Successful Online Dating

Often with online dating, someone is interested in someone, but the feeling is just not mutual? So, what should we do when this occurs? Do you let them know? Do you ignore or block them? Do you immediately delete your profile?

Gentle Let Down or Nasty Put Down?

I have, in the past, sent a few rejection letters. Once, I had a gentleman I work with send me a message. Other times I have had someone message me multiple times. Both times I tried to be polite and let them down in a gentle, nice way.

OKCupid! Is Worth Checking Out

For those of you who haven't tried it – OKCupid! is really worth a look. First off, it's a FREE dating site. That's right, FREE. No gimmicks, no spam (I have a specific email I used for them, I would know if they sold my address.)

However, even more than the fact that it's free (did I mention that already?) is that the technology behind the search as a least as good as, if not better than expensive dating sites like E-Harmony, Chemistry.com and Match.com.

So, for fun, I decided to go through some profiles and see what common problems or weird things I could find. Now, I had intended to go through 100 guys dating site profiles, but I only made it to 50 and my list was getting long.

First, the search: I used my personal account and my actual search criteria (single, straight men in my geographic area, between the ages of 28-36), and I went directly through the results, skipping no one, and reading every profile. See how much I love you, our readers…

I needed to focus on work and family for a while, and just did not have the energy to actively seek out new relationships; after this self imposed dating hiatus, I am ready to get back out there.

You would think that a gal who writes for a blog called Successful Online Dating would be a whiz at getting a profile up, and that the emails and contacts would be flooding in.

Writing a Profile is Hard

However, while I am updating and reevaluating, I am finding that it’s very hard to objectively look at my own profile. While I know what I should and shouldn’t be doing…I can’t always tell if I’ve done it.

I’ve written before about conversation starters for first dates (see What the Heck Do We Talk About?) but it seems to be something that EVERYONE has trouble with. So here are a few more questions to get the conversation rolling on your first date. Or, if you are using an online dating service, use these during your IM or phone conversations.

The trick is to ask probing, open ended questions. Ask questions that can’t be answered with a quick “Yes” or “No.” It’s also important to ask questions that will touch on subjects that are important to you. Only by really asking and actively listening to the responses will you learn enough about the other person to determine if there is real potential in the relationship.

The Five Types of Women that Scare Men Off

We talk a lot about what men want here at Successful Online Dating. I know as a woman, that’s something I spend a fair amount of time thinking about personally, as well as for this site. We question, we research, and we read articles and books.

Sometimes I think we overlook the other side of the coin. If you are scaring a guy off in the first few dates, you will never get to know each other on a deeper level.