My Rules for Online Dating
Published on May 15, 2024
The Rules
These rules are a part of my online dating guide that you can download here.
Here are a few important concepts everyone should bear in mind before getting into the actual guide (or online dating for that matter). These rules establish how I believe online dating should be approached. Awareness of these concepts can make the whole process a little less painful.
Rule One: Grain of Salt
First, nothing I have to say is “right”. As a matter of fact, I believe this applies to any dating material you might read. Everything I am presenting is what I found to work best in online dating. Every person and situation is different so if you feel something is not applicable, stick with your instincts. It is my opinion that all dating advice is just someone’s best guess. These guesses can be enormously helpful but should never be viewed as absolutely correct.
In the year I dated online, I went on approximately thirty-five first dates, had twice that number of semi-successful online conversations that never made it to the first date, and sent countless emails that I never received a reply for. Of the first dates I went on, well under half resulted in a second date or more. One more thing I should add to these statistics: almost all of my first and second dates came within the last three or four months of my year of dating. It took me all that time to finally understand what I was doing wrong and to fix it.
Rule Two: Everyone’s Favorite
Just be yourself. I think this is the one phrase I hated most while dating but the one I heard (and read) more often than any other. One reason I despised this phrase, particularly in dating books, is because this would be the first concept presented and then the remainder of the book is devoted to teaching a person how to act like someone else.
For example, in one book I read it started off with the ever-present “Just be yourself” chapter immediately followed by a chapter explaining how to develop a more outgoing nature. They recommended talking to strangers in public that you were not attracted to and working your way toward more attractive people. From what I’ve seen this is very common advice.
At any rate, as a shy guy, I can either follow the rules of the first chapter or the rules of the second. Quiet reservation is who I am and no amount of practice ever made “being outgoing” less of a farce for me. I really think this is unfortunate because right now, there is a guy or girl out there somewhere on a first date acting assertive because, according to several dating books, it improves their chances of getting a second date. Which leads me to this question: what if a man pretends to be assertive and this actually leads to the relationship being successful? If so, the poor girl thinks she’s dating someone with certain qualities when she’s actually dating someone who can simply act. What’s worse is the guy has bought into the idea that he is either going to have to act like someone else for the rest of his life or be alone.
The truth of the matter is being assertive is going to help many guys seem more attractive to many girls – I’ll give the books that much – but this does not make it the only solution. The books do mean well: they are offering advice that will improve a man’s odds when trying to get dates.
Something should be done to improve the odds, but I do not believe the answer is to do so by pretending to be something you are not. Instead, improve your odds by dating more and accepting the fact that in many cases “being yourself” is going to make finding who you want more difficult. There’s a guy out there for the aggressive girl as much as there is a girl out there for the shy guy. This is the big reason I was drawn to online dating: I didn’t have to stop being a little shy to meet people. Just send an email and if there was no response I would just convince myself she moved out of the country to help feed the needy in a third-world country.
Eventually, I did gain some assertiveness but it was because I was becoming more comfortable after a few dozen first dates, not because I was working on my assertiveness. It is unfair to tell someone to “be yourself” and then to tell them exactly what that person should look like. You may have personality traits that make you less attractive but is that really so bad? Even if you fail in the beginning just remember: you only have to be successful once. When you do find success, it will have much greater value if you do so while being honest with yourself and the person you are dating.
One warning on being yourself: don’t feel like you need to get everything out there on the first date to successfully “be yourself”. As a personal example, I didn’t express my interest in online video games when I first started dating my wife. I didn’t make attempts to hide this information. I just didn’t bring it up or use it as a selling point. Now if you want to date someone who loves video game, of course you should mention it. But it wasn’t core to who I was and I didn’t want to discourage anyone who might dislike that.
This turned out to be a good decision because she had a very bad impression of video games. Fortunately, when I did bring it up she knew me well enough to question her beliefs, watched me play a few games, met a few of my online friends, and got over her fears. So being yourself doesn’t mean pushing ever part of your life out there, especially if some of those parts are minor areas of your life.
Now, everyone isn’t a geek like me but we all have something we just know might damage our second-date-chances so treat dating like a marathon, not a sprint. Being honest is one thing, revealing every detail about yourself is quite another.
Rule Three: It’s Hard Work
I know of two types of people who have had success with online dating: those who worked at it and those who were lucky. So, if you’re not lucky, don’t think just because you follow some advice that your online dating life is going improve overnight.
You will need to accept that many of the people you try to contact will not write you back or that fewer people are contacting you than you would like. On rare occasions, someone will be rude when you try to talk with them.
You will have bad first dates and you will have bad second dates after thinking the first date was great. You will realize within the first few seconds of some dates that the picture on the profile was very old or misleading. You will meet people who come off great in emails but who can barely speak when you meet in person. The list goes on.
The point is that this is all part of the process. Getting frustrated with the people you are meeting or being hard on yourself is the worst thing you can do. If you accept that it will not be easy and that the process will not necessarily be quick, you will be doing yourself a great service.
If online dating were easy, the Match.com 6-month guarantee be a 6-week guarantee. So, remember, online dating may not be easy, but it is well worth the effort.
Author: Brad
Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.
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