What dating sites don’t tell you #1

December 19th, 2008

OK, there’s actually a lot of stuff that dating sites won’t tell you, hence I marked this post as #1 of many. But rather than talk about the shadier side of things, I want to talk about something totally different, that is actually quite positive in its own way.

Dating sites always advertise themselves as the way to find the right person for you and encourage you to keep dating on the site and meeting new people. But in reality, many people who date on dating sites end up finding someone in completely different ways, once they’ve been dating online for a while. In many cases, it is the online dating experience that made this possible, albeit indirectly.

Why is this? In the online dating company I used to work for, the saying went that online dating builds confidence – you go on a bunch of dates, you get used to talking to people again, maybe see that the people you meet are not right for you (which makes you begin to see your self-worth) and then, thus encouraged, gather up the courage to go and chat up someone you like at a pub or a party.

Personally, I think there are other reasons as well. I’ve long thought that if you want to meet the right person, you need to have a clear image in your head of what the right person is like. Online dating forces you to start thinking *exactly* about what you want in your perfect man or woman: more so than any other form of dating. More often than not, we don’t know what we want until presented with something we don’t want. Other times, we’ll meet someone who’s obviously wrong for us, but has some qualities that fit in with our ideal profile.

Another thing online dating does is it forces you to look at yourself differently and highlight all the parts of your life you might want to change. Nothing does this better than being faced with the prospect of writing about yourself in a profile you’d use to basically market yourself to others. Once you do, you may well decide to change things in your life and become generally happier with yourself – often a prequisite to successful dating.

Why is this good news? Because it shows that even if you don’t look at online dating as your one and only chance at finding love, the personal journey you take while trying it will teach you a lot about yourself and what you want to get out of life and out of a relationship. Even if you don’t actually meet the right person for you on an online dating site, you’ll still have gained some valuable things from the experience and be in a better position to find what you’re looking for.

Related posts:

1. Is online dating killing romance? Going beyond dating sites
2. What we can learn from social networking sites
3. Dating – don’t just keep it online

Entry Filed under: Online Dating Tips