Why Messaging on a Dating Website for More Than a Week is a Waste of Time

You want a boyfriend not a pen pal

Chatting online to prospective partners is fun, and it feels like you are dating even when you really aren’t.

You get dopamine hits when you receive a message and feel good about your dating success, even though in real life, nothing has changed.

If your objective is to spend a lot of time online talking to people, great. If your goal is to meet a real-life partner, you need to change things up a bit.

When you are ready to start dating, you want a positive outcome.

I wasted a massive amount of time chatting to unsuitable people online. Don’t be like me, messaging for too long without meeting up is a waste of time. I recommend no more that a week.

Here is why:

1. You get hooked in

Typing messages and baring your soul to a stranger online becomes addictive. You can happily message from the safety of your home wearing your pajamas.

You don’t have to go anywhere or worry about what your house looks like for a zoom meeting.

You can write messages to your heart’s content and feel connected, and it’s like having a real boyfriend, but you don’t. Good morning and good night texts, continual messages on the dating site, and FB messages don’t manifest a real partner.

“I’m sure there’s a psychological reason we get so addicted. A surge of endorphins or adrenaline when someone we consider attractive considers us attractive, too. All they do is flick their thumb one way, and we feel complimented, confident, validated.”

— I Was Addicted To Dating Apps. Here’s What Happened When I Deleted Them For Good, Alison Karlene Hodgins, www.huffpost.com

What you have is a glorified penfriend, someone you write to but doesn’t demand anything of you in real life.

You are writing to a photograph but imagining you have met your soulmate.

Takeaway: If you haven’t met them, it’s not a real relationship.

2. You create a fantasy person

When you finally meet the person you have invested so much time in, you may be disappointed. If all you have had until now is messages, the reality of what your boyfriend is like in real life might be a shock.

For a start, they may be someone you would never confide in face to face. You may feel embarrassed that you have shared so many of your intimate thoughts with a stranger.

If you have only seen a photo, your shock may include that you are not attracted to your date. You might fancy their profile picture but not them, even if the photo is recent and is a reasonable likeness.

Dating online is about finding a partner, which involves intimacy and needs a certain amount of attraction between you. You may have assumed an appeal that isn’t there.

Takeaway: You need to see someone in person to gauge your attraction to them. Your fantasy person is not real.

3. You create false expectations

If you have shared your intimate thoughts with someone and are messaging them regularly, you build up an expectation.

You might commit to arrangements in the future, such as attending an event when you get out of lockdown.

If your date is attracted to you when you meet, there will be assumptions on their part about the relationship; You may not share the same assumptions.

It’s cruel to lead people on. Worse, you may be the enamored person, and it’s your date wondering what the hell they are doing.

Takeaway: Prolonged messaging creates expectations that may not be shared.

4. You might be on the back burner

Dating sites are for dating, so that’s what people do. They look around to see who they like. The man you are chatting to may like you but he may like someone else better.

While you are getting more involved, he may be keeping you on the back burner as a second or third reserve in case the other prospective girlfriends don’t pan out or put out.

Avoid this by asking for a meet up in person after a week or so. If you can’t meet up because of covid ask for a phone call or zoom. If your honey is hesitant it may mean they are stringing you along.

Takeaway: You don’t know what the person you are messaging is thinking or how many other people they are talking to.

Summary

Online dating is a weird and wonderful world that our brains are not designed for. Becoming addicted to messaging is easy, but it’s a time-waster if you are serious about meeting a partner.

Instead of wasting time with weeks of messages only to find you would never kiss your date in a million years, do the following:

• Avoid chatting to people for longer than a week without arranging some sort of in-person or online meet up.
• Before the date, talk on the phone to check that you can carry on a conversation. You don’t have to share your phone number. Get a burner phone or create a new account on a messaging app.
• If you can do so, meet for coffee. It’s a small investment of time and money and you can leave in a hurry if you have to.
• If you can’t meet in real life because of covid, arrange a zoom meeting. At least then you will be able to see if you are attracted to one another.

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