Ready for Online Dating? Not If You See These Traits in Yourself.
You’re not ready to go online if you’re grieving, cheating, or angry.
You’re done with him. You’re so over her.
Snuggling with the dog is not enough. As vaccinations rise and masks come off, it’s time to get ready to do all those things we’ll be able to do again, including sex with strangers.
Whatever the reason, you’re ready to dive into the online dating pool. Or so you think. But be honest with yourself before you suit up — you’re not eligible yet for digital matchmaking if you see any of these three traits in the mirror.
1. You’re not over your previous relationship.
Are you truly ready to treat the people you’re about to meet as humans unto themselves? Or are you going to view them through spectacles tinted by remnants of your previous lover?
Those lenses may be rose-colored, if you’re widowed, or aviator blue, if you’re recovering from a breakup. Either way, you’re lugging a duffel bag of distortion to every encounter.
Most people you meet don’t want to hear much about your ex on the first few dates. But even if you keep your mouth shut, the ghost of a still-vivid relationship may cast a pall on any new one.
All that said, relationship hangover can serve as a useful variation on It’s not you, it’s me when you want to make an early exit. I first encountered this on the receiving end, after a pleasantly bouncy dinner with a widower. We parted with mutual vows to dine again, but the next day he called to say that meeting me had made him realize he still wasn’t over his wife’s death. (Mind you, it had been five years, and though he was new to JDate, he’d told me the ladies from his synagogue had been fixing him up for most of those years.)
I’m pretty sure this was actually a rejection, but it’s one of the most considerate I’ve ever received. I began using variations of it, too.
But if you mean it when you say you’re not over your ex, it also means you’re not ready to date. Give yourself a few more months, years, therapy sessions… whatever you need to become unencumbered.
2. You’re in a seemingly committed long-term liaison.
Granted, certain dating sites accommodate those seeking plural relationships (a.k.a. infidelity). They let you announce your status as married or in a relationship. Some of them even let you announce frankly that you’re looking for a sex-only sideline to your main squeeze.
This is all fine if A) your main squeeze knows this and maybe even squeezes someone else on the side, and B) you are honest from the get-go in your online self-declaration.
Otherwise, you’re a cheater. I won’t get into the impact on your primary relationship; that’s none of my business (which doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion about it). My scold here is, it’s unfair to others in the online pool.
If you present yourself as free of entanglements and available for a new relationship, people who read your profile will set their expectations accordingly: Hey, she looks interesting, I might like to meet her, date her, maybe marry her someday. Please don’t waste their time.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that men do more online cheating than women, and my inventory includes cases that go well beyond the classic maintenance of an active profile long after the partner shuts hers down. A male friend of mine, on his first date with a woman he met on Match, learned enough about one of her recent online encounters to realize she was talking about his currently married former boss. Yuck.
I myself was contacted by a married man on OkCupid who was seeking a mistress. Because his profile and message foolishly revealed bits of career, bits of facial hair in a fuzzy photo, and enough bits about his situation — he loved his wife but her medical problems had ended their sex life — I suspected he was the husband of a close acquaintance. He apparently suspected this, too, when he bumped into me at a business event and rapidly sidled to the other side of the room. After all, my photo on OKC was NOT fuzzy. Oops.
What if you are entangled but the end is in sight? And you want to make yourself feel better by inspecting some of the other fish in the sea? Indeed, your decision to keep your relationship going or call it quits depends in part on how your partner stacks up against the online inventory?
I’ve done this more than once. But there’s a fine line between self-assurance of partner worth (or lack thereof), and intention to cheat actively. Tread carefully.
3. You hate men (or women).
I’m talking here about a temporary attitude, probably held for good reason. Take my friend Roberta, who assumed she had an OK, if no longer great, bond with her husband of 20 years, a man of inflating body and shrinking fiscal health.
This assumption turned out to be wrong on several counts. Her husband suddenly moved in with a young woman he’d met through his contracting business, which was actually doing well on an unreported cash basis. Her pre-teen daughter already had a nicely furnished room at the girlfriend’s house, where the supposed father-daughter weekend camping trips were actually taking place. All sorts of ugliness ensued.
Roberta decided that dating well was the best revenge. Her pretty profile picture drew men like flies, but messaging with them rarely progressed to dates. Her occasional first dates didn’t lead to second ones.
She asked me for advice, so I read her message exchanges and listened to her reports of date conversations. The problem was clear— she was seething. Her anger infused her interactions, even if she didn’t go on at length about her specific troubles, and male antennae quivered in fear.
Men do not need you to make them feel any worse than they already do from over-and-done-with relationships. Nor do women escaping from lonely or crappy marriages need you to go on about what’s wrong with American feminazis.
Be kind, rewind, if you’re still in hate-mode from a lousy partner. The good men and women deserve better.
While there are those who see the semi-anonymity of dating sites as a chance to get away with something, this arena won’t work in the long run if it’s rife with cheating, lying, and generally immature behavior. Don’t add to the anxiety for yourself and others by pursuing a hidden agenda — including one that you may not perceive.
