
April Braswell says
October 15, 2009 at 6:01 PMHi Lisa,
yup. lots and LOTS. Thanks for stopping by and commenting at my blog.
April
Darryl Pace says
October 15, 2009 at 7:13 PMI know a guy that meets some of his potential dates (PDs) online. He needs a strategy though, and I’ve directed him toward your site.
Health, Fitness for Working People — Darryl Pace
Keri Eagan says
October 15, 2009 at 9:21 PMI guess whether it is short or long term is heavily influenced by the culture of the site itself. Like minds tend to gather together.
Keri Eagan
Isaac Scott says
October 16, 2009 at 8:01 AMCompetition between men in online dating is very high. But be honest. Don’t boast. Get high rank status by being yourself. Most women notices compassionate and honest men. Avoid trial and error by writing down “super” qualities in your profile. It might get to be a “too good to be true” personality that most women might doubt about them.
Vick says
October 17, 2009 at 9:43 AMIt is daunting to see the hundreds of people on dating sites. One other way to meet someone you might not have. Do you any any tips/suggestions on what one might stir away from when visiting sites, using this option, of meeting someone new. Of course we all run scared because the media only tells us about the dates that went wrong not right.
Vicki http://www.bridal-threads.com