So. . .A few years ago, a person might have met his/her spouse on a blind date. Back in the olden days, human beings would go to barn dances or church socials to find "The One." Farther back still, a person might wake up one morning to the news that Mom and Dad had arranged "The One." While all of these methods are still used, we now have yet another method added to the mix: Online Dating.
Since civilization has reached the "Information Age," you might naturally see how online dating would be inevitable, and arguably almost expected. If you can get even your groceries over the internet, why not your life partner? However, there is still a dark stigma attached to internet dating, and this is because the majority of online daters use this commodity for less than respectable reasons. As a result, nay-sayers still think that you have to be trashy or desperate to make an online dating profile, and that is because MOST of the people who make them ARE trashy and/or desperate. Let me rephrase: People aren't trashy or desperate. Rather, they have made the choice to be trashy or desperate. They could actually be upstanding, joy-filled, responsible contributors to society if they wanted to.
Be that as it may, I actually met my husband, Billy, using online dating. It's funny now, when I look back on it, because neither of us was interested in a "booty call," but yet we met online. We have an awesome marriage, and I love this man more and more every day.
There are tricks to successful online dating and I will share mine with you. You will need to be patient, though. These tricks are going to require patience, wisdom, and responsibility. The payoff is awesome, though.
Before I begin, I will give you a brief history as to why I even got online to date. I had just come home from three years teaching in South Korea. I moved in with my sister and brother-in-law. I was 30 years old and never married. I am a very private and guarded person. I had only ever dated two guys very seriously--one in high school, one in college. I casually dated another guy for less than a year right after college. This last relationship had ended eight years prior to my meeting my now husband. I was pretty sure I was going to be single forever. People would always tell me that I was too picky and that I was too guarded. However, something in the back of my head (God) kept assuring me that my finickiness was actually an awareness that I wasn't going to sell out just for the purpose of being married.
So, there I was fresh off the boat--no job, no boy friend, no car, no nothing. This guy I'd known in college was coming to my sister's town for the week, and he asked me out on a date just to see how things would go between the two of us. Anyways, long story short, the date was awful. Nothing against this guy, but the date itself was truly terrible. I felt like I was in middle school, and here I was thirty years old! I came back home to find my sister waiting by the door (like a mom) for any and all information, hopeful that her big sister was going to come home with a glorious account of the date's success.
So when that didn't happen, she immediately started telling me that I was going to die an old maid and that I never make any effort. Then she started making a list of all the single guys she knew (who were all in their lower 20s, by the way. No thank you!). When I bucked against this, she kept on about how I was the pickiest person she'd ever known, and that I just didn't want to be happy, and that's why I do things like move out of the country for years and years. Anyways, long story short again, I told her, "Listen, I don't have a car. I don't have a job. I don't really have any way of meeting anyone. Will you shut up if I do online dating?" I knew that online dating was kinda sketchy, but I actually also knew of two or three of my friends who'd had great success with finding good guys and were now in blissful marriages.
Now comes the part where I share my tricks.
1. Spend the money.
I actually signed up for Match.com first because they had this promotion where you could use all the features they had for a week or something, without paying. I'm cheap, so I started there. I really only messaged one guy (who didn't seem to be a rapist). After a couple messages, he asked me for my phone number, but I wasn't about to give that out to a 40-something with two teenagers and a jet ski. Bleah. After the week was over, I had no way of checking my inbox or making connections with anyone without paying. For some reason (which I now know was God), I didn't give up. I Googled "cheapest online dating sites" and Christianmingle.com came up. It was only $17 something for a month compared to about $30 everywhere else. So. . .I didn't spend a whole lot of money (remember I had no job), but if you are going to online date seriously, you are going to have to spend money because you can't actually interact with anyone without paying.
2. Core beliefs come first.
Somewhere near the top of your profile, you need to state what your core beliefs are. I put something like, "I believe God and the Bible." If and when you start messaging someone, bring up your faith FIRST!!!! I can't tell you how many girls I will ask, "Have you talked about God yet?" and they respond, "Well. . .It hasn't really come up yet." RED FLAG. Not just for the guy you are dating. This is a red flag for you, personally. If you can't be forthright about your relationship with God, now is NOT the time for you to start dating. Period. This is how the enemy works: He convinces you that you can't bring God up until the time is right. . .Then he makes it impossible for the subject ever to come up. Then if and when it does come up, your boyfriend makes fun of you or at least doesn't take it seriously, and you wonder why. Obviously, you have already shown your boyfriend that God isn't actually that important to you. Why?. . .Because if He were that important, He would have been the first thing you mentioned!!
You don't need to have some kind of cosmic "right time" to bring up your faith. Your relationship to God should be the first thing in your life. If you can't bring Him up first thing, then He isn't first in your life. Plain and simple. This isn't me being pious and goody-two-shoes. This is giving you a much easier path to walk later if you do the work to put first things first.
I mean, it isn't like this person is just some acquaintance you are meeting for the first time. This guy is a POTENTIAL MATE. Secular studies show that marriages last longer and are more joy-filled when couples share core beliefs. Anything else ends in divorce, heart-ache, deception, and is just a plain waste of time. You aren't an exception.
3. Be BRUTALLY honest
Do NOT think of your profile page as putting your best face forward. This may sound counter-intuitive to everything you've heard about internet dating, but listen. . .save the "selling yourself" for when you make a resume. This isn't the time to candy coat. This is potentially the step that will help you to meet the best friend of your life. Think about it. Do you like to get to know a person only to find out that they were really something else later? No. So, don't put yourself out there like that. If you have one leg, put that you have one leg! If you have fifteen cats that you can't part with, put that! You don't have to divulge your deepest darkest secrets on your profile (save that for later), but think of your page as: "This is me. Take it or leave it." Too many girls see their profile page as, "I want as many guys as possible to tell me I'm pretty." If that's you, change. Change right now.
This goes for your profile and for your interactive messages. I found that it really helps here if you are MORE than honest. For instance, in my Match.com days, I made a profile that I felt accurately represented who I was. I put my interests and my goals. However, I kept getting messages from guys who were obviously (per their pictures and interests) into sports and athletic things. That really bothered me because I have never really cared about sports at all. When I made my Christianmingle.com profile I put in big letters at the top of my interests list, "I HATE SPORTS!" I don't hate them, but I just know that if a guy is really into sports, we are not going to have much to talk about, and he is going to annoy the ever-living life out of me. I know this about myself. I also knew that any sports fan would swipe left on my profile after reading the first line, therefore giving me less crap to shuffle through.
4. Be honest, but also be wise.
Okay, so here comes the part where I sort of back peddle from point 3. Yes, you need to be blatant and brutal when it comes to being honest, but you should also be wise. Therefore, I would advise not adding things to your profile that might trigger those guys who are at best looking for a hook up, and at worst looking to rape you. Things that are relatively tame, but can get you into trouble include, but are not limited to: Pokemon, Cosplay, Anime, multiple piercings, Manga, Gaming, horror movies, comic books, Disney movies, tattoos, Fantasy movies/books, etc.. Again, these things are not necessarily bad things, but for some reason, they attract adolescent males in their 20s to 40s who live with their moms. Point is, you want a man, not a boy. This is where it's hard, because stupid girls know they can get instant attention when they post these sorts of things.
If you need attention that much, you need to get right with God.
Listen, I have my belly button pierced, a hole through the middle of my left ear, and an ear cuff piercing. I like Tolkien, horror movies, and enjoy an occasional Japanese cartoon. My point is, I didn't put those things on my profile. (I did talk about them later; however, once Billy and I started talking and once I knew he wasn't creepy.)
Another point here: If you are SERIOUSLY into those above things (the list is obviously not exhaustive) enough to put them on your profile, then you better REALLY like them, because guys who are attracted to those things ONLY do those things (and sometimes worse things), and that's all the two of you will ever do together as a couple. In other words, if you actually enjoy shopping, traveling, concerts, hiking, tail gating, site-seeing, etc., you can kiss doing your favorite activities with your significant other goodbye. Maybe you can do them with some other friend, but. . .if this person is supposed to be your BEST friend, do you see the problem?
5. Be picky
The really nice thing about internet dating is that you can actually be a lot pickier than in "real life." In real life, you get set up on a date, or you meet someone and decide to go out for dinner. Then, you have to spend the whole first date trying to figure out if you even like what is sitting across the table from you, let alone all the other stuff about interests and core beliefs.
Online dating at least lets you weed out the guys that you wouldn't ever consider. This sounds mean, but it's not. It saves you time! It's a really valuable tool! Use it accordingly. For instance, I am 5'4" but I have never been able to successfully date short men. I bring out the worst in them, actually. My ideal height has always been 6'2", but I knew that as long as the guy was over 6', I could probably get along with him. Therefore, I put a height range of 6' to 6'5" into my profile. Billy is 6'2". We get along great.
Most sites will let you tick these preferences off when you join. If they don't, don't join them. If you can only look at blue eyes, then make sure you choose blue eyes. If you have never gotten along with blondes, then makes sure you pick brown hair. Be picky. You might think these things don't matter right now, but if they have ever mattered to you for any reason, make sure you pick them. You aren't being shallow. You are saving everyone heartache and time.
6. NO DUCK FACES!!!
When you post your picture onto your profile, pick a normal looking, pretty picture. So much is communicated in this picture, don't screw it up. Not too much makeup. Not wearing just lace. Not holding an alcoholic beverage. Not making any kind of nympho-baby-sexy-erotic-childish-please-rape-me-right-now face. When I see girls do this, I just want to smack them. You are the problem with society. You are so attention-craving that you sacrifice your self-respect. You send out these provocative vibes, you get into these terrible relationships with self-absorbed men, and then you wonder why you wake up forty, abandoned, and bitter. At best you will attract a selfish prick. At worst, you will attract a pedophile. And you will have done it all to yourself. And you will wonder why no one seems to care. And you will wonder why you have never been truly happy.
7. Did he even read your profile?
Whenever you make your profile, you will eventually start getting messages sent to you in your inbox. This is where you really need to be careful. Most of those messages are going to be booty calls. They just will. It's funny to me, actually, because as I told you, I was on Christianmingle.com. You'd think all the guys on that site would be upstanding Christian men, but they aren't. I would say 80% of my messages were booty calls pretending to be Christian. They were like, "Hello there. I can see that you are a good Christian girl. I was wondering if you would like to meet somewhere so we could get to know each other." Yeah. . .obviously not buying that. If something looks sketchy, skip it!
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE NICE!
At the time I met Billy, I was messaging only two other guys who also didn't seem like creeps. What set them all apart was that they actually mentioned stuff about me that I had put on my profile. Especially Billy. His message was something like:
"Hi. I see that you have lived in South Korea and have been to several other countries. That's awesome. I really enjoy traveling myself and have been on several mission trips to Thailand. I also saw that you love
Royal Tennenbaums. I love Wes Anderson movies. My favorite one is
Darjeeling Limited. Well, have a good day. ~Billy."
That message spoke volumes to me because (1) It wasn't creepy, (2) It gave me some of his own personal information that I actually found interesting, (3) There was no wording about meeting or even asking for my phone number. That showed respect for me and self-respect for himself, (4) Plus,. . .I love
Darjeeling Limited. . .
Incidentally, one of the other guys I had been talking to was actually a really great Christian and all, but he was King James only, and. . .I just can't deal with that.
8. Chat first.
This step should happen only if you have messaged back and forth for a while and if you haven't felt ANY red flags. None. Zero. No. . .not that one that you are wondering about.
With Billy, what impressed me when we started email messaging was that he was actually interested in what I had to say, he would reply to my response within a few hours, and he didn't act insecure or play mind games. Because he was a decent human being, I agreed to chat with him (Christianmingle has a chat feature) and we chatted for a few days. I would chat and he would reply immediately after I did. Look for things like that. If you chat with him and he walks away from the computer for twenty minutes and then comes back and goes, "Oh. Sorry. You're still here?" he's an insecure freak. Red flag. Abort. If it was some kind of an emergency and he explains it, don't abort. . .unless it becomes a pattern of ignoring you and then making up excuses. That kind of guy is a little boy who would like you to do the job that his mommy should have done: Raise him. No thanks.
9. How to start a phone conversation.
When you begin talking to a potential mate, you need to keep in mind that they are exactly that: a potential mate. This isn't just someone you bumped into at a drug store, or a coworker. This is a potential life-long best friend. This means, don't waste your time if that person gives you any prior red flags. This conversation should also ONLY be done over the phone--never in person. If it helps, pretend that you are on an obstacle course, and you have to go through each obstacle to get to the goal. If any of the obstacles are red flags, the sooner you back out, the more time you will have to start over.
This is how you should approach this first phone conversation:
A. Talk about your core beliefs. You should have done this already in messages and chats, but if you were too scared then, you need to man up and do it now. If you are an atheist, have the courage to say so. If you are a Christian, you need to explain exactly what that means to you. If you are Buddhist, say it. Even if you have messaged and chatted about it, talk about it again now that you can actually hear his voice on the other line. If you don't match up--red flag. Abort.
B. Now that you have started with the most important thing, relax a little and talk about the things you do for fun. Take your time for this conversation. You do want to be friendly, and it's worth getting to know a person's interests even if the relationship goes nowhere. Note: If anything he does for fun is weird, creepy, or opposite your interests--red flag. Abort.
C. Deal breakers. Now is the part where you need to talk about your deal breakers and encourage them to do so too. If you start the conversation in this vein, the other person will follow suit. The next favorite topic that a human being has besides his/her interests is his/her dislikes. These can be really informative and also really funny. Now is the time to say if you can't handle people who talk about politics, pick their noses, or who enjoy mosh pits. Use this time to see if you two have any dislikes about the interests of the other person. If you are serious about your deal breakers, and the guy on the phone has one--red flag. Abort.
D. Talk about your family history. I mean this specifically about your and his parents' relationships. Are they still married? Are they divorced? When did they divorce? How did it affect you? If they are still married, are they happy? If they aren't, who has your healthy role model for a happy marriage been? Things like that. If they have too much baggage for you, or vice versa--red flag. Abort. You really aren't being selfish. You aren't meant to fix anyone besides yourself, so don't string another person along if you can't handle his stuff.
E. Talk honestly about your past mistakes. It is going to be awkward, but only if you make it awkward. If you don't make it awkward, but instead have the courage to own up to your mistakes, your relationship can actually have the opportunity to progress quite quickly. When Billy and I started talking, I was really surprised because there were ZERO red flags, when usually there are at least one or two little ones that, in the past, I had just overlooked and then wondered why my relationships would end. Actually, it kind of creeped me out that there were no red flags. He was so normal, I started to wonder if he was TOO normal. I thought, surely there is something wrong with him. I mean, he's human and in his thirties. He has to have some deep, dark secret. That was when I said, "Okay, I'm going to get really serious right now. I'm going to tell you everything I've done in my past that could potentially be a problem for you, and I would like it if you would do the same." He actually agreed! It sounds surprising, but it shouldn't be. Trust me, if the guy is worth it, he will be happy that you are getting everything out on the table, and he will feel encouraged to do the same. Fortunately, everything he'd done was things I could live with, and vice versa. However, if at any time a person's past doesn't sit well with you--red flag. Abort.
10. Meeting up
Do NOT meet up with a person if you have not had the above conversation and if there are still any red flags. Even when you meet up, do not give any personal information like credit cards, drivers licenses, and keep your phone and purse on you at all times. Don't hand your phone or wallet to him even if to show any pictures. You can do that later if and when things progress and you feel safer.
If you make it to this point, that's it. If you need more dating advice, get a book on dating/marriage or see a counselor. From now on, conversations should be A LOT easier and way more enjoyable because you don't have anything else hanging over your head. Here's where it's hard: When you are so desperate for attention that you give in to any red flags. Maybe you have had to wait and you are sick and tired of being alone. Trust me, the single life is hard only if you see life as a competition with your friends, family, and society's dictates. If you see it as awesome, it will be awesome. Make a list of things right now that you can do that married people can't.
Remember that there are still decent human beings out there. You are one, right? If you are one, then there must be more. . .and guess what! Some of them get online! Also remember: All you need is one.
I met my husband when I was 30 after not having been in a relationship for 8 years, and I got married when I was 32. I can tell you from experience that the only thing better than being single is sharing your life with another person who truly loves you and lets you love him.
Anything else sucks. Big time.
The End!
