Online Dating

This will probably be news to most all of you, but I have decided to give the world of online dating a try. I never thought I'd do it, but I'm not getting any younger and I can use all the help I can get. There still is a bit of a stigma surrounding online dating, though it is much more acceptable now than it was years ago. I can look past that and give this a shot. I'll try and update this blog if I run into any good, bad, or funny situations.

I briefly tried the online dating thing back in the summer. I had a date back in late June that actually went really well but not much happened after that. Schedules never matched up after the first date and, probably because of the time lapse, I stopped hearing anything from her. I'm ready for round two!

Anyway, I only say that to let you all know that it isn't all bad. That girl was really cool, cute, and wasn't a psycho, so it gives me hope that there are more out there like her. With that being said, that situation definitely differs from my more recent attempts, which I'll get into here soon. But first, here is how I have found that the interactions occur with online dating:

1. You start messaging each other through whatever website or app you are using. This seems to be a lot of generic stuff to try and make sure the other person isn't a serial killer or stalker.
2. If everything goes good, numbers are exchanged and things move to texting. Its a good way to contact each other a little more frequently and easily, while seeming a little more intimate than online.
3. After that, assuming you are both up for it, you decide to meet up. When I met up with the one girl, we met for lunch. That is just how the schedules worked out, but it actually was a good plan. It allowed us to meet without having to date for the entire night, if things didn't go well.

The normal idea of dating is that you ask a girl out, she says yes or no, and if she says yes then you go on a date. Online dating takes much longer to finally get to even asking the girl out, mostly due to safety and just feeling each other out. The last thing you want to do is meet up with a crazy stalker.

The following two examples both occurred because things are more drug out in online dating. Both of these culminated last Thursday.

Kaysville Girl

I started messaging with this girl a couple of weeks ago. Things seemed to go good so we exchanged numbers and started to text. Eventually I asked her if she wanted to meet up. It was decided that we would meet on a Saturday evening. Saturday morning I received the following text message:

I have bad new for you. I must have caught a bug or something. I am not going to be able to make it tonight. I am sorry.

I'm not sure if this was real, or if she was just getting cold feet, but I let her know I hoped she would get feeling better. We decided that we would meet up in the following week or two. Then last Thursday, I get this text message:

My life took a complicated turn yesterday and I just can't do this right now. I am so sorry for dropping this on you right now, but I think you deserve to know. So thank you for noticing me and wanting to get to know me.

I appreciate her letting me know instead of just ignoring me, but it was still weird. How do I respond to that? Do I even need to respond or just take it and move on? I get the feeling that she was having second thoughts about meeting and got scared, but I guess I'll never know for sure.

Logan Girl

The same story here. I started talking with this girl and we eventually exchanged numbers. We decided we would meet up for lunch, as she works evenings. The night before came and I got this text message:

I am so sorry!! I have not been feeling well tonight so I may need to cancel lunch tomorrow if I'm not feeling better :(

I took her at her word, hoped she would get feeling better, and let her know that we could always reschedule. We ended up doing just that. She had some work and school stuff so we pushed it to a week later. Then last Thursday, I get this text message:

I need to tell you that I may not be able to go out because i've been dating someone for a month now and we both decided this week to try to be exclusive.

I actually get the feeling that she was being honest and this actually happened, but you never know.

It seems like this is stuff that doesn't happen as often with a normal date. I understand that people do get cold feet and may occasionally cancel a date, but it seems like it happens much more often online, in my very limited experience. I believe its easier to cancel a date when you haven't actually met the person. They are still just this person from the internet that you have no real connection to and, since you may never actually meet them, it doesn't matter if you cancel.

I'll just keep plugging along and see how things go in the future. Let's hope there are more out there like my first experience, and not as many like these two examples. I've been talking to a few other people and hopefully will have some more actual dates coming up soon!