A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I started an online dating profile recently. First timer just thought I'd see how it goes!! Met a really nice guy, loads in common we swapped number and messaged each other for 8 hours non stop late into the night! He even text me this morning to say hello and a couple of messages back and forth through the day but he is away for the weekend and we plan to meet up next week.I'm just wondering about this online dating stuff though because I know he's still on there chatting to other women and I know we haven't even gone on a first date yet lol. He's all about chemistry in the person and have very similar thinking to me. I still go online and have a look but not really chatting to anyone else. Can someone explain how it all works, when's the normal time to stop talking to others. Etc... Or any kind of etiquette that I might have missed out on! Thanks all :-)
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Mark1978  +, writes (22 June 2014):
 Hiya,
The first thing to bear in mind here is that, until you have met a few times, you really don't know each other at all, as talking via dating sites and texts is not the same as real life. No matter how intimate and caring the texts, how much you have chatted on the phone or how may times you contact each other and talked at an intimate level, its only when you get to know this guy in a real life situation that you can find out if there is a spark and if he is who he claims to be.
Having extensive online dating experience myself, I have met women I didn't think I would like at all and did, others I met excitedly thinking I was going to love them, I didn't. The sad truth is that the majority of dates people go on from online dating sites end in disappointment. That's not to say you shouldn't try, as I met my most recent GF online and there are lots of success stories, but its important to be realistic.
The problem is that on dating site we can be whomever we wish. We can talk up our achievements, claim to have done whatever we want, say we are younger, taller, higher earning...these things are so, so common. Talking via social media or text is different to a face to face conversation: we can think of witty or sexy responses, make an excuse if we are in a bad mood, chat online when we want and not when we don't. In a real life, face to face situation its very different. Without the time to ponder a great reply some people show themselves to be very different in normal conversation to the witty, sexy banter they create via text or email. Some people are very confident at flirting via text for instance, only to be painfully shy face to face. Via a dating site/text people often omit the tedious stuff of their day and make more of the good stuff, something hard to do in the company of someone. I have met women with terrible bad breath, women who's photos were taken a good ten years ago and they had aged a lot, women who cried about their ex....all of those women sounded great online. Ive hear of women meeting men who claimed to be Six Feet tall, slim, handsome and driving an Audi...only for the man to arrive at Five Foot Six, pot bellied and stepping out of an old banger. Many people on line lie about being single, or mislead how long since they spilt from their last partner, or have bad habits or addictions never mentioned online. Im not saying this to put you off this guy or dating online, but as someone who is new to online dating its important to make you aware.
So to reiterate - you don't know each other until you have met.
With that in mind, interned dating is like applying for a job and a first date is like a job interview. While applying for a job you want, you would naturally assume that you are not certain of getting it and would continue to apply for other positions at the same time. You would not turn down other interviews because one was offered in case you didn't pass the first. Online dating is the same. While chatting to you it is absolutely acceptable for this guy to chat to other women. Most users of dating sites, especially women, want to wait a while before meeting up - that's sensible but makes online dating protracted, frustrating at times and often disappointing, and for the reasons I have already stated he does know if you will like each you, or vice versa, in the flesh. So to avoid wasting time he is chatting to several people to avoid putting all his eggs into one basket. I have spent months talking to people and REALLY liking them online, only to finally meet and be disappointed, with the overriding feeling being one of wasted time. Going back the job application analogy, if you went through a three month wait between applying for a job and getting the interview, and another months wait after the interview and tests only to be told you were unsuccessful, that's a long time wasted concentrating on one job when you could have been applying like crazy else where.
Even after a first date, assuming he doesn't sleep with you, its okay for him, or you, to have other dates. A first date with someone you have never met or seen is an introduction, and its not uncommon, or indeed wrong as such, for him or you to meet with other people for a first date around the same time, including afterwards. However I would say that if you go on a second and third date, find a spark, and decide to take it further then it should be a case of staying off the dating sites and concentrating on each other. Promising exclusivity after meeting someone once or twice is a little premature, if you didn't know the person before going on those dates in real life. This is where Online Dating differs from, say, meeting someone through friends or at work.
Good luck with the date and I hope it goes well. Don't forget to let us know how it went.
Mark
(I am currently half way through writing an article on online dating, creating a decent profile, problems to watch out for, tips, hints and personal experiences, etc. Im not sure yet quite how it works re: putting an article on here, or even if its something others are interested in, but I will hopefully finish it in the next couples of days and see about submitting it. OP is that something you would like?)
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