We've all heard success stories of women who have met their fiancé on an online dating site. On the other hand, we've also heard tales of people who have met pathological liars, those who are already married, and other horror stories.
In thinking over my own online dating experiences and those of my friends, I think one of the problems is that these kinds of stories lead people to approach the whole thing with a kind of silent desperation that makes the whole process heavy and overly serious.
To a degree, this is normal. After all, we are looking for Mr. Right and always hope that he will be the very next guy we contact. We may brag about our new boyfriends to our friends and even practice signing our signature using his last name! And no matter how many times we made get burned, hope in the online dating world springs eternal.
But here's an online dating strategy that I think will work. It could score you your Mr. Perfect. Are you ready for it?
I call it "30 free meals."
Let's say you sign up for an online dating site. The cost of the membership is about $25 a month. You want to recoup the investment by capitalizing on it and getting your money's worth, right?
Well, if you have two dinners out that somebody else paid for, you have already made your money back, and then some!
Now I can already hear it from both the men and the women about how stupid, wrong, sexist, greedy, and ****y that is. I'm still sticking to my plan in principle, however.
Here are the simple rules:
When you go out on the first few dates, he pays.
At first, I was big about paying. I always wanted to pay on the first date that even after that. I wanted to prove my independence and how capable I was. This merely made me attractive to the unemployed!
I now realize that a gentleman likes to pay! He wants to treat the lady and show off a little. He doesn't expect you to hop into bed with him for the price of dinner.
As the relationship continues, you can pick up the tab occasionally, but at first you don't even look at the dinner check when it hits the table. Simply look deeply into his eyes and smile graciously.
Now here's the psychological aspect of it: Don't start worrying about whether you've found Mr. right until you've had your 30 free meals! Don't even think about finding your soulmate as the principal goal here. It's free food!
You don't enter into any relationship where you refer to these guys as your "boyfriend." If you're getting free food, you are successful at the dating game. By thinking of it this way, you keep yourself from taking yourself and the process too seriously.
I'm only speaking slightly tongue-in-cheek here. I am making a serious point. After all, if Mr. Right thinks you're desperate to keep him, he will run like crazy! The only way to make online dating work is to keep it fun and lighthearted.
So think of online dating not as a life or death matter or a win or lose proposition, but merely a way of making your money back on your investment. After all, with this economy it's not a bad bet.
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