In my formative dating years I had a not too brief foray with internet dating. The year was 2005. Not so many people were ‘out’ at that point, believe it or not, about their involvement with online suitors. You see six years ago, internet dating wasn’t the world it is today. Internet dating sites seemed to be located in a dark corner of the internet, and the mere mention of internet daters conjured up images of the sort of folk you saw on Jerry Springer and the Ricki Lake shows. And internet daters like me – sweet, a little bit sassy and working in the fashion industry with no hope in hell of ever encountering a straight, unmarried male - might as well have been telling people we’d just joined Sexoholics Anonymous instead of Perfectmatch.com, or whatever it was.
Not a great platform for success then.
Instead of cool, calm, confident and relaxed, I headed out into the internet dating world feeling seriously uncool, fraught, shameful and on edge.
Again, not a great platform for finding love. Or even just getting laid – let’s be honest.
I made many mistakes on your behalf so I could share them with you and extol the virtue of my wisdom on you.
By this, of course, I mean I messed up. A lot.
I went on dates, yes, but did I find love? No. Did I at least get laid? Errr, no.
Take heed of my misfortunes and try not to replicate them or turn them into your own dating dilemmas. Follow these three golden rules for internet/blind dates and you’ll be golden:
Don’t lie. Simples. Don’t lie in your internet dating profile, pretend to be someone you’re not, or change who you are to try and appeal to some guy (or gal) you don’t even know and haven’t met yet. Oh my god, it sounds so obvious when I say the words out loud now but seriously – but it’s very uncool. You don’t have an interest in motorsport, bake your own bread on a daily basis, or run 10kms just for kicks. Unless of course you do in which case, rock on. Seriously, just be yourself. Don’t try and change things you cannot change about yourself to make yourself appeal to what is essentially internet marketing. Believe that you are enough just the way you are, that you’re worthy of finding love and being happy. Be real. Be authentic. Be YOU.
Resist the temptation to upload an old picture of yourself. By this I mean, do not upload an old picture of yourself in which you look all fresh-faced and perky, when truthfully you’re actually seven years older and are no longer 128lbs. You do not want to see the look on the guy’s face when you meet each other for the first time and he realises you diddled him. Seriously. Don’t lie about who you are. It might make you feel great when you’re chatting away on messenger and getting virtually hit on left, right and centre, but believe me when I say it hurts like hell when the guy you’d already imagined introducing to your parents turns to you and says “so…when did you gain all the weight?” ‘Nuff said.
Be polite and remember what goes around, comes around. This is one of the cosmic rules of he universe and if you’ve been guilty of, ahem, false advertising shall we say, you will doubtless come across other potential partners who are as equally as guilty as you. When this happens take a deep inward breath, smile and accept this probably won’t be your night, and take a moment to remember that this person probably misled you for exactly the same reasons as you misled the others. They’re afraid. They might feel like they’re not enough. But they’re brave and they’re putting themselves out there. I’m not encouraging you to lead them on or be disingenuous, no. I’m just encouraging you to exercise some kindness for the next ninety minutes, relax and put the other person at ease. Be funny. Ask them questions. Try an leave them feeling good about the experience even if it didn’t go anywhere. Ask them about the other dates they’re going on and who else they’ve met. They’ll get the picture and hopefully realise that you’re not that interested in them, and you’ll both get to enjoy a bit of friendly company, chalk it up to experience and walk away at the end of the encounter having earned the accolade of “great girl/guy though” when the date is recounted to friends later. DO NOT, reader, do what I did.
DO NOT attempt to ‘hide’ in a book which is clearly smaller than a placemat or refuse to make eye contact. You are not skilled in espionage or operating out of close range view. Remember, by now you are rocking a picture of your real self on your profile page so this will not work.
DO NOT place all your hopes on this date at the outset and plan to go to drinks, then dinner followed by more drinks at this little place I know…and share this plan with your date ahead of time. Because when you do this and then actually meet and realise he or she is nothing like they described themselves to be, it’ll be your words that sting like hell when you hurridly say “I’m a bit short of time, lets just go for a drink across the road from the station.”
And DEFINITELY DO NOT text your friend words along the lines of…
“He’s a bit ropey. This won’t take too long – can you save me some dinner?xx”
…whilst he is at the bar getting drinks then text it to him by mistake.
And whatever you do, reader, DEFINITELY DEFINITELY DO NOT do what I did next which was to panic, get up and run away.
To find out more about one-to-one coaching with Hattie B, email hattieb@peoplelikeus.me.uk
