Online Dating

I have been telling a lot of friends about how I met my boyfriend, and I have to tell them over and over that we met online. I think online dating is not as taboo as it used to be, but we are human, and using technology to find love is just weird.

I am here to say that it worked for me, and if it worked for me, it has the possibility of working for anybody!
But there are some things you should know going into it...

First of all you need to be willing to be honest about who you are, and how much of yourself you are willing to show the dating world. That goes for regular dating as well and online.

Second: You can tell a lot abut someone just from their picture! Are they smiling? Can you see their eyes? Do they look honest? And on a lot of these site, one is able to pick a lot of photos to show their lifestyle, and who they are. Pictures tell a thousand words!
I would pass on guys who had pictures of themselves in front of cars, or professional pictures of them without a top on, these types of guys have an ego, and are most likely going to care more about their needs rather than mine.
Same thing goes for women! Are they smiling? Do they have kind eyes? Are they showing off, or just showing who they are?

Third: Are they wliling to talk about themselves? We are asked to describe who we are and what we are looking for on these sites, and you really should not be out there if you really don't know. I would run across profiles that had guys saying "I'm not sure what to say here, I'm a nice guy looking for love." that is not someone who is willing to put theselves out there and be honest about who they are! If he's willing to describe his himself, and willing to describe what he's looking for it makes it so much easier! And there's a chance his humour may come through the page. That's what happened with me; my boyfriends profile actually made me laugh out loud, and that was all it took to drop him an email.

Fourth: Get the initial meeting in out of the way. You may meet someone online, but you have just met in a virtual world. There are chances you have great chemistry from afar, and he or she may look like your match on their profile, but there is the one last key. Will you like each other, or will you "click" in person? The sooner you know the answer to that question the better. I was sooooo nervous going to meet my man for the first time, but it was worth finding out, and it turned out for the better. He on the other hand had been dating for a long time, and meeting girls from online, and he says that once you do it once, it gets easier from there.

Go on! Put yourself out there, and see what happens. You never know what you will find! For me it was a real confidence booster getting lots of winks and emails from people, even if I was not attracted to them in return. It just means you are not alone out there, and that there are tons of people looking for love in all places, even interactively!

Jen