Thinking it's time to try (or try again) to push your boat out into the world of online dating?
I would like to share with you, two major mindset shifts you should totally master, to transform how you approach and respond to online dating, that net some authentic results, FAST!
Keen? Read on, lovely.
There is almost, no avoiding it. Online dating is a force to be reckoned with and when you look at the numbers, 80% of all single people in the USA and UK report using online dating and over 50% of that number are on more than one dating site… the answer to the age old question,...
“Where do I meet people?!?”… really is, ONLINE.
Many of us, have some real walls up around online dating. Some of those blocks are hard won, proven blocks based in our own experiences. However, a great many others are born from a combination of, tall tales, second hand horror stories, urban legends and a general socially accepted and trumpeted dread of online dating
I would like to debunk one of these tall tales we like to tell ourselves, right from the start. That online dating is NEW or MODERN. That welcomed feeling that this experience is unique to our generation, and has been forced upon us by the wheels of time and innovation.
Obviously, the online part is, relatively new. Match.com was one of the original pioneers launching its service online just over twenty years ago. Twenty years is really not BRAND SPANKING NEW, that in effect is the almost quantitate timeline of an entire generation. However, going back even further, the concept of relying on outside enterprises to meet life partners and even the concept of paying for that service, is very, VERY old. Matchmakers have been in existence in various cultures since the beginning of time.
In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized. The Ashkenazi Jewish shadchan, or the Hindu astrologer, for example, were often thought to be essential advisors and also helped in finding right spouses as they had links and a relation of good faith with the families. In cultures where arranged marriages were the rule, the astrologer often claimed that the stars sanctified matches that both parents approved of, making it quite difficult for the possibly-hesitant children to easily object – and also making it easy for the astrologer to collect his fee.
Social dance, especially in frontier North America, the contra dance and square dance, has also been employed in matchmaking, usually informally. However, when farming families were widely separated and kept all children on the farm working, marriage-age children could often only meet in church or in such mandated social events. Matchmakers, acting as formal chaperones or as self-employed 'busybodies' serving less clear social purposes, would attend such events and advise families of any burgeoning romances before they went too far.
I say all the above, to make a very important point and facilitate a particular shift. Online dating is not the downfall of the modern age. This new fangled idea of by meeting by curated design and NOT by chance, is nothing new.
Once you remove that way of thinking from the equation, along with the deeply resentfully exhaled ‘HURUMPH’ about how unfair, or intolerable or unnatural this ‘new’ form of meeting new potential partners is… your mind and heart can open up, just that much wider to allow yourself to engage fully.
Being open is one thing. Online dating being fun or successful, can be quite another. There are some aspects, especially in the newest apps to come onto the stage in the last few years, that are indeed a direct result of how technology is changing the way we connect and interact with other human beings.
Some researchers call it, faux intimacy.
We engage with people from all over the world online, often daily via social media and internet discussion groups, we will never meet in person. The advent of the internet troll relies heavily on this faux intimacy. I can express absolutely any opinion I have, add insult or compliment without the added intimacy of ever having to see your face, there and then OR randomly at the coffee shop next week.
This lack of visual real time accountability allows for some of us to be more expressive, vulnerable and honest then we would be normally. It also allows for some of us to be more expressive, abjectly dismissive and honest then we would be normally. One coin, two very different sides. Without visual accountability, the consequences of what we say or do not say, drop dramatically.
So why did the person you were having such amazing chats with on Tinder, just disappear without a word, much less a reason?
Because, they can.
There is no chance of family interaction, or public scandal, and the very remote chance you will ever see that person face to face to call them out on it. I know this new norm seems like a dismal reality check, HOWEVER, the psychological indicators of someone that will because they can, bears out that given the chance, they would do it in real life too. Ever been in a relationship or witnessed in someone else’s relationship, the partner who ‘shuts down’? Who walks out on tough conversations, stopping resolution and healthy discourse in its tracks? OR worse, the partner who wakes up one day and decides IT’S over and packs their bags? Without any reasonable attempt to revive or resolve the relationship?
So, do you want to find out if the person you are so keen on is pre-disposed to this type of avoidance and disconnect via a handful chat messages over the course of a few weeks? OR would you like to come face to face with that years into a relationship? Years into building a home, family and life with someone?
ME? Um, Thanks but no thanks! NEXXXT!
Now, I do not want to encourage you to ram through those feelings by crying out “better off without ya, NEXXXXT’!
Heres why;
When we try to run right through, or away from our feelings, we sacrifice powerful lessons to are the bone gristle of real mindset shifts. Maybe you’re feeling rejected? The gremlins in your head are chatting away about, all the things you might have said to put them off, there’s someone prettier, funnier, thinner, out there that got them first? What’s wrong with me?
When we are operating from a place of scarcity, THERE IS NOT ENOUGH, I AM NOT ENOUGH, we will find ourselves unconsciously subscribing to the never-ending cycle of negative head chatter, ghosting, online dating burnouts, and so much more. If we don’t take the time to honor those feelings, to get to the exact nature of why we are feeling them… we can’t change. Not our mindset. Not our physicality.
Another momentous shift in your personal online dating game is when you truly come to believe, that these sucka’s just weeded themselves out and made your garden all the more bountiful for it.
Feel a bit scary? Wondering how many weeds taken out are too many? What if they only thing in your garden that will ever be green, is weeds?
Let’s go back to those numbers real quick. Over 26 million people online dating in the UK, over 60 million in the USA; We’re talking, millions and millions and millions and millions…well the point is, the numbers are forever in your favour, doll. No factual need to sweat the weeds.
Next week, I will be exposing the real hard truth about ‘THE ONE’ and why letting that Hollywood concept go will revolutionize your heart and allow abundant love and opportunity to stream right in! Stay tuned!
NEWSFLASH; I’ve also been feverishly at work on a new webinar to help unravel the mysteries of online dating AND how to start bossing at it! Don’t worry, you will be the first to know when it goes live.
Thank you for your time and readership. I would love to hear what you are struggling with and address it right here in the weekly Love Letters. Don’t hesitate to email me with a topic you would like covered!