4 Online Dating Mistakes to Avoid

I made them so you don’t have to

I dated for over seven years before I met my partner. I made a lot of mistakes. I didn’t know what I wanted or how to respond to messages on the online dating sites that I joined. I didn’t understand how online dating worked and I took it far too seriously.

My last first-date was in 1986 when I met my ex-husband. When I started dating again, I was two decades older and in a different country. I was used to being married. I had an 11-year old daughter and very little free time. Looking back, I was hopeless at dating and made some stupid mistakes. Dogged determination got me through (not to be confused with ‘dogging’, don’t do that, please).

I was determined to meet my soul mate, and I thought the best way was online. If your friends are telling you any different, and that you should wait to meet a man at a barbecue or party, ignore them. Or, ask them when the party will be and the names of the singles they will be inviting for you to meet.

I threw myself into dating, had a great time, learned a lot about dating, and finally met my partner. It wasn’t all fun though. Here are the mistakes I made, and what you can do to avoid them.

Mistake Number One: I didn’t know what I wanted

I made no effort to work out what I wanted in a man and what was a deal-breaker. I had no criteria, and I was too open to meeting different kinds of people. I wasted a lot of time going on dates with men that were never going to be a match.

What you can do differently:

Take some time to work out what you want in a man. Take a few days, and make a note of the top things you are looking for on post-its or in a notebook. Several sessions of brainstorming will enable you to come up with all sorts of insights about what you want. Talking to friends also helps as they may have a different perspective and have useful tips from their own experience.

Think about age, religion, hobbies, location, looks, finances, job and work ethic, children (have they got them, do they want them), do they have a house and car. It’s your list, so be honest. It’s no good saying all you care about is values and kindness if you want a man with a high-paying job, a big house, and a healthy bank account. Bear in mind, that you must offer the same to a new partner. Be honest about what you can bring to a relationship and what the sort of people you are targeting may want in their ideal partner.

Mistake Number Two: I spent far too long thinking about their profiles

The first profile that caught my eye was quite in-depth. It took twenty minutes or so to read. Then I got to the last line, “Please don’t contact me if you have any allergies”. I do have allergies, so that was twenty minutes I would never get back! I persevered and studiously read many profiles. I thought carefully about the content and considered the pros and cons of every statement. The length of time I invested in analyzing someone’s profiles had no bearing on whether they responded. The picture I built in my head from over-analyzing had no bearing on who they were in real life.

I noticed how much I had changed when a few years later, I helped a friend of mine write her profile and get online. She analyzed one profile for forty-five minutes! I was shocked. I was down to about 30 seconds per profile by then.

What you can do differently:

Skim read the profiles and make sure that they meet your criteria. Avoid planning the sort of life you would have together and naming your children. You are wasting your time. They may be out with their soul mate on a first date even as you are reading their profile. Also, you don’t know whether they are telling the truth. Unfortunately, there are married people online looking for an affair as well as people who write about their ideal version of themselves rather than the actual version.

For example, every date I went on that involved food, my date ordered steak and potatoes. To a man, they had put in their profile that they liked Asian-Mexican fusion, stir-fried organic broccolini, quinoa or, some exotic equivalent. So much for what people write in their profile. Take it (and your dinner) with a pinch of salt.

Mistake Number Three: I didn’t believe what the profile said

There are a lot of people online who do not want to meet a long term partner. What they want is fun or casual sex. I failed to believe what they said in their profiles. I was still operating in some fairy-tale world where I was ‘the one’, who would change their minds. This didn’t work out too well for me.

The other men I should have paid attention to were the ones who talked about being very adventurous. Generally, they brought this up very quickly. By adventurous, they meant multiple partners, poly-amorous relationships, threesomes, or going to swingers clubs. I’m not interested in that lifestyle, and wasted time chatting online to men who were. Mind you, it did open my eyes to what was going on in Auckland, behind the (swinging) scenes!

What you can do differently:

Believe what people say in their profiles. If they say they want a casual relationship, that is likely to be what they want. If that is what you want too, all good. If not, move on to the next profile. The same goes for the sex stuff. Know what you want and don’t engage with people who want something different.

Mistake Number Four: I was too nice

In my naivete, I responded to every message, even if I wasn’t interested in taking things further. I was very polite and said something like, “I don’t think we are a match. Thanks for your message. You look like a nice person. Good Luck.” By return message, I sometimes got either insults or arguments as to why we were a match and should meet. Lovely.

I also responded to messages without a profile picture, though in my profile, I said I wouldn’t. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, I can assure you. If the messages are engaging, it’s easy to get drawn into chatting. When the photo finally arrived, and they were not attractive, what to do then? The rejection can only be because of their looks. I don’t like hurting people’s feelings, dating is hard enough as it is. Further down the dating track, I tried to explain this to a couple of men without photos. They sent me aggressively worded messages back saying I was prejudiced (against what?)and shouldn’t be judging them on their looks. Wait, what? It’s a dating site, not a ‘make friends’ site. Looks matter in a potential mate.

What you can do differently:

Don’t get drawn into conversations with people who are not attractive to you or who do not meet your criteria. Don’t worry about not responding, not writing back is the response. If you have to, write a short, polite message and if you get anything nasty back, block them. And remember, don’t take it personally, they are talking to a photo, not to you.

Final thoughts

It takes a while to get used to the dating game if you haven’t done it for decades. It’s fraught with emotion, and if you are older, like I was, you may still feel there is a stigma attached to online dating. There isn’t.

It’s tempting, when lonely, to do anything, just so you feel you are doing something. That’s like busywork at the office. It won’t get the job done. Concentrate on finding the sort of relationship you would like. Brutally cut out anything that doesn’t lead to that goal.

Remember that online, you will see profiles of people who are very different from yourself. That’s OK, you don’t have to meet them.

You will make mistakes and do things, that later, you regret. But that’s just being human. We all make mistakes, and that is how we learn.

If you are still looking for love, I hope my story helped.

Good Luck.

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