Online Dating Cheat Sheet
June 9th, 2008 by Chantelle Oliver in Web 2.0 Museum![[Post to Twitter]](http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this-small.png)
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So you’ve posted your profile on a dating site hoping to developing a relationship with someone will add to your already thrilling life. And some unappealing people have messaged you. Now what?
WARNING: What I write here might lead to irrevocable changes in your life. I am the online dating success story, having mined and plucked the Internet dating vine of its most fantastic fruit. Soulmate type stuff. I will now share my technique.
Approach online dating like real estate investing: Have a timeline; research and explore every possibility; be the aggressor; don’t waste time on bad bones.
DATE SELECTION
Give yourself a deadline. I gave myself four months to succeed at online dating. After that point you risk becoming a creepy lurker and you need to take a break from it.
Never ever, ever date someone who messaged you first. This is non-negotiable. It gives that person the upper hand and, chances are, that person is messaging everyone randomly.
Online dating is beautiful because it allows you to do research and then act on that research. Instead of sitting in a bar and getting hit with the shrapnel of sluts who live with and for mommy. While looking for someone dateable you can eliminate the time-suck. Do an advanced search of people who meet your requirements (height/education/hobby/age/etc) and choose only from this pool. You are here to get what you want. Go to a bar if you just want to sleep with the next guy. Or use Canada’s most significant cultural production since Porky’s: Ashley Madison.
Once you have your dating pool selected, contact all of them. Yes, all of them. Do not hesitate. Send them a punchy and grammatically correct greeting. For example:
Hello. You look like you might be neat.
THE DATE
If their reply has nothing hopeless in it, immediately arrange a meeting. This is key because you are here to date—not meet new IM friends. Don’t waste time with someone you are not physically compatible with. The only way to know that is to meet in the flesh.
Now that you have their name and email address, Google them. Search for them on other dating sites. If they have been online dating solidly for over two years, proceed with caution. Ideal date material should be recently (within the past year or two) out of a relationship, new to your city and/or immersed in time-consuming work or studies. But even more importantly, Google yourself. You should realize that whatever you find online they have poured over and will be thinking about when they meet you. A good first conversation can be about any embarrassing online skeletons either of you have.
Where: My best friend, an online dating expert herself, saved my love life with this advice: Choose a new spot for each new date. I am so thankful that I followed this suggestion because now my fiancé and I have that special place we first met to visit on anniversaries, etc. The taint of other dates is not on it. I think only of him every time I drive by. This is also an excellent opportunity to become a tourist in your own city.
What: A public place, obviously. Ideally a place with something to discuss or look at like a museum or beach. Never eat a meal. There is nothing worse than being trapped for an entire meal. Walking on a date is a great way to work in some physical fitness so the date has some utility no matter what. Make it clear at the beginning of the date that you are strapped for time and can only hang out for an hour. If you end up liking him you can make him feel that much more special by casting off your other responsibilities to spend more time together.
How: Try to be the pick-upper, not the waiter. If you have a car, pick him up that way. If you are just meeting someone and he is late then never wait more than fifteen minutes. It is terrible to start off a first meeting with anxiety and apologies.
When: The best time for a date is when you are very busy—after work, or on a day with many meetings. This will allow you to focus on other things if dating makes you anxious.
DATING SIGNALS
You don’t like him: In my online dating career, each person I dated was polite, kind and I was never disgusted once. Really! I can’t say the same for my offline dating life. If you do your homework then you will probably be just as lucky. I recommend highly-educated nerds. Of course, this is my type and it took me years to narrow it down. But the most negative quality I experienced with them was extreme nervousness and long conversations about Karl Marx—something I’d gladly take over boob-talkers and patronizing yet horribly incorrect explanations of Plato and Confucian philosophies. (With Marx, I felt flattered and enlightened instead of dirty and essentialized.)
If the date is polite and not creepy and yet after an hour you are thinking more about MaryKate being on this month’s cover of Elle, it is time to end it forever:
It has been lovely meeting you. I think we’ll make great friends.
And then give him a polite hug. Both send clear signals to your date. You are not compatible and so neither of you has to waste your time. Don’t actually become his great friend. If he wants to continue dating you that would be mean. If you run into him in the future, online or elsewhere, be polite but distant.
You do like him: When this happens, embrace and celebrate it! Walk and talk for as long as you both can stand up. Drop him off at his home and then grab him and kiss him just before you leave. Ideally, you will bring up a time for the next date to avoid needless wondering and waiting.
Even if you follow these rules, I cannot guarantee the success I have had. Feel free to comment with your horror stories because I adore romantic gore. But I can guarantee online dating will be a more productive process that, at least, will teach you a great deal about yourself and what you are looking for in a partner.
Tags: online dating
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Posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 11:06 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Did I really talk about Marx that long?
p.s. you are wonderful
June 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
[...] Web2.0 Museum’s Online Dating Cheat Sheet features me by role, if not by name. Just like my middle name’s anonymous appearance in the [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Also I should note that she dropped me off in downtown Toronto and let me take a bus back to North York at 3am!
June 9th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
…And for the next three or so months.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:57 am
You rock lady….LOVE the pic….you make me laugh…if things don’t work out with Brad..you know where to find me….
June 10th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I am blushing. And I did make him take the bus. York University’s devastatingly banal architecture induces seizures in me and I didn’t want to kill us.
June 10th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
(It was very dark so the architecturE was not visible)
June 11th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Solid advice Chantelle - and heartwarming to know your internet romance continues here on the Walrus blog - we could all use a little love in our hearts.
But I digress, my online experience was entertaining, but sadly not as successful as yours. Highly educated nerd #1 was reading Kafka at the Gladstone without beer (painful). Should have followed your advice not to date those who message you first. Highly educated nerd #2 was awesome, I was even willing to overlook the fact that he was 29, but looked like a 12-year-old boy, because he so impressed me with his architectural and cartoon-making prowess. But by date two he announced he wasn’t ready for a relationship. Karma bites me in the ass once again. I used the same BS on all the jocks, Newfoundlanders (not Newfies, they hate that) and independent film makers (there are a plethora of these online it’s code for lost, unemployed soul)I dated in between these two nerds. But it still stung, if anything I’ve learned rejection doesn’t sit well with me — and am “on a break” after my three-month bonanza. Besides, my rejections were always much more personal, like:
Hey, just wanted to say I had a great time with you on Sunday - you’re funny, handsome and an animal in the sack. Despite those winning qualities though, I think we want different things in the long-term and take different approaches to life in general, so regretfully, I think we should kaibosh the dating…
I had a fantastic time with you and hope you’ll continue to pursue music - the stuff I heard was great.
xo
Crystal
So my tip to online love-seekers: reject with care and be prepared to get stung. But nothing ventured…
June 12th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Independent film makers are the lepers of the dating world!
Ouch Crystal! I’m so sorry - you had some bad experiences. I was lucky but I also tend to have a heart of stone at the outset (read the made him take the bus comment). This isn’t a good thing - something I got from growing up in admiring true grit of farmers and modeling myself after Spock. I think it’s much stronger to care for people and trust easily and wholly so that when you do find someone worthwhile it is easy.
It wasn’t so simple for me.
Stay strong and do whatever you can to stay warm-hearted!
June 13th, 2008 at 1:52 am
[...] DATE SELECTIONGive yourself a deadline. I gave myself four months to succeed at online dating. After that point you venture becoming a creepy lurker and you need to take a dispart from it.read more [...]
June 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Ah Chantelle, my online experience wasn’t all bad, I grew up with three slightly outrageous sisters so drama is in my genes. I shall take your advice to heart should I ever venture into the virtual world again. For the summer I shall stick to the beaches of Santorini, smoky bars of Istanbul and campgrounds of Northern Ontario - oh what a medley of man species await…
cheers, C
June 21st, 2008 at 3:09 am
Dear Chantelle,
Your blog raises some interesting questions that I feel, upon much reflection, need to be…well, addressed.
1) What if you find Marx to be trite and silly, only appropriate for 14 year olds who still think Nietzche is “Blowing my mind, man!”? Is he still going to be the one for me? I mean, should I really listen to that drivel? I know finding a soul mate is tough, but jesus, not like, break your soul kind of tough!
2) What if, after all of his Marxist nonsense, he realizes you actually HAVE been paying attention? What if the light goes on in his head and he goes, “Jesus Holy Smokes on a Cracker! She totally just bought all that smack, I gotta get out of here, FAST!” When he awkwardly tells you he has plans (after telling you he had none) but still needs a ride out of the creepy, empty parking lot you took him to, what do you do? I mean it IS empty, and there are a lot of heavy, heavy objects in parking lots, no? ….
3) So, I follow your advice, and I don’t reply to anyone who messages me. They’re total internet man whores, right? But then no one responds to me! What gives? Ok, so this one dude does. I’m totally stoked! He’s talking about Marx, (Che too! Oh my god, DROOL!) and he hasn’t asked to leave so I haven’t hit him in the head with the tire iron yet… what happens when I realize that he responded to MY message? *Head Explodes*
Sincerely,
Soul mate-less
~Tire Iron or The Club? I think I can out run him…~
July 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Genuinely impressive stuff Chantelle. I don’t meet many women that are so focused and purposeful in their pursuit of a man. Normally they rely on what thier friends tell them or what their star signs say. I hope plenty of them read your advice and act upon it.
Best wishes,
Adam
October 30th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
[...] you are powerless. All the cultural products about you two as a couple - from tender photographs to buoyantly optimistic blog posts - are there for good. Even if you have access to deleting them there is something immoral in all [...]