When you join a dating site it is usually to find a romantic date, so how do you go about choosing your online dating identity? First of all, you will have filled in the numerous questions used to find your perfect match. Of course most matches are not truly perfect and you will have to use your own common sense in choosing those that seem to be the best fit with what you desire in a date. If the person loves football and you hate it, there’s not much point getting together unless you know you can live with that.
First you will receive an email from them to show you that they are interested. Of course, your real email address will be hidden, so don’t just hit the ‘reply’ button or you will risk revealing it. You need to log in to the dating website and then go to your prospective date’s profile. Read everything they have written about themselves and see if it is a fit with what you would like in a date.
You might be able to tell what sort of person they are from the wording of their first email to you. If they have written something like, Hey Babe, let’s hit the beaches tomorrow, When you specifically asked to be addressed by the name you’ve chosen for your profile, then you can be reasonably sure that this is not the person you are looking for. It may seem like a little thing at first glance, but if someone can’t respect your wishes in a small thing, will they be likely to respect them in a more important issue?
Other things to watch out for in their emails are things like do they seem to avoid answering your questions, do they seem to anger easily, and are they controlling? Watch for respect. If a person sounds respectful it is a good sign. Some people tend to forget that a real person with real feelings is on the other end of their email.
Once you decide not to use the anonymous email address provided by the dating service, choose a free email account (eg hotmail) and never reveal your full name. The same applies to telephone calls. Use a cell phone or an anonymous telephone service for phone calls until you get to know the person better.
Once you decide to meet in person, take note of whether they look like their photo. If they have told you that their photo is a recent one, but you can see it’s not, then you know they have lied to you. Once again, if they can tell a white lie, then they can tell a whopper, so be careful. Once you put a few safeguards into place, go ahead and have some fun. You’ll enjoy it all the more knowing you are safe.
When you join up with an online dating service you will be asked a number of questions about your likes and dislikes and what you see as your personality traits. This is to ensure the service can match you with a person who is as close to you in nature as possible. It is up to you to answer these questions as truthfully as possible to ensure a good fit.
These questions are often in the form of a quiz, and all you have to do is check the most appropriate box (or circle) in the row. They may ask questions like: – are you content, humorous, efficient, artistic, a perfectionist, creative, etc. with options ranging from a little to a lot. This sounds simple at first, but one site has well over 75 questions of this type to answer. Okay, so you only have to tick each one, but it still does take up quite a bit of time.
Once the easy questions have been answered, you will be likely to get some harder questions. Never mind; they are important and at least they are mostly still to be answered with a check in a box or circle, so at least that part is easy. These are to find out about what sorts of values are important to you, whether you are good at resolving conflict, what background you come from and all those kinds of things.
Not only do you have to answer questions about yourself, your personality traits, your likes and dislikes, whether you have a faith and how important it is to you, your background and whether you would prefer a serious relationship or one less so, you also need to answer questions about what you would prefer to find in your prospective date. Most of these will be on a similar line to the ones you just answered about yourself. But you are likely to answer them in a different way. Why? Because you are not going to want a date that is a carbon copy of yourself in every way.
It is important to answer all these questions as truthfully as possible, even though it may seem to take forever. If you are serious about finding a person that you get on well with, these questions will help the dating service find a really good match for you. In fact, they will probably find several, and it will then be up to you to choose whom you want to get in touch with.
OK…the time has come. You have joined an online dating service or two. Now you must write that all-important profile… the one that will attract attention and reel in the man of your dreams… but where to start? Maybe writing isn’t even something you think you do all that well. Even so, you can do this.
The first thing is to be absolutely honest about yourself. You are looking for that man who will like…maybe someday love…YOU….THE REAL YOU! Examine past relationships and list the things that you liked and the things you did not like. If he smoked in the house and you hated it, you won’t like it any better the next time. If you love cats and will always want to own one or more, say that you are an animal lover and want indoor pets. Someone who hates cats or is allergic to them is not the guy for you.
Accent the things that make you unique. If you play the piano well, you really want Mr. Right to appreciate it. If you run in marathons, a couch potato is not a good match. If you love art, you really don’t want a man who thinks Picasso is an ice cream flavor.
Describe the things that are vital in your life. If volunteering is the one thing that makes you feel useful and worthwhile, you want someone who would, at the very least, support you if not join you in your volunteer projects. When you get beyond superficial things, you will attract men who share your values.
Invest in your online profile by hiring a professional photographer for your first online picture. This is so important. The picture is the FIRST thing men see. The second thing is that they read what you have written about yourself. Some online dating sites even provide you with a list of photographers in your area that specialize in online dating site photos.