These days, it’s not a question of whether or not you’ve tried online dating, but exactly how frustrated the process has made you. Logging on every day is a weird game of dashed hopes and ignored messages. Instead of hearing from the guy of your dreams, you get creepy or offensive messages and feel like you’ll never have a good date ever again. But that’s not true at all. Here’s your reminder that while online dating definitely sucks, you’re going to survive.
- The first meeting is the date. This can be hard to remember when it feels like you’re spending so much time online trying to find dates. But online dating is not dating. You have to leave your apartment and sit across from someone making awkward small talk for it to count as a date (sad but true).
- You get used to messaging people. If you want to actually go on dates, then you have to message guys. It’s not so bad, though. Some people will answer and you’ll have a good enough chat to make you want to meet them in person. Some people won’t answer at all. And sometimes the conversation will bring up creepy stuff that makes you want to run far away. It’s all OK.
- Your MacBook is your BFF. While tech brings up all kinds of dating problems like ghosting, the fact that you have to use your computer (or, OK, an app on your iPhone) is kind of liberating. You’re staring at a screen and so if you get rejected, who cares, right? It’s not like a cute guy is saying he doesn’t want to go out with you to your face.
- This is the new normal. Unfortunately it’s super rare to meet people the old-school way so if you want a relationship or even just a few dates, this is what you have to do. It’s better to accept your fate than be frustrated all the time, right?
- It’s entertaining. Let’s be honest: you haven’t truly lived until you’ve gone on a few bad dates that give you material for years. The upside? Eventually you’ll have that one good date that makes it all worth it.
- Persistence pays off. Online dating is one of those things that really tests your patience. You’ll have to keep sending those messages until you get responses, and it might take a while to even get one date. But you’ll definitely get some dates, so stick with it.
- You don’t have to go online every day. No one said that online dating had to be your full-time gig. You already have one, don’t you? Make sure you’re not spending all your free time on the site or you really will go crazy.
- Even bad dates are good. You’re getting out there, trying your best, meeting new people. That’s what dating is. You can’t do any more than your best so don’t feel sorry for yourself.
- Nothing is easy. Anything in life, from working out to eating healthy to pushing yourself at your job, takes effort. It’s always easier to give up and stop trying. But you won’t get anything out of that, so you might as well make 2016 the year that you stopped complaining and took online dating seriously.
- You could be that success story. You definitely know at least one person who found love online. You may think that they were that one in a million but what if they weren’t? What if you could have that, too? If you don’t keep going, you’ll never know. And that would be so much sadder than any ignored first message.
