Online Dating Guide & Blog

I’ve recently been discussing the difficulties of dating with a friend of mine. In her case, the struggle has been that while she wants to date someone looking for a serious relationship, many of the guys she meets make it clear they are not ready for that. At the same time, she hasn’t been interested in any of the guys that have expressed an interest in exactly the kind of relationship she is looking for. It might sound like she’s being too picky but as we talked it became obvious that wasn’t the case.

The men she was meeting that wanted to settle down were making that more than clear; they were desperate. But why would the desperation to have a serious relationship be such a bad thing? The major problem with it is this: people want to be with someone who will love who they are, not what they represent. The desperate men she has met haven’t been saying that they would love to spend time with her. They’ve been saying they would love to spend time with anyone that they can label as their girlfriend/lover/fiancé/wife. These men have worked themselves up into such a frenzy to find a woman to label this way that they will take anyone. No one wants to be another person’s “special anyone”! It is a simple truth that people want to be loved just as much as they want to love.

My Experience
When I have been on dates with desperate women, I found myself frustrated. They would laugh at everything I said, even when I wasn’t trying to be funny. I loved when I could make a date laugh but it meant nothing when she would laugh at every mundane comment. I wanted to find a woman who would enjoy my sense of humor, not someone who could prove she was capable of laughing for an hour straight. For me, one sincere laugh was far better than a thousand insincere ones.

Also, I remember when I was dating in high school my dad made the comment: “One of the most attractive qualities I’ve ever found in a woman is that she is attracted to me”. While he was half-joking, there’s truth in that statement.

Are You a Desperate Dater?
If you are desperate and you are projecting that desperation, you’re going to find difficulty when dating. Attractive, intelligent, and kind people who normally would have no issue finding success in dating can ruin most of their dates when desperation is present. I say most because if they happen to meet another desperate person, things could work out (but normally only in the short-term). Here is a good question to ask yourself: are you looking for someone or are you looking for anyone? Are there qualities that you want your date to have or do you simply want to not be alone? It is reasonable to have strong emotions desiring to have a healthy relationship but you must avoid reaching a point where you want anyone at all. People will pick up on it and you may find failure where otherwise you could have found success.

When I started writing my online dating guide, I had hoped it would be helpful to people that were either brand new to online dating or who were considering using a dating service. However, based on my traffic, it appears that most of my readers are already taking advantage of an online dating service. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I suspect my guide is much less useful to people who have experience with online dating. For example, advice on selecting a dating service or writing a good profile would be a thing of the past for most of these people. With that in mind, I’m hoping that Google will be kind to this post and I’ll be able to catch the attention of some of those people considering online dating or brand new to it.

Obviously, I think my guide itself is a good introduction and I hope anyone thinking of trying online dating would give it a look. Throughout this guide, I try to provide my readers with examples of what they can expect to see when dating online along with some advice. Below are some examples of what you should be prepared for if you decide to try a dating service. Many of these items are taken directly from the guide:

5 Things to Be Aware of as a Man

1. If you get one response out of every five emails, you’re doing well. If you do better than this, you are doing something right and probably need no advice from me. For everyone else, don’t get discouraged when you receive fewer responses than you would like.
2. Long emails, especially long first emails, do more harm than good. From the very beginning, you’re going to be under her microscope as she tries to determine whether you are one of those creepy guys that she needs to avoid. An overly long email can give a perfectly nice and normal guy the appearance of being someone to avoid.
3. Even though you can’t see them, you have serious competition. Email is not the best place to get to know someone, your first date is. A few emails are great but don’t hesitate too long to ask her on a date.
4. Women can often get away without having a photo - you cannot.
5. Winks (or any other method of indirect contact the service offers) are not going to work well for you. Real communication such as email or video/voice chat is the way to go.

5 Things to Be Aware of as a Woman

1. When you first sign up, you’re going to receive a lot of contacts. Dating services flag new members and guys will take advantage of this. Many women receive enough communication that they can’t respond to everyone, even they guys they would like to. A man who sees you are flagged as “new” will contact you with the hopes that he’s beating the flood of communication. Keep in mind, though, after a period the number of emails you receive will drop off.
2. Not posting a picture does not mean you are guaranteeing that he’ll read your profile. Some guys will indeed read a profile and contact a woman even if she has no photo. However, there are many men who will contact just about anyone (the desperate) and other men who will appear uninteresting in your looks but eventually require a photo before they meet you. Not posting of photo is not providing you with the advantage you might think it is. Plus, having a photo always recommended.
3. Some men think they have to be funny when they contact you. Unfortunately, this often has the effect of causing them to appear…weird. Occasionally, it’s an alright idea to give some of these men a second chance. There are plenty of great guys out there who simply have no email etiquette. Often the creepy factor you are detecting is just an attempt to be liked.
4. Winks are fine if you want to encourage a man to contact you but would prefer not to write the first email.
5. Online dating isn’t any more dangerous than meeting someone at the bar but it is still important to exercise caution. I’ve heard of women who are careful when meeting someone in person but drop their guard after a few sweet emails.

My last article talked about an offer from Match.com where you could get six months free after paying for six months (although there are more than a few hoops to jump through to earn those free months). At any rate, the very fact that you have to pay for six months up-front got me thinking about how most online dating services offer different time frames for signing up. Many people may wonder how long they should be signing-up for, especially when considering that they will receive a discount for a longer term. Regardless of discounts or any other deal, it is best to sign up for the shortest time frame offered. Here are some reasons why:

The Service May Not Fit Your Needs
Initially, when I first tried eHarmony I was excited. It took much of the guess work out of online dating and, since I was so new to internet dating at that time, this was a big plus. For those unfamiliar with eHarmony, you don’t select who you can contact. Instead, they provide you with people you match well with and, in the beginning, I had plenty of matches. Unfortunately, because I lived in a small town, the matches dried up quickly. When you’re only contacting one person a week, the service loses most of its value. I would have really regretted signing up for six months or a year at eHarmony: I liked what the service offered but, in my particular case, the benefits disappeared after a short time.

You Might Have Success
Hard to imagine, I know, but things may actually go your way! I was the first person my wife met using online dating. While her experience is far different from most people, there is still a good chance you can meet someone in a few months. If my wife would have signed up for six months, she would have ended up paying for 5 months and 3 weeks she never needed.

Longer Terms are Pessimistic
It really is a good idea to stay positive. Get too negative and you might end up being someone else’s bad date. I think the pessimism in signing-up at a dating service for long period becomes clear if we hypothetically extend the timeframe: What if an online dating service offered a 5-year plan? Wouldn’t the very idea that you might need the service for that long discourage most people from signing up at all? Is a year or six months that much different? Sure, you might not meet someone in a few months, but assuming that will be the case from the start seems like a bad way to begin.

There Will Be Times Where You Won’t (or Shouldn’t) Be Dating
Chances are there will be periods where you will be unable or uninterested in dating. During these times, having that online dating subscription is just a waste of money. I became frustrated after my first six months of online dating and took a short break. After a month, I came back with a new outlook and a better plan. Had I subscribed for a year, I may have never taken my much needed break and, because of that, may have never re-evaluated how I was approaching online dating (that would have been a very bad thing). Also, think about your schedule: is it really likely that you are going to have the time to date consistently over the next six months? For many of us, the answer to that is no.

Longer Terms Benefit the Service Provider More than the Dater
Signing up longer benefits the company selling the service far more than it benefits their customers. The benefits on a longer term aren’t even that great: you will get some small discount but in the end you’re likely pay more, not less.

The only exception to these rules would be for those people who have become serial daters. Some people fall in love with the excitement of constantly meeting new people and the chase involved with online dating. For these people, signing up for a year would make a lot of sense. For everyone else, and I hope that includes most of my readers, my advice is to sign up for the shortest period you can at whatever dating service you choose. Things change too rapidly in life to assume that you will want, or even need, that dating service six months from now.

A friend of mine tried out the Match.com six month program where if you don’t meet that “special someone”, you will get 6 months free. Unfortunately, when he came to the end of his six months they said he didn’t qualify even though, as far as he could tell, he did. I checked online for anyone else having this problem and found this post on RipoffReport.com. I decided to look into this program and the rules are (basically) as follows:

1. Obey the Match.com Terms of Use. The terms of use exists as much to protect Match.com as anything else so I doubt this rule would be causing problems. For example, if you are caught cyber-stalking someone you can’t expect 6 months free.
2. Pay for 6 months of service in advance for Match.com.
3. Create a profile with picture which must be approved within 7 days.
4. Keep your photo visible at all times.
5. Communicate with other members.
6. Either email 5 unique people each month or respond to 5 unique people each month or a combination of both. The emails must be sent through Match.com. Winks, MatchTalk and Match Instant Messaging do not count.

In addition to those rules, there were two items that caught my eye in the Frequently Asked Questions:

• You have to claim your free 6 months during the last 7 days of your first six months
• If you do nothing at the end of the first 6 months and do not qualify for the free six months they will automatically renew you for another six months!

After reading all this, I realized it would be easy to accidentally not meet the requirements of the guarantee. So, here are the rules I would suggest you follow if signing up for this program:

1. Plan on contacting 10 unique people a month. The rule about contacting 5 unique people seems to cause some  trouble. As an example, if you contact someone and, for whatever reason, Match.com kicks them out, does that communication still count? I would hope so but for some reason, some people are seeing previously “good” months moved to a “bad” status. Also, you’ll need to make sure you’ve never contacted that person before so be extra careful in month 5 and 6 where accidentally contacting someone you’ve talked to before would be easier to do.
2. Never touch or change the picture you originally set as your primary photo. The rules are vague regarding this picture and it’s not clear if changing the photo affects your eligibility. So make sure you pick a picture you like and never touch it again (at least for 6 months).
3. Rule number 5 above, in my opinion, is vague. It might not be a bad idea to wink or use other communication methods. Seriously, go read the fifth rule and tell me how its different from the sixth.
4. You can check your progress for each month but don’t put too much faith in this. Based on the complaint at RipoffReport.com, the status of a month appeared to go from green to red after the fact (which, assumably means meeting the requirements are now impossible for that person). My friend had a similar experience to this.
5. Keep track of when your 6 months will be up. Based on the rules, it appears that you must make your claim during the last 7 days of your 6 month subscription. It is unclear if they would remind you of this via email. Match.com specifies the six months as a period of time consisting of five 30 day periods followed by one 33 day period. This means you need to make your claim between the 176th and 183rd day of the six months. I would recommend creating some type of email reminder or even setting an alarm on your cell phone so you don’t miss your window to make your claim. Also, and this one is important: if you do not take any action at the end of your six months they will automatically renew you for another six months!. See the Frequently Asked Questions for the specifics on this.
6. I don’t want to suggest that Match.com would try to avoid meeting their end of the bargain but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take screen shots of your status each month and never delete any of your emails if it can be avoided. If Match.com automatically deletes them you might want to take screenshots of that too.

The program sounds great in the sense that it creates a feeling of hope and optimism. I’m sure it works for many people but Match.com must be raking in the cash off of this program. For example, if you meet someone in the second month you’ve still paid for those additional four months. On the other hand, for those who don’t read the fine print, there’s a good chance of getting auto-renewed. I suspect this is the driving force behind the promotion: getting more out of people than they actually paid for (or wanted to pay for).

Now let me say one last thing: I met my wife using Match.com and I really did think the service was great. I never had a problem at all. Also, the rules of this program are actually wonderful in the sense that they will improve your odds of meeting someone by following them. If you’re shy, this program might just be the motivation you need. With that said, very few things in life are truly free. From what I can tell, even if you do manage to get six months free, you’ll still be paying for it with your effort.

If you live in the United States, you’ll probably know that today is Super Tuesday. For anyone not familiar with U.S. politics, this is the day where the largest number of states will hold their primaries in the process to select a party’s presidential candidate. I still have some time before I’ll be voting (I live in Pennsylvania) but some recent discussions with my wife have gotten me thinking about dating and politics. In particular, when I was dating I remember seeing people who limited who they would date based on political beliefs. Often these people would state that simply belonging to the opposing political party meant they would never, ever, ever, ever date you. That’s totally reasonable, really, but their emphasis often bordered on humorous.

It was apparent by our second date that my wife and I have very different views on many political issues. However, the fact that everything else between us matched up so well made the differences insubstantial. Today, our beliefs are closer to each other’s than at the beginning but there are still significant differences. As an example, in our state’s primary I’m supporting Ron Paul while Kate, who was supporting Hillary Clinton until recently, seems to be drifting toward Barack Obama.

Looking back over the years we’ve been together, I believe these political differences have been a very good thing for our relationship. In some ways it has helped me to see what Democrats believe and why, not what I was told they believed by Republicans who had already made up their own mind. And now, it makes me wonder: why are we so quick to silence any voice that doesn’t agree with ours? You can see examples of it everywhere: whether it is booing at someone expressing a belief we disagree with or simply refusing to interact with someone not of a particular political party. Why not hear the other side out instead of waiting for our turn to yell?

To those with strong political convictions, I’m not suggesting you throw out your standards and date anyone of any political leaning. I would just like to point out that, for me, dating and eventually being married to someone with different views has been a very good thing. In some ways, it’s been so good that I hope our views never match up entirely. I have found too much value hearing the opinions from someone on the other side of the aisle.

There are Republicans with socially liberal views and Democrats with strong views on national defense. And even when agreement is found lacking, is exposure to an opposing view really that bad? I would encourage everyone to try to avoid allowing a label to scare you off from a potentially great relationship (or at least a decent date).

Things have been busy around here lately but here’s a quick link to a short article in USA Weekend with 5 Tips for Online Dating. I like the fourth tip the best and don’t really agree with the fifth (I avoided phone conversations after one woman wouldn’t stop contacting me). Still, these tips are a good start if thinking about joining the online dating world.

You might also be interested in reading:

• 5 Online Daters to Avoid
• Profile Views vs. Actual Interest
• What Makes a Good First Date Conversation?

Back when I first got littleredrails.com, my intention was to utilize a technology known as Ruby on Rails. Over the next few months, due to situations out of my control, I realized I was not going to be able to use the site for my original purposes. Eventually, I decided to record my online dating experiences and that is how this site reached its current state.

I was looking through some old documents recently and found steps I had created for myself in getting everything to work with GoDaddy (something that I found rather difficult). While this is way off-topic from my normal dating posts, I thought it might be helpful to provide the information here for anyone else struggling with the GoDaddy/Ruby on Rails combination.

One last thing before I get into the steps: I have no clue whether or not these steps will work any longer. It’s been about a over year since I wrote this and thing may have changed greatly then. Hopefully, the process has been more streamlined and these steps are no longer needed.

Read more »

In August of 2006, I had my first experience with a fraudulent charge on a credit card. The charge was for service at AmericanSingles.com and was labeled “VISA CHECK CARD PURCHASE SPR*AMERICANSINGLES.COM 888-8543803 CA”. While I had visited AmericanSingles and had used the free services they provide for a short time, I never provided them with a credit card.

I contacted American Singles and they were very easy to work with. They said that the account opened with my credit card was registered as a 49 year-old divorced woman in Washington (clearly not me). The phone call lasted less than a few minutes and my card was credited the $59.97 I had been charged. I then cancelled the card just to be safe. Later that day, I found this post describing someone else going through the same situation. The comments also had many people stating that went through the same thing with the same company. I’ve checked back at this post from time-to-time and the problem seems to persist: people continue to leave comments stating that they have had a false charge for AmericanSingles.com.

Thinking back on it, I’m a little bothered by how rapidly the problem was resolved when I called American Singles. I was very happy to have the problem corrected quickly at the time but now I have to wonder: was my situation corrected so quickly because of how frequently it is happening? The woman I talked to gave no impression that she was surprised at a false charge. In some ways, it seemed far too routine.

Also, why American Singles? If someone had my credit card number, why not use it in some way where they could actually gain something? In this case, they had an open account at American Singles for about 20 hours, which seems to be a waste of having acquired my card (not that I’m complaining). I’m not familiar with the workings of making fraudulent charges but I have a few thoughts on why American Singles might be a popular place to make fraudulent charges.

They need to determine if the account is monitored
My first thought is that perhaps in credit card number stealing business, it is wise to first determine if the person monitors their account before trying to make some “real” purchase. This is concerning in some ways because, if this is the case, many of these thieves see American Singles as a good place to check - suggesting they are confident the dating site will not be looking into the fraudulent charges.

They want to find a date but plan to behave poorly
This one is actually a little scary. If credit cards are being stolen to create an account that the thief wants to use, well, what do they plan on doing that they don’t want to be able to be traced back to them? It could just be a married man or woman looking to cheat but even then, it isn’t good for the other people dating online.

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I don’t know that either of the scenarios I presented are actually happening…but someone is making these fraudulent charges for some reason. Also, I don’t want to suggest that American Singles is the only site where this is happening. It just happens to be the only one I am aware of. A few simple suggestions just in case one of my two scenarios is actually happening:

• First, if you have had a fraudulent charge, report it. You can report the charge at Fraud.org (see their form here) or at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. This may not accomplish much on its own but if there is a pattern of repeated fraudulent charges going on at a particular site, this is probably one of the best ways to improve the situation.
• Second, for those dating online: be wary of contact from any members marked as “new”, especially if they are anxious to meet right away. I’m not suggesting you need to give that new guy or girl the third-degree (especially since they might have signed up just to talk to you). Instead, just put off meeting them for a week if they are flagged as new. If their account disappears during that week, cancel any dates you may have been planning. Again, I believe this approach would only be needed with members flagged as “new”. In other words, don’t become so paranoid you end up scaring off dates just because they happen to have just signed up!

Finally, if you’ve experienced this kind of fraudulent charge, feel free to leave a comment on what you experience. It could help others going through the same thing!

In a recent post, as well as in my guide, I argue that it is a good thing to date as many people as possible. A very interesting article at 40s Singleness takes exception with this advice. The author, one Lisa Q, challenges this idea with some questions that point out that simply dating for quantity can be, at best, just a waste of time or, at worst, simply dishonest. If you have a few minutes I’d recommend you read the whole thing.

I suspect many readers can relate to Lisa’s thoughts that the advice “date in numbers!” can feel more annoying than helpful. In my opinion, it is very reasonable to ask the question: “Why schedule a date when I know I’m not interested?” Is there a reasonable answer to go along with that question? I think so.

If you see dating as nothing more than a means to an end, then dating in quantity doesn’t make much sense. When I first started dating online this is exactly how I saw things. Why contact a woman who doesn’t have quality X when that quality is important to me? Dating only existed to find a long-term relationship. I wanted a relationship with a very specific type of woman and all other women would only slow me down in reaching that goal. This approach worked very (very) poorly for me. I had next to no dates and when I rarely did the main emotion I felt was stress, created by the feeling that if I messed this one up I may be alone forever.

Eventually, I made the conscious decision to not simply see dating as a means to an end. Instead, I also decided that dating could be something fun (or at least interesting). I decided to try to enjoy myself and to give up any pickiness. To me, it was time to learn about my dates regardless of their “qualifications” and, perhaps in the process, learn a little more about myself. This decision made all the difference.

I feel like I’ve talked this topic to death in other posts so I’ll just briefly list how this change affected my dating life:

• No big surprise: I had a ton more dates.
• I really did start to have fun. Brace yourself: even on the dates where I had absolutely no physical attraction to my date!
• I became much more comfortable meeting women in general. Asking a woman out at a party may not sound like a miracle to most people but for someone as shy as me it was a miracle that started happening frequently.
• I realized that some of the must-have’s I was so adamant about before weren’t really very important to me once I got to know someone. I also discovered that some things I had never considered were more important to me than I had ever imagined.

Regardless of my experiences or my advice, if dating in quantity sounds like a bad idea for your situation then, chances are, it is. Still, if you can learn to see dating as something that can be fun, not just something that must be done, it is possible to find the entire experience much more pleasurable…or at least bearable.

Here are two articles that are helpful for finding dates outside of online dating:

• For the guys: 6 Ways to Ask Her Out
• For the ladies: Help Him Ask You Out!

While I separated those articles based on who they were written for, I found the article for women more interesting. The advice for the guys is good but its not horribly different from other advice I’ve seen on the same topic. I am admittedly thick when it comes to picking up on signals, so of the two articles above the one for the ladies would have actually been more helpful for me when dating.

You’ll also notice that these articles are from the same site. There are many good articles here. My only complaint is that finding an article on a particular topic can be difficult. However, if you have some time to waste, just reading random articles here can be very interesting.

When I started online dating, I hadn’t been on a date for several years. Getting started was very difficult and to be honest I wasn’t sure where to begin. So, with that in mind, here are some tips to getting started:

Take Advantage of Online Dating
I’ve made the case for online dating time and again on this site. If you’re unwilling to give it a try, it is my opinion that you are only hurting your chances.

If you are just starting to look into online dating, I would recommend a site like eHarmony. Why? eHarmony isn’t better than other sites but the service removes much of the guess work for someone new to online dating. Other services will work well, too, but it is nice that eHarmony provides specific steps: from the first contact to the first date. This is the service I started with. Once I was comfortable with online dating, I moved to Match.com where I had more control on who I could contact.

Be Patient
Many people become frustrated (or even give up) early on with online dating because they feel that they are not receiving enough responses. Frequently, the belief is that they are either not interesting/attractive or that they are doing something wrong. Generally, these beliefs are not true. The truth is that finding someone is still hard work even when using a service devoted dating. There is much more going on than just a lack of interest.

The long discussion on this topic is here but the short of it is this: just be patient, especially in the beginning. Once you get a date or two lined up, things will move along better. For me, if I had no dates at all just getting one seemed to take forever. Once I had a few dates scheduled, though, finding more seemed easy.

Get Comfortable with Dating
In the beginning, date as often as you are able by not being overly picky. If you’ve not dated for years, getting some quick dating experience will be very important. Any experience is good - even if you suspect the first date will be the last. Don’t convince yourself that you need to find your “soul mate” right out of the gate. As in all other areas of life, practicing will only improve your ability. It sounds very strange to suggest that someone practice dating but if you haven’t dated in a long time, chances are you will benefit. You might be lucky and find someone perfect for you but even if not, you can still enjoy meeting people.

Looking back, I really complicated things for myself in the beginning because I only wanted to date women who had every quality I was looking for. This meant I had very few dates and even on the dates I did have, I was stressed out of my mind. This resulted in my looking foolish on several occasions. If I would have been willing to treat dating as something fun instead of something that must be accomplished, I think I would faired far better.

Talk about you Dating Experiences
When I first started dating online, I kept it as quiet as I could because I was afraid of what people would think. When I eventually started sharing my experiences, many of my friends were suddenly interested in setting me up on dates. I quickly realized that most people love to play matchmaker. Keep this in mind as well: if you’ve been single for an extended period of time, those around you may not even realize you are “back in the game”. It is very unlikely that letting your friends know you are dating will bring in any large number of dates, but even if it only brings one additional date, that might be all you need.

Trust Your Gut
Some days it seems there are as many people offering dating advice as there are people looking for it. Much of this advice is good but there is plenty of bad advice out there, too. So how do you tell the difference? First, anything that promises amazing results at amazing speeds probably won’t help at all. Second, even good advice won’t work for everyone since every situation is different. If you find advice that sounds like it would be horrible for you, chances are it would be. Reading dating advice can be very helpful but always make your own decisions.

For me, the advice that I ran into time and time again was that if I was shy (which I am) I would never have dating success. All the advice said you can either be confident or alone. I believed this for a long time. Even though it felt wrong, I became quite the actor on many dates. Eventually (and fortunately) I realized there was a flaw in this advice: shy is not the opposite of confident, shy is the opposite of out-going. As an example, I know plenty of people who exude quiet confidence. When I stopped trying to treat being shy and being confident as if they were mutually exclusive, I was able to be myself again. Almost over night I became more comfortable on my dates and my dating success took off. I now realize that one of the things that hurt my dating life the most, as strange as it sounds, was taking the advice that every expert I could find agreed on.

One of the local newspapers here in Pittsburgh has an advice column which I discovered today. I’m not a fan of these columns because, in most cases, the columnists answer questions as if everything is overly simple. They also come off as overly-confident to me; as if no detail they are unaware of could possibly affect what good advice might consist of. I suppose, though, if you offer advice for a living then it is actually your job to simplify problems confidently…and that’s fine. It’s just not for me so I don’t read them very often.

Today’s article caught my eye, though, so I decided to read it: an admittedly shy and recently divorced man is trying online dating but isn’t finding any success. He asks how people who have not been dating for an extended time can get back into the swing of things. Unfortunately, the answer contained the standard “don’t be shy” which is a polite way of saying “don’t be yourself”. The columnist actually stated it as “ditch the shyness for bravery”. Riiiight.

This is what I don’t understand: if someone who had a stuttering problem wrote in would the answer be “don’t stutter” or “ditch the stuttering for clear speaking”. I sure hope not! Advice like this would be considered rude but when applied to something abstract like shyness, well, that’s different. In that case we feel we can look at someone and simply tell them to stop it. To me, the very suggestion that shy people want to be shy or that they can simply turn it off is ridiculous.

I agree with the columnist that it is best to approach people in the real world as well as in online dating but would say forget this idea that a person can suddenly become outgoing from willpower alone. Approaching someone when you are extremely nervous (even if you pretend you’re not) is likely going to end badly. So how can you approach someone if you are a shy person? The answer is not becoming outgoing or “brave”. The answer is becoming comfortable.

Having said all that, after looking at the columnist’s web site I found that I like much of her advice. In particular, many of the articles here are well worth a read - even the ones not related to dating! I just can’t bring myself agree with her “stop being shy” advice. I was shy when I started online dating and I’m still shy today but somehow, even without faking confidence or bravery, I found the love of my life. I am glad that I did not have to sacrifice who I am in my search for someone else. I don’t think anyone should have to.

A few other thoughts for any shy people out there who are frustrated with online dating:

• Don’t be overly obsessed with finding that “perfect match” early on. If you are shy, one of the most important things you can do is go on as many dates as possible. This process will help create the comfort I mention above. At one point I was averaging two first dates a week from online dating sites alone. During this time I approached women at bars and parties and I have NEVER done that at any other point in my life. I was comfortable because I had nothing to lose! My dating schedule was so crazy that I often felt relieved when getting turned down (and I only continued trying because, for the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying it).
• A lack of responses does not mean no one finds you interesting/attractive. There are many reasons why some communication is never returned.
• Some things are simply out of your control. For example, I lived in Pittsburgh when I was single which happens to be one of the worst cities for singles in the United States.