Box of Mystery

Right folks, I think I’m finally beginning to get the hang of internet dating after a shaky and confusing start. Therefore, I present today’s lecture: ‘Internet Dating 101: A beginner’s guide to not making a jackass of yourself to people that you’ve never met’:

I provide this ‘service’ (and I use the term ‘service’ in the loosest possible sense, obviously) as a free-of-charge benefit from the few week’s worth of experience that I have had of internet dating. Whilst it’s skewed towards men (because I don’t understand females, as my regular three readers will know by now), I believe that the same rules apply to you girls too. Having spoken to several people, had a bunch of long conversations, dated one and possibly dating another (or two!) next week I feel like I have something to offer (or at the very least, something to say :-)). It has surprised me the dramatic range in responses that are received particularly when it comes to continuity and consistency when talking to the same person (you girls have it worse: from what I’ve heard from those I’ve talked to, you really do get some highly tacky and sometimes alarming chat-up lines from very odd men).

So please be seated and let us begin. Needless to say, there are plenty of chairs. The coffee is free, but you have to serve yourself.

Internet dating 101

Be yourself when describing yourself. Don’t craft some artistic work of genius that required a thesaurus, dictionary and a web site of quotes to make sound right if you barely understand half the words you’ve used, let alone used them in conversation. If you’re seriously expecting a date with this girl, then she’s going to find out sooner or later: make is sooner rather than later, you’ll save a whole pile of time.

Your interests had better be your interests. Never set foot in a garden, but think gardening sounds cool to the chicks? Went abroad once when you were a kid and feel that traveling sounds like a neat interest? She is going to ask you where you’ve been. What are you going to do, pull a whole load of places out of your arse? And when you don’t know what pruning is when you’re stranded in her garden supposedly helping out then you’re going to look like a combination of startled deer and complete noodle.

Don’t lie on your profile. Got children? Make sure you don’t put “zero” under children. Looking for a bit of sex on the side because you’re bored with your wife/girlfriend? Well, you’re not looking for a serious relationship then, are you? Married, but very recently separated? That’s not single. That’s married. At a pinch, just-separated, but involving someone innocent in a hugely over-complicated divorce isn’t exactly fair unless you’ve declared it in advance. Yet again, she’s going to find out; and if you’re hiding things of this magnitude then what else are you hiding? What a great start to a relationship: distrust from the outset. Oh, and that includes your major bad habits. How long DO you think you’ll hide a smoking habit? “Just popping to clean my teeth after walking the dog, babe, you know how that fresh air messes up my mouth.”

Your picture had better be of you, recent and accurate. A picture that is 10 years old from your good side in mediocre lighting is not a recent and accurate picture. Neither is one that was taken and touched up in photoshop. Neither is one that was taken when you’d spent half an hour making yourself look perfect when normally you just walk out the door after a 2 minute shave. Wear glasses? Make sure the picture shows it. Normally have a beard? Don’t show a clean shaven picture. No-one likes unexpected surprises and a beard cannot be explained away as “I forgot to shave this morning”.

Don’t mail-shot. Guys: Girls talk. They share, they chat, they show your profile to everyone in their office and they have a whole seventh sense that we don’t have (this is one beyond the ‘sixth’ sense). Read their profile carefully. If you’re going to contact them or reply to their first contact, write something relevant and just for them: do not copy and paste it out of your document of standard responses. It’ll take you a few extra minutes, but it’s worth the effort. Your personality and something about you will ‘leak’ into the words that you write – it’ll give her an opportunity to learn stuff about you that you don’t think that you’ve even provided. This is a good thing as it saves anyone wasting their time. Read her stuff carefully too: there’s something to be learnt.

The internet isn’t confidential. You write it, it’s public property. You write something really tacky or really stupid, then it may get shared. Even I’ve shared an edited snippet from one of the people who responded to me because it was so staggeringly incredible (it sparked my grammar police rant: “we’ll fix your apostrophes now, and without charge.)

Keep the first meeting brief. I’d be lying if this advice came from me, but it is very good. If you organise a complete evening including drinks and then dinner, for example, you run the risk of being stranded with someone you hate for a great number of hours with no polite escape route. Try either a) meeting at lunch for coffee or b) meeting later in the evening or straight after work before other plans (real or made-up) for an hour at most. Why? Because first impressions count. You’ll know within minutes if this person is who you thought they would be and if you could spend longer than an hour in their company without going utterly bonkers. It’ll also allow for any surprises (picture looked good, but it wasn’t of her) to be worked out before you both end up being forced to survive an entire evening together.

Listen and talk. Aim for speaking about 50% of the time, but seriously, listen to what she’s saying too. You’re having a conversation, not reading from a pre-prepared script. The best dates are when this just ‘happens’, they are the ones where you click almost immediately: treasure them – they’ll be the ones worth running for. You’re both trying to learn about each other and you’re not going to learn jack shit if you’re too busy trying to impress by talking at 100mph without stopping to breathe. Likewise, if she doesn’t let you get a word in edgeways or talks about her subjects alone without hooking onto anything you say then execute the “Brave, brave Sir Robin” maneuver as soon as possible.

Be a gentleman, not a jerk. Fine, open the door for her. Offer to pay for the meal. But don’t insist. We live in the 21st century here and if she wishes to go halves, go halves. Insisting on paying despite her protest may not score you as many points as you think it might, unless she’s positively drooling over your credit cards, in which case that’s probably a bad thing too…

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So the bottom line? Be honest if you’re looking for a relationship. I’ve had relationships in the past where I have had to pretend to be someone else either because I felt that I had to hide something or I had to look like I was turning into someone that I was not. Firstly it’s exhausting and secondly it’s impossible over the long-term. If you build a house of cards, every breeze is going to scare the shit out of you. I do want a relationship, hopefully one that’ll turn into something serious; but as I keep being warned, perhaps I need something a little more casual at first. Needless to say, my profile doesn’t say I’m looking to get married any time soon.

Whether this advice is worth the finger-wear used to type it will become clear to me over the coming weeks. I’m sure that you’ll be distressed to hear that I’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

About some of it, anyway :-)