Because dating is such a crap-shoot, in the hands of a person we don’t usually know all that well we are trying to interest, between two people with two different views of the world even if they have many things in common, we need to step lightly when we do it. We might get a false sense of security with online dating given its anonymity and how we can do lots of it from the safety of our homes, but still we are only ever trying to procure the attention of another person and when that happens all bets are off to what’s going to come next.
Luckily online dating almost forces us to act slowly, though there are single people who log on and make culling partners their life’s ambition. There are men and women online who feel that every connection they make will be their soul mate, that see online dating as their only social activity, that log-on to websites in a feverish search to satisfy their brittle self esteem. If we count so much on the affirmation of others-in many cases people we haven’t even met yet, or might never meet really-we are going to always come away disappointed.
We need to step a little more gingerly. We need not put so much import into every message emailed, every comment left on our Facebook wall and certainly don’t ever grow so hurt by what does or does not happen in the first few times getting to know someone online. We should use online dating for what it does best for us, protect us from getting too close to people we might, over time, not truly want to get to close to and to make the first time meeting someone off line-if that meeting ever comes-a less horrific worry.
The only way though we can do this is to give ourselves a break with online dating by stepping slow and easy through the process.
