Singles Dating Scene: “Easy Loving”, Is Your Online Dating Prospect Date Geographically Desirable

Singles Dating Scene: “Easy Loving”, Online Dating Singles Consider is Prospective Date Sufficiently Geo-Local For You?

Savvy Social Dating Scene Singles Ponder: Is My Internet Dating Prospective Date Live within a Realistic Driving Range?

Online Dating Singles Wonder If Their Prospective Date Lives Nearby Enough for Dating and Courtship?

In the early Neanderthal Days of Internet Dating when it was simply called Computer Dating or referred to as Cyber-Dating, the online dating sites simply cited what towns and cities the registered singles lived in and let everyone take it from there.

Different internet matchmaking sites offer different geographic search range parameters to permit cyber singles to seek out love in a self-actualizing and self-determining manner.  Some sites even have a geographic citation option to designate that you’re open to love at any distance and that leaves things wide open for those melodramatic histrionic episodes we love to watch on 90 Day Fiance. Many of today’s savvy singles feel, “Don’t limit me with whom I’ll consider dating.  Let me do the searching and enter the most significant determining factors that matter to me most.  Don’t dictate them to me.”

Still many of the internet dating sites won’t let you search on the profiles of other single members who live outside of a 500 mile radius of where you or at least not easily.

And you might think really that 500 miles does matter and is important and seems like a pretty reasonable regional distance to define and limit singles to search within. Some people travel for business beyond that distance regularly or many singles over 45 and 50 are looking to move in the next few years as their kids graduate from high school or to where their grandchildren live. Putting in a 500 miles limit limits those members from that kind of specific a search. Alternatively, they have to create a profile citing they already live in the area to which they seek to move. Either way, it’s going to be awkward and necessitate early messaging explanations to get past the opening missives exchange.

However, really, the statistics and studies demonstrate, even with the advent of online dating and internet dating now having moved into the mainstream of the contemporary singles social dating scene, the majority of marriages are formed between singles who live within 4 miles of each other.

So think in terms of the fun Phil Collins’ song, “Easy Lover” sort of playing in the back of your mind.  Will you really do the driving back and forth all the time in a geographic region?  Is it even feasible with the commute traffic in the metropolitan area where you live?

Sometimes those singles even live within the same niche neighborhood, for example Cow Hollow, 1 of the 3 main Yuppie Neighborhoods of San Francisco.  However, the single guy and gal simply were not meeting somehow within the physical confines and lifestyle habits they had even within their small neighborhood of SF.  They only met because the two of them went online, created a winning internet dating profile, and joined and paid the membership dues of a quality internet matchmaking website.  The dating site matched them up.  They met.  Courted, and married.  Turns out they were even from the same state across the continental United States.

When you are defining what your geographic region parameter is for finding love online, keep in mind your Dating, Choosing, and Courtship Phases of your dating unto marriage life.

Will the two of you really agree to drive back and forth to each others locations, to restaurants, dance clubs, and social venues where the two of you live?  During Dating, Choosing, and Courtship Phases, you are likely dating weekly.  Then you are pursuing some Shared Life Activities.  And during the Courtship Phase, you will likely be seeing each other more than 1 or 2 days a week.  How far is too far for you to drive, train, bus, or fly for all of that over an extended period of time?

I have coached and interviewed couples who courted across the continent, and happily married each other.  They agreed to it as part of the courtship.  They discussed it and both of their professional careers really did have the flexibility for both of them to uproot their lives and move to a new to both of them location for their married lives going forward.

Another couple, they decided that 500 miles was the appropriate distance for them to consider a serious life mate prospect.  He and she took turns driving the distant miles to share life together which is necessary for the courtship and marriage relationship foundation building stage.  They both did long distance driving.  Typically for a number of reasons the single man may do the longer drive the first few times.  However, for it to be courtship, they must both being investing into the relationship being considered.  Both must commit to doing heavy lifting by Courtship Phase when they are both adults over the age of 30 years old.  This is not the Duggars Dating Rules age group where the girls are still young ladies living at home under 25 years old and living under their parents’ roof.  That’s another topic and another post.

Consider the drive and the commute traffic patterns the two of you will be contending with.  And then answer for yourself, because nobody else has the answer for you, only you do, “Is your prospective date geographically desirable for dating and courting you?”

Happy Dating and Relationships!

April Braswell

As seen in “In Touch Weekly” and in Dating for Dummies, 3rd Edition

April Braswell is a Professional Speaker who speaks to singles in Singles Groups and Divorce Recovery Groups as well as at Singles Dating Workshops and Singles Conferences.  Hire April to speak at your Singles Event?